Project Manager Market

[malvolio]

Exactly. The list of vertical markets where if you aren't already in them you have no chance regardless of general skill levels gets longer every week - banking, finance, insurance, NHS, Local Governement, education... Totally stupid since 90% of roles don't require industry specific knowledge to that extent, but it's all part of the over-supply of candidates vs jobs of course.

[The Agents View]

Welcome to my world.....

PM is what I do - It's tough for everyone at the moment - even my most established clients are flooded with agencies calling them day in day out - if they have a need, then they're on it straight away - this increases competiton for us.

Equally, the pattern I'm seeing is that clients are being far more fussy about what they require. The "must have banking experience" is not just a mythical issue made up by agents, but a real issue we are being challenged with. You can be the most persuasive agent in the world, but if your preferred candidate doesn't have the industry experience, and is pitted against someone who does, the client always seems to plum for the one who has it.

Personally I believe PM skills to be highly transferrable across the majority of markets (there are exceptions) however when choice is wide, and the PM skills WITH industry experience are not hard to find, it really is a no-brainer.

My advice would be stick in your industry to ride out the downturn - find a specialist agent who focuses in on your area, and build a relationship with them - also keep in touch with them - We're human, we do forget people.

I wish you the best of luck in your search - the last 6 months have been horrendous for me - I can see green shoots - I hope they come to fruition for you very soon.

TAV

[malvolio]

Appreciate the insight. My prolem is I'm a generalist; last serious role was manufacturing, previous one was O&G (a major datacentre migration), one before that, about four years back, was IB (an application-based replatforming programme). So while I can work in most industries, I don't actually have one to call my own!

Ho hum, roll on 2010...

[dozer]

just finished 6 months on the bench, hope your time is not so long.

the trick with PMing is to diversify as much as possible, the gap closes during these times for specialisation so make sure you are one of them.

[kaiser78]

You have to anyway possible really highlight any usp's in your CV, be it past experience, qualifications or personal, to make you the 1 CV out the 300 that gets chosen.

There may not necessarily be any one overriding factor that will make you stand out, more a combination of factors that demonstrate you are a rounded PM, who can deliver projects.

[MPwannadecentincome]

Appreciate the insight. My prolem is I'm a generalist; last serious role was manufacturing, previous one was O&G (a major datacentre migration), one before that, about four years back, was IB (an application-based replatforming programme). So while I can work in most industries, I don't actually have one to call my own!

Ho hum, roll on 2010...

I used to keep getting emails from cwjobs about infrastructure and data center PM jobs - I keep deleting them as I don't have infrastructure or data center experience. Are you searching on the right keywords?