Junior PM looking for 1st contract role

[tiggat]

Don’t bother unless you want to work in the PMO even then you are too wet behind the ears. Put in another 6 years permie at least as a PM earn your stripes to evidence more depth of experience which is what you need to compete, there are no short cuts

I got my first contract with 2.5 years of experience

[malvolio]

I got my first contract with 2.5 years of experience

I got mine with 28 years experience. Your point is?

[jamesbrown]

I got mine with 28 years experience. Your point is?

I assume the point is that the OP may get lucky. They may get lucky. There is, of course, a tendency for established contractors to warn against contracting.

That said, if the OP quits their permie job to look for a contract, as they would need to do, they'd be trusting an awful lot to luck with only 3 years of post-grad experience. You'd need to be pretty desperate to hire a PM, of all things, with only a couple of years post-grad.

[original PM]

Thinking about it get a contract with Crap Gemini, Crapita or any of the other big consultancies.

My experience of their PM's is they have not got a clue so if you have even half a one then you should be okay....

[Lance]

Thinking about it get a contract with Crap Gemini, Crapita or any of the other big consultancies.

My experience of their PM's is they have not got a clue so if you have even half a one then you should be okay....

As long as you don’t mind £250 a day.

[Jog On]

Thinking about it get a contract with Crap Gemini, Crapita or any of the other big consultancies.

My experience of their PM's is they have not got a clue so if you have even half a one then you should be okay....

When I made the flip from tech to BA it was on an HP gig where they had grads who's job description was 'project manager', this is what made me realize the field was wide open.

Although HP have grades/levels of PMs - this kind of thing.

If I was OP I'd look for PMO, project planning, resource planner type of roles citing PM/PMO experience whilst getting Prince 2/ITIL/Agile etc onto the CV ASAP. Prince 2 and ITIL foundation certs can be done very quickly.

That's pretty much what I did 6 years ago when sat next to HP 'project managers' made the penny drop.

[mattfx]

The best project manager I ever met was actually not a project manager. No formal qualifications, but seemed to know his stuff. Everything was done on time and in budget, somehow... Maybe he just had a good team beneath him...

[tarbera]

When I made the flip from tech to BA it was on an HP gig where they had grads who's job description was 'project manager', this is what made me realize the field was wide open.

Although HP have grades/levels of PMs - this kind of thing.

If I was OP I'd look for PMO, project planning, resource planner type of roles citing PM/PMO experience whilst getting Prince 2/ITIL/Agile etc onto the CV ASAP. Prince 2 and ITIL foundation certs can be done very quickly.

That's pretty much what I did 6 years ago when sat next to HP 'project managers' made the penny drop.

ohh man you cant do project planning without putting in the years of experience required, unless you count planning as what the PM tell you and you enter in into MS Project without challenge

[Jog On]

ohh man you cant do project planning without putting in the years of experience required, unless you count planning as what the PM tell you and you enter in into MS Project without challenge

That would depend on the rate on offer. When I did it it was programme planning involving MSP plans for about 13 projects all wanting the same test environments at the same time and PMs moving their dates all over the place every week. Wasn't very intellectually taxing but mentally exhausting. I'd had 0 experience in it before that gig.

[VillageContractor]

I've seen contracts for Junior PMs - but like everyone else you're going to have a hard time getting new contracts. Only a good idea if you have zero to little outgoings or large savings to allow you to be searching for contracts for months