PM POWER Moves: Breaking INTO Project Management - Vol 016: THREE Projects

Welcome back to the PM POWER Moves newsletter! If you missed any of the other iterations, check my profile to read!

I've been actively engaged on LinkedIn since April of 2022. In that time, I've developed a niche of aspiring project managers looking to translate their existing experience (like I did) to gain new opportunities in the project management field. My desire for my content (and this newsletter) is to be able to help YOU do that!

I will be publishing this newsletter every other Sunday and covering a wide variety of content to leverage in your own experience and career to help provide you opportunity!

This week's topic: THREE Projects

Scenario: you’ve been following me on LinkedIn for some time. You’ve:

• Upskilled on what project management is and how it’s applied as a discipline.
• Gained applicable project management experience.
• Narrowed your project management job search to one industry and a dozen or so companies in that industry.
• Tailored and translated your resume appropriately to fit the needs of PM jobs.
• Built a network of PMs to leverage toward opportunities (continued learning, shadowing, mentoring, jobs, etc).
• Started applying to the above jobs and utilizing what you’ve learned to open communication channels (and therefore doors to opportunity).

In doing so, you’ve got an interview.

First off, congratulations!?This is a massive step for someone looking to transition to project management from a non-PM title.

Second, there are a bunch of questions you’re likely to be asked.?Feel free to check out the most common eight (from my experience) here.

But a key part of the interview and making it successful (along with answering the above questions appropriately), is to have example projects to reference.

Projects you managed and know like the back of your hand.

How do you figure out which ones to use??I’m glad you asked.

I suggest you pick three projects, come along with me as I break down the specifics of each.

Project #1: Your “Gold” Standard Project

This one is fairly obvious.

This project is the one that is your best one.

It shows all of your skills, leverages all of your experience, paints you in the best light possible as THE best project manager for this role.

Project #2: The “Off the Rails” Project

I’ve spoken about project’s going off the rails before and every good project manager has one.

These are the projects where for reasons outside of your control, your project did NOT go as planned.

This might be a schedule delay, going over budget, lack of resources unexpected risk or change or something else that causes your project that was humming along nicely to go from green status to yellow or (shock) even red.

This project is included in the list to show your ability as a project manager to get a project back on track – leveraging communication, solid reporting and stakeholder engagement, team support and coaching, etc.

The goal here is to describe the problem, the techniques you used to rally your team and leaders around you, and motivate them to move forward and complete the project.

Every good project manager has had a project go “off the rails” and has had to figure out how to get it back on and to its intended station.

If you haven’t, you’ve either not been a PM long enough or you’re lying (??).

Finally, Project #3: The “Hero’s Journey” Project

This project follows the traditional path outlined in the literary technique for the hero’s journey.

The hero goes on an adventure, encounters a challenge that they haven’t faced, are forced to overcome it, and are changed by the outcome for the better.

For this final project, this is another project that goes “off the rails” but ideally, the outcome is different.

This might look like:

• You maybe didn’t finish the project, it got cancelled.
• Significant circumstances challenged your group and while you finished, it wasn’t a great outcome.

Not every project ends with confetti and high-fives and it’s important that you convey your experience with projects that have limped to the finish line.

As in the hero’s journey, the main focus isn’t the outcome…it’s the lesson learned from the arduous journey.

For this project, highlight what happened – what went wrong, why it went wrong, what you did (or didn’t do), the outcome of that, additional issues that came along, and ultimately the end (either in the scrap yard or exhausted after the last lap).

But make sure to add in the key part, the redemption arc.

Highlight what you LEARNED from this project (and/or it’s failure) and how you implemented those learning for future success.

This could mean:

• Applying those lessons learned to avoid similar pitfalls in another project.
• Changing processes to more effectively manage problems that could lead to this issue.
• Engaging your team and/or leadership to build an entirely different route to ensure a more streamlined path.

By focusing your story on the redemption portion, you’re highlighting skills that make truly effective project managers shine, their ability to apply chaos to shared knowledge and future implementation.

As I’ve said often, “it’s when things go to hell that project managers make their money.”

With these three projects as arrows in your sling, you can pick pieces of them apart to apply as an answer to any question posed to you in an interview.

Last tip:

Practice, Practice, Practice.

Having these three project stories is one thing, knowing them, their outcomes, and metrics associated with them is quite another.

Go in prepared and ready to present your best PM self!

LinkedIn “Hack of the Week”

Trying to find a recruiter for a job you like on LinkedIn so that you can send them your resume and qualifications direct (maybe with a sweet video breakdown like Kayla (Roush) Risinger did here), but no one is listed on the LI job description?

No worries, let’s try to find them.

1. LinkedIn search “recruiter”.
2. Click People.
3. Under Current company, type and select the Company of the job description.
4. Under All filter, scroll to the bottom to Keywords.
5. Under Title, re-type “recruiter” (this narrows down title search even further).
6. Click Show results.

This should bring up all active recruiters at the hiring company, reach out to one who is active on LinkedIn (you may even be connected to one of them!) and ask about the open position.

Once you’ve gotten some info, shoot that custom video with your qualifications and specific fit for the job to them, along with your tailored resume and see if you can get yourself to the next round!

Thank you for reading! As always, I hope these newsletters resonate!

I'd love to hear your feedback as well as any suggestions for future topics that you'd like me to cover.

Please let me know in the comments below or DM me!