I have been conducting a research among my colleagues and I was asking them what was the main reasons what made them choose project management as their professional goal. Did you know that salary is not the number one reason for many people?
To let you know in advance, I was asking 18 people and they had 6 options, or reasons if you will, to choose what made them choosing project management as their professional path. By the end of the story you will know the winner because we are going to start from the least popular one.
Disclaimer: that was an anonymous research, so I do not know who exactly has chosen each response; what I know is the numbers and I’m going to share it with you.
AND,
I would like to thank everyone who has found a chance to participate in my research and to gather priceless information about project management experience.
Place #1 (the least popular)
Place number one is shared between two reasons. These are the least popular answers or the least popular reasons that made people choose project management as their career journey. They are:
“I just kind of ended up here”; and another one… Can you imagine this:
“Good compensation”. Good compensation was one of the least popular answers.
This is not a secret that project management role is one of the most influential and highly paid on projects. Definitely, this depends on the region where you are working. However, should you google it, or go to glassdoor and compare the salaries, project managers are usually over the medium among others in the same industry.
That is why it was really surprising to me that good compensation is not a really popular reason why people choose becoming project managers.
I would not actually focus much on the response that says: “I just kind of ended up here” because this is only one response out of 18. What is more, this might happen in the real life, but is this person really happy with what is going on in his career path?
Just to let you know, I am always for the logical choice of your professional strategy. That is why these kind of responses are a little bit surprising to me. As project managers you are going to plan for other people, so if you are not able to plan for yourself, how are you going to plan for others?
Place #2
Moving on, reason number two why people choose becoming project managers is:
“I wanted to meet new people”.
Of course, networking is the world and project management is one of those professions that could help you meeting new people. Should this be the team, the stakeholders, the clients, the customers.. Whoever!
On every project you’re going to meet somebody new and this is really amazing, especially if you are looking for the opportunity to meet others and to develop your relationships with different people who are going to be helpful further on in your career.
What is more, those who have chosen this response, I believe they should be really great in soft skills. If people want to meet other people, this means they are great in communication, in networking, in building relationships and all this relates to soft skills.
Place #3
Place number three. This is: “I wanted to learn something new”.
I love this response. Do you know why? Project managers are about digging details; and digging details is always learning something new. On projects you will get an opportunity to learn all the time during your career path. Becoming a project manager is an amazing chance to develop yourself, to develop your skills, and to develop your career.
If I look back in my record, I cannot recall any single project where I didn’t have a chance to learn something new. What is more, it is extremely important to want to learn something new, because this is gonna help you deliver every single project in a better, more efficient and facilitated way. We are getting closer to the finish.
Place #4
Number four in our list is: “I always wanted to be a project manager”. Surprising!
My surprise comes from my personal experience. To be honest, there was a significant period in my life during which I just didn’t know what I wanted to do further on in my career. It has taken a while for me to realize that there is an opportunity to be a project manager. I was learning who these people are, I was learning what do they do, and only after that I was able to define whether I want to be a project manager.
If people know what they want to do in their life from the very beginning, that is amazing! I’m absolutely happy for those people and I want to shake their hands, because for me it was kind of a challenge.
Place #5 (the winner)
Now we have gotten to the final point and I’m gonna tell you the winner of our research. The response or a reason that have earned the most number of answers is: “New career perspectives”. Hurray!
To be honest, this is one of the most logical reasons to become a project manager. Project managers really have absolutely unlimited career perspectives. The beauty of project management is in its applicability. If you look around you you will see that projects are everywhere. The only thing is that you need to understand what is a project and what is not a project to be able to define what is going on in front of you.
Moreover, if you are a project manager all the industries are open doors for you because project management is needed in every single industry in the world. Should this be constructions, manufacturing, IT, marketing, design, pharmaceutical companies… Whichever industry wants project managers in.
Thus, if you are still hesitating whether you want to be a project manager, or if this is something that you can do in your career path, I’m calling you to join my free training!