Career roadmap for it, project managers. Let's get started. Well, we will talk about the career journey for it, project managers and the road map that you can build for yourself in order to succeed in this world and hear what I say.Most likely many of us do not have master's in computer science, maybe less than 10 years of professional experience or no professional certifications. This is kind of a judgment that we potentially well here when we try to apply for some role. Ok. And most likely what people are expect to hear is that sorry, you're not the right fit for this position? Ok. And this might be a really a huge challenge for people who are aiming to start their career in this field. But do you really need to have all this under the belt? If you're gonna start a career as an it project manager, where are you going to continue working in this field? Hm. Hi. Who don't, doesn't know me. My name is Christina Kushner. I'm a P MP certified projects manager. I have over six years of experience leading projects in S AC. And to let you know, I have started from scratch. I didn't have any master's in computer science. No related professional experience. Or at least I thought that I didn't have it no professional certifications. And yet I even didn't know how to code. And these days people come to me when they need guidance or support.

If they're starting a career in the project management field or if they feel their stock and they need assistance in road mapping, their professional journey. So that is why this topic is kind of neutral to me. OK? And from this speech, I would want you to take two major takeaways. Thirst, professional growth should not be opportunistic. OK? You're considering a career as a project manager. This man's plan should be kind of in your blood. And number two, even if you feel you're stuck, there is still a space for growth, OK? As you know, you always have at least two ways for moving forward or backward. OK? But prefer, prefer, preferably we are talking about the way forward. And the only thing you need is to see the final destination and to start moving towards it. So this could be um kind of a workshop today. So it would be nice if you can take a note that and drop your questions in the chat, we will have Q and A afterwards. Um By the way, there are two options to drop your questions. There is just a chat and there is a tab for Q and a, if the question is related to uh the session, please drop them in the Q and A so that I can find them afterwards. OK.

So now what are the common steps that you can map if you're starting your career or if you're in the middle of your career and just breaking the glass right away. There are no common steps that every single project manager takes during the entire career path. Mainly because everybody has different entry points. For instance, someone starting from scratch like I did and entering the field from the absolutely different industry and absolutely different role. Some people learn how to be project managers and they have specific education, their background or maybe someone is already working in tech, maybe these guys were engineers or quality assurance specialists or analysts or maybe even tech writers, but they are already in tech and they know how projects work.

And these are all the different paths the project managers can take in order to start their career. Ok. Moving forward, people usually choose different application areas and they make a choice on their passions and their professional desires. So what are the actual common steps for all the project managers? The only common steps are the levels of seniority that resonate with your professional background. But to let you know in advance, this is also a conditional perspective, meaning not everybody with the same uh number of years behind can have the same seniority level. And uh this can even depend on the organization you are working for. But again, even considering that we have at least three levels um for project managers, many juniors and seniors how to determine where you're currently at, at least roughly at least from the high level. So from this perspective, I can suggest taking the average from the most popular professional certifications. So this could be Project Management Institute that is offering Project Management Professional certification or Excel, which is offering the prints to certification. Mainly these certifications are well known around the globe.

They're kind of competitors and both of them have years of statistics behind. So more or less we can on a high level, understand and assume how many years behind should you have in order to pass through all of the stages? So for juniors, this might be pretty much straightforward. So if you're just answering the career, obviously, it will start from the junior stage. But what about the middle guys? So if we talk about those certifications P MP or prints to both of them require to have between 3 to 5 years of the professional background, meaning five years is not the limit obviously, but this is the average that they all that um they are asking in order to be eligible for those certs.

So considering this information, we may assume that from 0 to 3 years of professional experience, you will be around the junior stage between three and five years of professional experience is something around middle and over five years of professional experience are the senior guys.

And again, this is a conditional separation that could vary from person to person, from background to background and from company to company. But this is just to give you an idea about the duration of the professional path. Ok. However, despite the industry standards and the common path, a good move would be to build your own professional journey and to follow the strategy that suits you best and that match your personal professional expectations. OK? So how to build your own strategy for moving forward during your career stages or from one stage to another? To give you an idea. This is just a simple formula that contains three components only. I personally use it constantly and it's applicable to in role any stage of your career path. And mainly it can be even applicable to any industry. But however, these components are target steps and strategy. In other words words, for target, you need to acknowledge your current stage and to determine where you wanna get, where you need to know the point A and point B of your destination. For the steps, you need to determine what steps you need to take in order to get to your final destination, meaning you need to pinpoint those milestones that you need to hit in order to get to the final goal.

And the third one is the strategy, meaning by studying the steps that you have and by defining how actually you can reach them. You're building the road map based on the timeline that you have based on your availability and based on your capabilities. OK? So we have point a point B, we have micro milestones and we have a strategy to pass them through. So let me give you a couple of examples. So for instance, you have defined that that is the right moment to earn your professional certification. OK? So this is the target destination. Now, you don't have certification, you wanna get certified, point A point B, it's time to study the requirements. So you need to pinpoint the steps how actually you will get certified. So first would be to study the requirements, then you would also need to find materials, learn them trying to get prepared and final pass the test. These are gonna be your micro milestones that you will need to pass through in order to get certified. And now time for the strategy. So you take all the steps that you have mapped, you have defined your availability, you have defined your capabilities and you are laying and down on the timeline that you are able to follow. Doesn't make sense. So let me give you another example. For instance, you're just starting your career. So you wanna become a project manager. So become a project manager means you need to land the first project management job. So now you don't have the project management job, you need to land it.

So this is your destination. What might be your steps in order to get there? Potentially, you will look for the job ads that match the expectations, then you need to study the requirements and to find out if you're actually respond to them. If you match those requirements, you need to define the gaps. Um It's really hard to imagine that people will meet all the requirements and the role. So you need to define what the gaps they have and the ways how can you fulfill them and what not less important you need to start going to interviews to get experience in passing them. OK? And again, here comes the strategy. You have point E A, you have point B, you have the steps that you need to take. Now it's time to plan how actually you're gonna do this. OK? Yeah. So as I'm saying, professional growth should not be opportunistic, do not wait for the opportunity and create the opportunity for yourself. OK? And another tip from me would be do not climb the mountain. What I'm talking about is that all of us love to set bold, really huge goals. We love to dream big and get me wrong.

I'm not saying this is not OK to dream big, but the thing is when you see it really bold and huge gold goal, it might be really unhittable in other words, if you see the top of the mountain from the place where you're currently at, let's say, from the bottom, it's really complicated to make this huge huff and to reach the top instantly.

So here where again the strategy come comes when road mapping your professional journey, make sure that you pinpoint the achievable and the visible steps that you can take. The idea is that you see the next step from your current location. And all um obviously don't forget about the bold one we are targeting to hit. So again, do not climb the mountain. What you need to do is to lay down and smoothly, walk to the top. So how can we level up in our career to upgrade constantly? Hm, let's talk about this. So this is the second part of the workshop and now we will talk about the opportunities to upgrade your experience and to progress throughout your career. So let's start from juniors. The first thing I would like to communicate is there is no need to fill like a black. She if you're just getting started, if you don't have master's no certifications or even no professional background. Ok. So start equals zero. And I mean it, that is why it is called start and everybody has started someday. Ok. And the start is usually uncomfortable. Well, you know, growth in general is often uncomfortable, but start is the most uncomfortable part from the whole journey. And you finally need to get started.

So what options could you have if you're just a junior and you're just getting started in the role? So the hugest thing is to start looking for the opportunities. We are always struggling with this dilemma like uh what comes first the egg or the hand? Right? So when you are applying for the first row for getting experience, they are asking you to have experience behind credits. Although that might be the very general role, everybody expects that you will have something under your belt. From this perspective, the good move would be to start developing your professional skills in the current role or to look for the roles where you would be able to apply your skills instantly and to start growing your project management skill set, mainly if you do not have the direct project leading role, or at least the direct role that resonates with project management like project coordinator or project analyst, you can start executing and can start uh developing the skills in the current role.

Let's say, uh you're somewhere close to project management, you're somewhere in tact. So potentially it's a recent opportunity to apply the skills and to level up from the perspective that you're currently at and to show up as the capable professional. OK. Next step would be to try to volunteer, this would be specifically helpful for people who are zero experience at all. So let's say you do not have any background volunteering is a nice alternative. First, while getting this experience, you will get a ton of cases you can practice on and on the top of that being a volunteer is always a nice asset to your resume. Third, find a mentor. So this is a good move to define who can teach you what to do. But mainly mentor is not uh normally teach, you know, mentors that people who inspires you. For example, you might be inspired from the professional journey of this person and potentially you would want to replicate it. Or on the other hand, this might be the person who is inspired by your path, meaning they can help you to get started, they can help you to take off and they can highlight the areas you might need to pay special attention to in order to progress in your professional growth.

OK, I can give you an example actually from my experience. So first try to look around if there are anyone uh with the professional journey that you would want to replicate. If not, this is not the end of the day, you can look at people who are performing at the level where who are doing the things that inspire you. For instance, at a certain point of my professional career, I felt that my mentor was the CEO of the company I was working for. So remember I was saying, I didn't know how to call it. I was not about starting coding and I was not dreaming to be a CTO someday, but the main aspiration came from his resourcefulness and proactiveness. And since that time, I strongly believe that quality is king on projects. So see I'm showing the alternatives where you can grab the experience and how can you level up when you're just starting. Another option is to become a project management assistant. And this is the great option from the perspective that you are not a project manager yet, but you can shadow more experienced professional and to learn in the field, mainly you are not leading the project, but you are helping out the person to lead a project and you can learn from his expertise or from her expertise.

And not only this start applying, applying for the rules as soon as possible. And the thing here is if you feel that you are ready to apply, if you have fulfilled all the gaps, probably you have already missed the stage when you need it to start applying specifically from the perspective that you need to learn how to pass the interviews in order to get the role you're dreaming of.

But as you remember, juniors are not just uh people with zero experience, these are people who are already in the field. And if you're already in, if you already have the role, you also have alternatives to level up and to through past the junior stage to become a middle guy. So you can take extra projects. You again can volunteer, you can collaborate with your mentor or with your coach and get inspired. And what is not less important to get the feedback. You know, there are three types of the feedback that you can receive. Positive. Negative and silent. Silent is the worst thing. Positive.

Well, it's ok when you need motivation, but the best feedback that you can get is negative. Well, obviously, this is hard sometimes to give negative feedback and sometimes we are resistant to this negative feedback. And it is hard to acknowledge that someone is giving you a negative feedback.

But look at this uh from another perspective, while receiving the negative feedback, you can see the gaps that you need to fulfill. You can see the areas that need special attention from your end in order to close them as soon as possible and to start moving forward sooner. OK. Also network and interact with other project managers, especially with people who have more robust experience behind. That could be uh I just can't explain in simple words, how can this be helpful? You can obviously run in the forest with your eyes closed and bump on every tree.

This is also an option. But the best way is to learn from people who already bumped in those trees, not to repeat those mistakes, right? And also you can take a course or earn a certification. I do remember we were referring to the most popular ones that require professional background. But there are a lot of alternatives even for people who has not reached this threshold yet. I mean, 3 to 5 years of professional background or for people who even do not have any professional experience behind this can also be an option. So don't miss it out. Now, what to do if you're a middle guy and you still need to level up or if you still want to level up. So most likely you do have some robust experience behind you were leading projects and you do have several of them under your belt, but you still feel there is a space for moving forward and you feel a demand to make your expertise stronger. If so this is a really good sign, but if not. So if not, if you don't feel this be honest with yourself and apply some criticism, remember there is always space for growth and uh sorry, click the slide accident plan, there is always space for growth.

You just need to see this opportunity and to grab it as soon as possible. So for a leveling up, um sorry, not for leveling up. In this case, if we do not see actually any opportunity to grow, if we do not see the C to grow, we can just make a kind of simple exercise and that will help you to highlight the areas that potentially would need special attention from your end. And will widen your horizons in order to see the ways that you can actually level up. And these are a kind of several examples for you. So first you have projects behind you learn something there. So review the lessons learned. So are there anything that you would want to polish or fine tune considering the projects that you have led, that could be the potential gaps that you would need to fulfill? Also make sure to check your skill set. Well, I cannot imagine a person that have all the skills at the same level. So uh the skill set for a project manager is quite huge, right? And it is almost impossible to keep all the skills at the same level. So make a review, make a research in terms of what is required in the fault, make sure that you are able to meet those requirements or to exceed them. If not, that also could be an option to grow.

Not only this, define what inspires you, you do have projects behind, you do have experience behind and you know what to compare with. But is there something you would want to try from the professional perspective? For instance, you were always a web app project manager, but you are dying to try desktop applications. Why not do this? This is a good moment to do and to try out in the new niche review, the market demands always, always try to be on the edge. Of new technologies, the new industry is changing really fast these days, you know that a decade ago and that industry right now is are absolutely different instances. So make sure to um research and to review the market demands and to find out if you are meeting the market expectations and potentially again, maybe this is the right moment to confirm your expertise by earning some cer certification. Ok. But get me wrong. I'm saying to get the certification as an an alternative. And I'm comparing to the certifications because this is a huge institute that have a lot of statistics. Honestly, I do have a know a lot of uh great project managers with amazing experience behind that, that are rock starring in their niche, but they still do not have any professional certifications and may not even consider earning it.

On the other hand, professional certification could always be nice asset to your professional background to your resume, at least because it uh it shows that you are dedicated to your profession. Ok. So finally where to get experience when you're a middle guy projects. Obviously, this is projects first in the line. If you know your professional preferences, if you know what you're aiming to get from the professional perspective, ask for projects in this specific niche. Look for the opportunities to lead projects in the niche you are interested in and get deeper in your niche. Again, if you already know your professional preferences, if you are not thinking about the opportunity of shifting gears and changing the niche, even industry. Why not robust in your expertise and getting deeper into the issue right now, take a course visit. The workshop, always find an opportunity to learn new things, gain network and learn from experience of others. Network is paramount in our firm. So be sure to network with other project managers, retrieve their experience and apply the knowledge you have obtained on your projects. Again, find a mentor. Well, having a mentor is not the sign of a junior product manager. Just to give you an idea. The vice presidents and founders of companies also have mentors. So mentors are people who are inspiring you and who are making you moving forward and you can benefit from having a mandatory coach at any stage of your career.

This is the person who helps also to break your professional boundaries and potentially to get rid of the imposter syndrome. So don't miss it out. And again, as an alternative, you can think about getting certified. Do you see the space for growth if you're at the middle stage?

Hm. But what about senior guys? How to level up when you were a senior? What is the general thing that differentiates seniors from other levels? Mainly seniors are people who can give away and who aim to share their knowledge with others? Ok. And again, this could be a nice opportunity to robust your expertise because as you know, when you're sharing your experience and your knowledge with others, you're fine tuning your skills. OK? So obviously seniors have a lot of projects behind. They already know a lot of things.

And the option to scare a senior guy with extra risk exchange request in a project is kind of below zero. So where can they go to level up their experience and how can they upgrade their skills? So first option that you may wanna look at is to actually look around for about let's say 30 degrees from your niche left to right again, you can be a senior in one specific industry in one specific niche, but being a senior uh in all the aspects of your profession, well, kind of complicated, I would say similar is the skills.

It's not simply feasible and not realistic for a person to maintain the same level of seniority on all skills and all the knowledge that you know, and shifting gears a little bit just maybe 15 or 30% will show you, what else can you learn in order to exceed the current boundaries and to widen the horizons.

Here's an example, you're working as a senior project manager on a project and you're creating the Android mobile application. Why not looking at the I OS mobile apps or why not looking at the cross platform applications? That could be a nice option next stay of the on the edge of the industry be sure that you are aware of the latest trends of the latest methodologies and techniques that are popular in your niche. So do not get in the trap that I know everything there is always updates in new flavors that you can learn. So be sure to track the changes. Join professional communities, visit conferences, meetups, visit workshops and network forever and ever always network again, network is paramount for us and again, find a mentor, someone who inspires you, someone who will push you forward and will highlight the gaps that you can fulfill or potentially become a mentor yourself.

As I have mentioned, seniors are people who are, who are able to give away, who are able to share their knowledge, to share their expertise and not only this, they are willing to do this being a mentor. By the way, not only will help you to fine tune your skills, but also to learn what inspires others and to learn what people want to learn right now in the industry. OK. And obviously, the most rough question I would say is to find out the next destination to go. So where seniors can go the most um obvious way. And the most natural I would say is to ship from projects to programs just to give you an idea. There is also an opportunity to uh learn in leading programs and it's a little bit different from project management. And also there is an option to get certified in this field. And two general development directions that I currently see are product management and business management.

Again, both of them align really close to project management and really close to each other. So if for some day, you would want to shift gears and to dive into managing projects, which is more about market strategy and user needs or into business management, which is about corporate economics and strategic goals. You can do this because again, project management is really close to each of them. So if you feel you're stuck, open your eyes and turn her out and choose the path you are willing to go, there is always space for growth and this growth should not be opportunistic, always create the opportunity for yourself. And again, you don't have masters in computer science, you have less than 10 years of professional experience and no professional certification. Does this still sound scary to you? So this is the end of the session and I would love to answer questions if you have any before the session is gonna be closed. As a junior, the companies look more for certifications. Um That is a nice question.

Mainly I would say certifications is not the general thing but kind of a nice asset to your resume. So if we compare a junior with a certain junior without cert chances are the junior with a cert may win. But this also depends on the skill set that you have and uh having the certification is not necessarily um put you above the rest of the guys. What are the major skills bond requires to move to a senior level like a project manager? Oh Senior project manager. Um Let me interpret it a little bit. So um if you mean to a senior level, like a project manager from any other role to be a project manager. First of all, you need to love working with people because the hugest thing that project managers do is collaborating and communicating with others. If you're a project manager, communication is paramount. If we talk about the options to move from middle project manager to senior project manager guy, this is something that we have been covering through the session, 11 2nd computer that have an initial experience for medicine. Do you recommend taking business course? Well, uh taking a business course would always require you having some hands on experience because for reins instance, you would need to always be able to apply what you learn to what you have experienced before, right? That would be the most efficient way to obtain the new knowledge.

So I would say business course is a good step forward. And along with that, that would be nice to continue earning more hands on experience as a project manager. Do you have a specific recommendation for applying in another country without having a visa? I have limited chances in my country due to my handicap applications in other countries and not successful. Well, that depends on what actually you're looking for. Are you looking for the opportunity uh to work remotely uh or are you looking for the opportunities to relocate if you're looking for the opportunities to work remotely, there is a ton of opportunities in the market actually. And uh to give you an idea, I personally work remotely over four years by now. So from this perspective, you just need to um specify your search requests and determine the companies that offers remote opportunities. If you're consider considering the relocation thing, I would say.

Um OK, I would say this also depends on the company and if they're offering this option to the candidate. Sure, no problem. By the way, I have put my contact information. If you would have any more questions moving forward, you're free to um you're free to contact me after the session as well. My background is pure computer science, but project management would require on business of finance knowledge. Do you recommend that could be done? Um Well, project management would not actually require business of finance knowledge to get started, but project management would require some technical knowledge. I mean, from the project management perspective, when we say that project managers are not technical guys mean that uh we're not writing code, but there are also some technical aspect in project management that you need to know in order to be efficient in your role. Now, I'm talking about the techniques, methodologies, tools. So there is a huge bunch of uh opportunities to learn that could actually be needed moving forward in your professional journey. So the short answer is um now you do not need to instantly learn business of finance to get started as a project manager. Thanks guys. I'm putting the first slide here. So here you can see my contact information if you do have any more questions.

Uh feel free to reach out to me. So um I have Instagram, youtube channel and here is my mailbox. So again, thank you for visiting. I'm so happy that you have done this session and I really enjoyed the questions that you have asked. Thank you once again, have a great day and enjoy the conference.