This week we’ll be talking about another highly transferable technical skill. project management.
When we talked about project management High-income skillsBut because the term comes up so often during your job search, it’s worth spending a little more time clarifying what it means. Depending on the context, “project management” can refer to either a career path or a skillset.
Project management as a career path refers to the role of guiding a project from the initial idea stage through to its execution and evaluation. Related jobs include: Project manager or Program Manager, where the title “Coordinator” typically denotes an earlier role in a career and “Director” denotes a more advanced role. A similar role would be a Product Manager.
Naturally, those working in project management require strong project management skills, but this skill set is also highly sought after in a variety of career fields, including engineering, IT, business management and operations, human resources, finance, sales, marketing, hospitality and research.
Yes, project management, as a skill, is highly transferable.
That’s because project management is essentially a package of technical and workplace skills, many of which are in demand in their own right. Taken together, these skills describe someone who can initiate, execute and complete an assignment. Here are some examples:
- plan
- schedule
- Budgeting
- problem solving
- communication
- collaboration
- Adaptability
- crisis management
Having good project management skills means being able to use many or all of these skills in conjunction with each other to move a project or goal forward. To apply these skills to your field, think about the types of projects people in your field work on and what they need to be successful.
How can you build your project management skills?
You’ve probably already used at least some of these skills in an educational or professional setting. If you’ve ever completed a project, you have project management skills.
To improve your overall project management skills, recognize your strengths and then focus on strengthening the individual skills you are less experienced in. That way, when you are discussing your project during an interview and the interviewer asks you how you budgeted for project funding, instead of answering that you have never worked on a project with a budget, you can supplement your answer with the work you have done to prepare for future projects with a budget.
Here are some courses on Coursera that will teach you skills that fall under the umbrella of project management:
Or, if you want to develop a more cohesive set of skills: Try University of California, Irvine Project Management Principles and Practice Specialization or University of Illinois Business Value and Project Management Specialization.
Google Project Management: Professional Certification University of Colorado Boulder Project Management Specialist are also great options, but these are aimed at learners who want to pursue a career in project management.
Finally, if some of these programs seem interesting to you, Consider signing up Course La Plus Your subscription gives you unlimited access to over 7,000 courses, projects, and certification programs.
That’s all for this week. Before I finish, tell me in the comments: What big projects are you working on right now?
