how can I start a career in project management with no experience?

Career Development New Practitioners

Yana Ulanova Aspiring Project Manager| None Finland

the entry-level roles require 2-3 years of experience. my background lies in SaaS sales. I have a master's degree in international business and have transferable skills as well as experience in leading teams. additionally, I have a Google Project Management Certificate. that's how I got the basic knowledge about PM and decided to continue with this path. I am just wondering, what should I do next?

any advice is valuable.

ps. I live in Finland.

Posted: Feb 13, 2022 1:27 PM (Updated by author: Feb 13, 2022 1:34 PM)

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Stéphane Parent Self Employed / Semi-retired| Leader Maker Prince Edward Island, Canada

Have you considered gaining project management through volunteering? Most charitable organizations are constantly organizing events. You can treat events as projects and apply project management practices and processes.

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1 reply by Yana Ulanova

Feb 14, 2022 11:02 AM

Yana Ulanova

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thank you for your answer. yes, I have considered volunteering at organizing events to gain experience. unfortunately, due to covid-19, we had strict restrictions on public gatherings. luckily, it seems that the situation changes for the better. hopefully, it will possible to organize offline events.

Posted: Feb 14, 2022 10:54 AM

Yana Ulanova Aspiring Project Manager| None Finland

Feb 14, 2022 10:54 AM

Replying to Stéphane Parent

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Posted: Feb 14, 2022 11:02 AM

Keith Novak Tukwila, Wa, United States

The most common transition path that I have seen is from leadership positions in domains where you do have experience.

For example, I have seen people with a business management background working on the core PM team along side engineering, production, operations, etc. gain enough knowledge about how the other functions work, to effectively integrate all the inputs into a plan and manage it very effectively. They will never be technical experts in any of the technical specialty areas, but they listen to the experts and understand the key integration points at the project level.

Posted: Feb 14, 2022 12:44 PM

Thomas Walenta Global Project Economy Expert Hackenheim, Germany

Yana,

volunteering can be done virtually, in fact is mostly done since 2 years. I also guess remote working is common in Finland.

Extending your network and listening to the experiences of others can give you insights (here or in LinkedIn or elsewhere), e.g. thru toastmasters who have clubs that offer virtual meetings.

Helping, mentoring others and getting a mentor yourself can help.

There are indeed virtual jobs, but they may not pay well for a newbie.

Thomas

Posted: Feb 14, 2022 12:53 PM

Yana Ulanova Aspiring Project Manager| None Finland

thank you

Posted: Feb 14, 2022 1:00 PM

Sergio Luis Conte Helping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based Organizations Buenos Aires, Argentina

I think is better if you try to find a role like business analyst mainly working in defining solutions related to cloud technology. If Agile continues growing and mainly when organizations will understand what Agile really is then project manager roles will "disappear" as we know today. You can see that when you see the new PMBOK version.

Posted: Feb 16, 2022 7:18 AM (Updated by author: Feb 16, 2022 7:20 AM)

Amr Abd El Azim United Arab Emirates

First you need to have the knowledge ; you can start your PMP certification journey.

Also you need to practice as Project engineer supporting a project manager; you can get necessary skills and experience.

Posted: Feb 17, 2022 7:41 AM (Updated by moderator: Feb 22, 2022 2:47 PM)

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how can I start a career in project management with no experience?

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