How to Earn Yourself a High-paid Project Management Job
Project managers are still demanding some of the highest pay in the industry but for both permanent and contract workers 2002 is proving far less lucrative than 2001. Some people aim for high-paying careers in order to seek personal growth as well as more financial freedom individually.
1. First, get a MBA course and degree
Various business schools offer myriad accredited MBA degree programs. Getting a certified MBA degree is just early step for securing a high-paying job. Earn your Project Management certificate – with this skill set as guaranteed by the certification obtained, one may achieve the project goals while optimizing resources including time, money, and human capital. As you maximize return on investment for your organization, you will advance your career up the ladder of success.
One will be able to utilize the project management skills in a multitude of industries including business, information technology, construction, financial services, engineering, or health care, to name a few. Multi-billion dollar corporations, government agencies, non-profit organizations and small companies all use project managers. Global competition, emerging technologies and an increase in customer demand has placed value on the project manager more than ever before.
2. Leadership is the most vital value if you are aiming to become a high-paid project manager
Leadership is the most vital value if you are aiming to become a high-paid employee, regardless if it is as a project management job or otherwise. You have to endure critical decision-making situations in order to compete with others.
Developing leadership talents requires time and effort and experience. There is no book which can clearly explain how to improve one’s leadership but you can gain insight of leadership qualities via good mentor, through engagement in multiple projects and observe how other leaders drive their projects with great leadership skills.
It helps you to adapt in a fast-paced environments where you need to face relentless challenges.
3. Criteria of a high-paid project manager
There are a few key criteria which are essential to be a high-paid project manager are the ability to:
- Plan and executing the work within the predefined project management plan
- Control the progress of the project by assessing the end results before as compared to after the project has been initiated, such as analyzing variances, process improvement, comparing actual output vs planned output, recommending corrective actions and alternatives when they are needed.
- Managing the project in terms of integration, scope, time, cost, quality, human resources, risk, etc and ensure the end requirements are achieved with no slip in schedule and project timeline
4. In-depth experience of Software Development Lifecycle methodologies will ease the setting and defining of the lifecycle methodologies of that specific project , especially if it is an extra-ordinary project .
5. Capable to overcome any unforeseen circumstances
A potentially high paid project management role should be someone with substantial and great exposure dealing with multiple large and complex clients/customers before will be an added bonus for definite as he is capable to manage the huge challenges and tough decision making in such case as he has been exposed to this kind of environment and situation before and know well how they should be managed.
6. Having a track record of successful delivery projects within fixed period of time
A project manager with proven track record of successful delivery IT projects within the predefined timeline and budget will be valued mostly by his current supervisor or any new employers he is seeking new opportunity from.
7. Able to work under high-pressure working environment
The adaptability of a project manager who is high and feasible enough to be able to work under pressure and under very tight and aggressive deadlines ad well as constraint budget will be potentially get promoted faster than an average project manager.
8. To motivate, you have to empower
When you delegate an assignment, convey to the team member that it is now THEIR exclusive responsibility that the job gets done. If it doesn’t, they will be held accountable. But what you need to do before that is to convince the leads by telling them that the reasons you have assigned them is that you have faith in their capability.
9. Obtain a professionally certified project manager certificate
Some project manager or any project management roles whom has a professionally certified project manager certificate such as PMP, PMI, Prince 2 will be a pre-requisite to be employed as a project manager for most of the Multinational companies (MNC) and local bigger companies. These certifications will be able to “justify” that these candidates are with the basic required skills to manage and lead a project professionally.
10. Related Experiences
Should the project manager has some good experience of contract and sub-contractor management, and very strong leadership skills in management and have such accomplishment such as delivering higher than USD 5 million IT development projects, it is very likely that he or she would have earned more than USD 100,000 plus bonus per year.
Project managers may earn from $60,000 to $100,000, plus bonus. Senior project managers may earn $70,000 to $150,000, plus bonus. Median annual earnings of computer and information systems project managers in 2008 were $90,240.