PM Network

Do your New Year’s resolutions include finding a new job? Get help on where to look with the 2019 Jobs Report, published inside the January edition of PM Network^®.

While overall demand for project managers is very strong, it is not consistent from country to country and sector to sector. This year’s Jobs Report focuses on eight countries: United Kingdom, Mexico, Brazil, United States, India, Nigeria, China and Germany.

Here’s a quick trip around the hiring world: In the U.K., construction is booming. There are more than 500 tall-building projects in the pipeline in London alone. Mexico has a new government and an evolving project management culture. Be ready to work as a freelancer or contractor.

In Brazil, offshore oil is growing fast while growth forecasts for the overall economy are pessimistic. The U.S. is enjoying robust growth predictions and is seeing talent shortages in many sectors. India has widespread demand for project managers but there is a gap between skills needed and skills offered. Nigeria should see growth in its infrastructure sector to help the country climb out of a 2016 recession.

China has shifted from a manufacturing and export-oriented economy to a technology-driven economic growth model. Germany’s economy remains brisk and buoyant, with its growth rate outpacing other European countries.

The Jobs Report is peppered with advice from professionals on how to get ahead in your career in 2019. An infographic covers worldwide outlooks in six sectors expected to generate high demand for project talent. As a bonus, the report includes a feature-length article explaining how to get hired when the recruiter doing the first sort is a computer with artificial intelligence.

PM Network welcomes you to 2019. We hope it is successful and that your resolutions come true.

OK, the robots have not totally taken over all hiring functions, but there’s a fairly good chance that automation could play a role in winnowing down a stack of résumés to an initial cut.

What do you do? A little strategy is called for here.

As Lindsay Scott says in her “Career Q&A” column in this month’s PM Network^®, today’s CVs must contain details that match the job requirements.

This means customization. Make sure your résumé emphasizes the same keywords as the job description.

“Take the first five roles and responsibilities the job posting mentions and tweak your profile, key achievements or recent experience to reference those requirements,” Ms. Scott says in her column. Then take your two most recent projects and use hard metrics such as budget and benefits delivered to complement the descriptions of your achievements with numbers.

Ms. Scott says the whole process of customizing should take 10 minutes each time you apply for a new job, and less than that in time. The approach also will screen openings for you to show if your experience truly aligns with those openings. If your CV doesn’t support each of the job’s top requirements, it’s time to move on to the next opportunity.

Check in with “Career Q&A” every other month in PM Network. Lindsay Scott will help you check all the right boxes to keep your career in growth mode.

What has your experience been with résumé customization?

Leadership skills, alongside people skills like communication and negotiation, are more important than ever, according to this year’s Pulse of the Profession^® report. But what does it take to gain and use leadership skills—and be recognized for that so as to pave the way for promotion and more responsibility?

In this month’s PM Network^® magazine, we hear from a portfolio manager, chief project officer and PMO director who explain how they climbed the organizational ladder through developing and deploying leadership skills.

Sydney, Australia-based Ada Osakwe, PMP, portfolio manager with Qantas, attributes her growth to pushing herself and exploring all parts of a business to build knowledge and perspective. She says that rotating into different business units every couple of years serves to challenge herself to grow as a leader. She also has a performance plan that lists leadership training she wants to complete each year. On top of that, Ms. Osakwe has a professional development plan that she constantly updates.

Olawepo Ogunniyi, PMP, who is chief project officer of DropQue in Lagos, Nigeria, attributes continuous learning for helping him take on greater challenges and strengthening his leadership abilities. Besides completing a master’s degree in project management and teaching project management courses, Mr. Ogunniyi gained leadership skills while in the banking industry by helping lead projects dealing with acquiring another bank and deploying a large number of ATMs. And he attributes volunteer work in the community for broadening his perspectives on what leadership is.

Chicago, Illinois, USA-based Renee Cardella, PMP, is a PMO director at Press Ganey Associates. She attributes her promotion to a similar PMO post at another company to curiosity and a willingness to ask questions. Early on, she faced a leading-up challenge of convincing her CIO that her organization needed to elevate its project management maturity. She gained her current post by stressing her leadership experience. That was necessary because Press Ganey mainly uses agile approaches and Ms. Cardella’s previous experience was strictly waterfall.

The moral of all these stories is that leadership and people skills pay off, but like everything else, you have to learn and want to learn.

What are your experiences with obtaining and using leadership skills to grow your career?

Just in time for those New Year’s resolutions…here comes the annual PM Network Jobs Report. Interested in opening a new chapter in your career? Open this article first.

The 2018 Jobs Report tells you the project outlook in seven different industry sectors: telecom, finance, construction, IT, healthcare, aerospace and defense, and energy. While the project delivery approach (agile vs. hybrid vs. waterfall) may be different in each sector, and some industries have hotter talent markets in certain countries (think construction in China), all are affected by digital disruption. And the world’s job outlook, in general, is very bright for project managers: 22 million new project-oriented jobs will be created in the next 10 years.

Besides the industry-by-industry breakdown, the 2018 Jobs Report includes an informative infographic spelling out where the growth will be; a profile of five country hot spots (did you know India’s economy is predicted to grow by seven percent this year?); an article explaining opportunities in the gig economy for freelance project talent; and a roundup of practitioner views on how to stand out in the job market. There’s also a preview of some eye-opening figures from PMI’s soon-to-be-released salary survey, Earning Power.

This valuable 20-page report can help you get your New Year off to a roaring start…and help you meet that career-advancement resolution.