Is project management a good career reddit

How you got into PM: by accident. First job after college working at an airline. Worked on a project team. Led to job as analyst which led to PM.

Industry: I’ve been a PM in a few. Airline, Retail, Public/Gov, Energy

Location: CO, AZ, WA, CA.....

Stress Level: Varies depending on circumstances. Mostly 2-4; sometimes 7-8. Although many peers would say 10+ at times. Perspective helps. It’s not life or death. You can work through any issue. Time and experience helps.

Age:40s

College: BA and MBA

Internships: no.

Certifications: PMP, CSM, CPO, ITIL, COBIT

Experience: analyst, PM, Sr PM, mgr, Sr Manager

Advice to younger self: Don’t stress too much. Getting a lot of experience helps you become better at the role. Build relationships. Take time to celebrate team successes. People don’t want to hear “no”. Find alternate ways to help them get to “no.” If needed.

Salary range: $40 early years much higher later.

Side hustles: no time. Some volunteer work

Biggest PM mistake: there are many. Each project has opportunities to learn. My teams and I have made plenty. I’d say my biggest mistake was not making time to balance work and life on a huge program I managed. Take care of yourself. You are at your best when you are physically healthy, rested and in the right state of mind. Other mistakes I regret most were related to relationship building. People won’t see the project as a success if they don’t feel good about the process.

I'm 27 and I'm coming up on what seems like the final years to get a career going or fall behind forever.

I've been offered an amazing opportunity at construction company to basically work my way from the ground up, from carpenter to PM, and they will pay for all my training and education. I'll just have to work there for some time after that. I worked at this place for two summers after HS and I guess the owners like me and I kind of have a feel for their workplace environment already, sorta.

The thing is, I don't really like the location of the company (middle of nowhere USA) and if for whatever reason, construction slows down or maybe PM's in construction are not in demand, will I be able to transition to another field without too many issues? Like from construction to a tech company? Is the general idea of being a PM still the same, or completely different?

I've read several posts here and for some reason it seems that a lot of you guys are engineers. Is that right? Did you guys purposely become engineers to get into a PM role? I'm still confused as to what exactly a project manager actually does. I assume it can vary drastically from company to company and field to field.

I'm sorry if this is wrong place to ask this information. If it's against the sub's rules or not relevant I will delete it.

I started as a PM at the start of the pandemic due to a lucky break. Initially, I thought it was my inexperience as a manager, but it's clearly not the case, two and a half years later. (I'm in IT BTW)

The workload is brutal, and having any semblance of a Work-Life balance is close to impossible when clients, teammates, resources, and colleagues don't respect your own time. I've woken up in the middle of the night to send emails. You're raked over the coals for mistakes your client makes.

I'm another week away from transitioning into a new job as a Product Manager. I'm quite happy with the shift, because the new company is well established and from what I've been hearing, it's not designed around working until you drop. I'll definitely appreciate a slower paced work life, and I'm sure I'm not going to miss project management overall.

Posted byu/[deleted]11 months ago

I am fairly new college grad who has stumbled into the Project Management field on the IT side. It seems that anytime I tell someone that I am a project manager they always say things like, "Isn't that a dying field?" or "Aren't PMs unnecessary so they are usually the first to get cut when making budget cuts?" or "Project management doesn't really have a future. You should find a different profession." Is any of this true? Is there a future in Project Management? If there is a future, what signs point to this being factual?

Brief Background: I finished my undergrad 2 years ago and was an event coordinator for a year but was let-go in the pandemic. I’ve been unemployed since April. After a long, exhausting job search it’s very clear that there aren’t many roles out there for entry-level event coordinators and I have little chance with such high competition.

Project management seems similar (to an extent) to event management (all my schooling). Ive been very interested in the field and after looking into it more I feel it would be a great fit for my type-A personality and love of all things organization. I also have 6 years of experience in managing event teams (although part-time staff is different) and believe I’ve done a really great job creating strong, consistent teams.

Long story short, it seems to be a perfect fit for me. Would it be a smart decision to obtain a post-grad project management certificate and begin working towards this career path aka becoming a PMP?

Also, what are pros and cons to this job that I maybe have not yet considered?

Is project management a good career choice?

Is project manager the most stressful job?

Is being a PM stressful Reddit?

Is there high demand for project management?

Is project management a hard job?