Agility is the critical aspect of sustaining an innovative business. It means that the ability to juggle various tasks like understanding priorities, adapt quickly to market changes, and meet unforeseen challenges, and there is always a Project Manager behind every successful agile organization. Organizations will understand to hire a Project Manager to ensure their ideas are executed with sensitivity and experience. I was reading through a journal from the Project Management Institute, and it's mentioned that the demand for a Project Manager job will increase dramatically by 2.2 million in this new decade, but according to the report, it's actually from 2017 – 2027, but I am sure COVID-19 and the job loss due to the repercussion of COVID-19 were not encountered in the report. Considering the impact of COVID-19, I can visualize, the PMO and Project Manager roles may go beyond the statistics of what it was, compared to the last four years.
What is the Project Manager Role look like?
We all know that Project Managers are the extremely-organized leaders who sharpen in on the project's ultimate goal. They also define what needs to be done to achieve the goal, and they also keep the team members and various stakeholders up to speed. One must be inspiring, comfortable with the change and complexity, communicative, and they are treated as human swiss army knife for their problem-solving techniques. A person with the mentioned traits is not only the Project Manager but also the Superhero of the team. Because they can use their power to surmount any challenges and their company as the safest place to work, I am sure if we ask any of the veteran PM's they will tell you that there were not born with these powers; furthermore, they developed this throughout their career.
A career path that can change the life
We all focus on salary, and it's evident that as a human, everything starts and ends with money, so thus salary has been one of our primary focuses. In Project Management, one can reap rewards that go even go beyond a generous salary. Usually, being a Project Manager, I can guarantee that the skills you learn on the job will make you a more confident, effective, and organized professional. Being a Project Manager, you will get an opportunity to learn various aspects of business and the challenges you will face daily. Project Manager is the role that will help you to know how an idea is abstracted, transformed, executed, and delivered; alongside this, one will learn how to prioritize and multitasking. The Project Managers also become great communicators as they can comfortably communicate the information from entry-level to CEO. Project Managers develop a sixth sense for anticipating and preventing risks. These are the key reasons why a Project Manager is considered among the most wanted in any organization.
Project Managers are the Saviours
Based on my observations and experience, a high-level of Project Managers are nearing their retirement age. It can cause a massive talent gap in the coming years. As per the PMI data, most employers worldwide and across the geographies would need 87+ million new Project Managers by 2027. It can add a considerable risk for the recruitment teams, but if someone has the Project Management skills, they can beat back the recruiters with a stick. The current changing time may increase demand for Project Management roles in manufacturing, information services, insurance, and finance. More than 97% of the jobs are expecting to be vacated in the next ten years, and the reason might be anything like organizations are inclined more towards hiring young and less experienced Project Managers to save their wallet, or to set up the right context and to set the example for the experienced Project Managers. All of you would have seen that most of the industries are becoming project-oriented, which means many PM roles are popping up, which never existed before. Last year, we all had seen an explosion of Project-Oriented job growth, mainly in the healthcare industry. Similar kinds of trends can also be seen in Publishing and professional services industries too, and the credit entirely goes to the worldwide lockdown 😊.
Project Managers or Money Makers?
I love this part, and I am sure all of you also would love this part as in this section, we will talk about the compensation. If you guys expect that this would develop to end with a bait - and - Switch, let me tell you that you would be surprised. The median salary for the Project managers across all the locations and all the levels might look less, but this can climb if someone can demonstrate the hacks. Here I am presenting a graphical look of the median salary for the project managers across the levels and locations, have a look. The below-mentioned data and statistics are referred to from Projectmanager.com. I have created my graphical chart views for better understandings. These are the current median salaries, and these salaries are expected to rise between 2020-2030, based on my research and analysis. In the current scenario, certification plays a significant role in getting higher salaries, that is still going to remain the same in this decade too, as the prominent and young project managers are in rising and with the help of certifications they can able to fetch salaries higher than the below-mentioned statistics.
Average Salary in the USA
Project Managers Salaries based on Locations (Chronological order – From high to low)
How to build your skills
We all are under the impression that a well-considered certification can fetch a higher salary for the Project Manager role. That's not 100% true, I agree that a well-considered certification can fetch a higher salary, but that's not the only criteria because having a detailed, depth and wide breadth of knowledge can help you gain the confidence to hit the floor in your new PM role. It's unnecessary that you will always gain the depth or wide breadth of knowledge through certifications, but it can be easily gained through all the project failures. Today's project failure is getting you prepared for the future to have the detailed and depth knowledge, which sometimes certifications failed to do. But as I have mentioned earlier, certification can't be entirely ignored as they play a significant role in a Project Manager's life and career. That is why I would recommend opting for the Project Management bundle, and it can certainly help those looking to break the jinx and get into the business. This bundle is five understandable training courses covering the core skills and helping you land a Project Manager job. The bundle can cover like CAPM, PMP & PMI-ACP, but this will be suitable for those with 2-3 years of Project Management relevant experience. Several other courses are available in Udemy, other training and certification platforms that can help a person become an efficient and prominent Project Manager. However, if someone is looking out for real-time adventure or fun, then I would recommend to get into the mud and get yourself dirty, as initially, salary should not be a constraint, and until you don't get dirty, then it would be challenging to understand every nitty-gritty of the Project Management.
***Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article are my own. I have written this article based on my 15+ years of Project Management and Professional experience and my observations over social media like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. I referred to some of the PMI documents and Projectmanagement.com artifacts. The details I have linked in this article as a reference. ***
