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How a project manager to choose a job



Background


I joined IT right after graduating from an MBA in Spain. For reference, the MBA stands for Master of Business Administration, in Russian the Master of Business Administration. Compared with the average university of the CIS countries, education for managers is two heads higher. Good funding, practice teachers, full material support and a well-structured program. About management after all this - I knew more than those who had years of experience in this, and rightly believed that I would join the specifics of the industry. At the initial stage, I had a minimum of technical skills, as they say - an advanced PC user. But there was burning interest.

Upon my return, I ended up in a company that was engaged in five SaaS projects at once, sheared money from them and tried to come up with something else. As a result, nothing happened, but now about something else. The bottom line is that I immediately began to wonder how the managers are looking there and how the IT companies are generally managed, and accordingly, which one to come and work in.

I will not dwell in detail where it was, in my "highly professional" opinion. After going through work in very different companies - I will only give a squeeze, the key recommendations on how to choose the right job for myself to grow and enjoy. According to the results of the first five-year plan.

Initial data


I will be based on the fact that you adequately choose the positions you are applying for. You have enough skills and experience for them. Conditionally, you are not trying to become the main office of project management without having worked as a project manager for a day.

Disclaimer: all that I will describe is entirely my subjective opinion, which was already some with whom I shared, but will not necessarily be useful to you.

Training


First you need to naturally prepare for a job search. Write a resume, register in LinkedIn, hh and on Habr Career course. All this is necessary for self-presentation - and this should be done as efficiently as possible, given that such scribble and design are waiting for you at the project work. How exactly to do everything - there are a lot of recommendations on the Internet.

What will this give when choosing an employer - you will see a reaction to your beautiful profile. Who is serious about the team and the selection of personnel - carefully read and analyze everything. You never know which moment from your track record will be decisive. If it’s clearly visible that they didn’t read it, it’s not scary, but a bell. I think everyone would like to be serious about their candidacy.

We submit applications


In my humble experience, you need to offer your candidacy where the company profile and job requirements coincide somewhere by 70-80% with what is written in your CV. There is a practice of filing "just in case" - to all possible places - I always ended up ignoring or wasting time at meetings, when it quickly becomes clear that this is not right, and I'm not that. In general, I do not advise spraying, it is better to work precisely, but efficiently.

I note that there were vacancies that I swept away immediately. For example, those who are trying to hang on one person work for themselves and that guy. Just the other day, a proposal came to me to consider a position that combined the duties of PM-a, Bizdev and Recruiter. Often they also want PM to write TK as a real business analyst.

For clarity, I am only for participating in working with clients, selecting a team and preparing a ToR. But I can’t do it seriously, with a bayonet. Firstly, there will not be enough time, and secondly, I do not have such a wide and deep experience in these areas to work equally effectively with everything.

Before the interview


When the invitation arrives to talk, we still have to work. We collect company information - website, LinkedIn, other company vacancies. What are they doing, who is in charge, when they are founded, which stack and which projects are in the portfolio. They study you, and you study them. I also looked at other employees in the same LinkedIn, where offices, reviews on Glassdoor, social networks.

This gives you a primary understanding - do you like what the company does, what its reputation is, its image and most importantly - if there are any inconsistencies.

For example, an office can scream loudly that it develops sites and mobile applications, but in reality it does not have a single mobile project in its portfolio, and all SEO optimization and GoogleAds, for example. I am not against these areas, I just have to be consistent. Or the company does not have and did not have a single PM before. The first is to be below average pleasure - everyone is used to working like that, and they don’t understand why, by the end, they need you.

Important: all these pieces of information do not prove anything, they only raise questions. When a critical mass of questions gathers, this is an occasion to think about whether this work is of interest to you.

Having chosen you, as a rule, recruiters call or write. I like companies that ask important questions right away, in a letter or over the phone. What kind of RFP are you counting on? Do you agree to work in the US time zone? Some even check English. This saves my and their time, because if we don’t get along on these issues, there’s no point in conducting an interview.

The meeting is scheduled - it is advisable to prepare for it, repeat the materiel, and recall your projects. Indeed, if you are incapable of approaching the ordinary conversation seriously, how can you be allowed to communicate with a client.

Interview


We come for an interview. Neat appearance and punctuality - masthead. This will not give pluses but will protect against cons. By the way, I read somewhere that 60-70% of recruiters admit that they make a choice in favor of the candidate when, on the principle of affection, they like / dislike.
“Meet by clothes” - the ancients said.
In general, I am for the fact that at the interview, as the Maestro bequeathed, to turn his head 360 degrees. And ask a lot of questions. This shows a serious approach on your part, and gives information.

For example, location, appearance of the office, furniture, appliances. If you apply for a salary with three zeros in dollars, and in the office there are monitors with a diagonal of 19 inches, this is strange. Although now this is almost gone.

But first, questions will be asked of you. You can also understand a lot from them. The first is the level of training of interviewers. It happens when you are just too good for the company and it can be seen right away. You will not be interested there, but they will not understand your ideas. The second - rarely anyone asks about something that is not connected with the realities of a particular company. Suggests thoughts when asked about stress tolerance and the ability to work in uncertainty.

Running back to the side. Stress and uncertainty accompany the project manager by default, but when they pay attention to it, this is not a good sign. Often this is how they disguise a mess in processes and disrespect for employees. I say this for a reason - it was such a fun experience. With screams on the table and zero powers.

Questions from myself. In addition to working conditions - I was always interested in the process and projects. This is exactly what you have to do. And it is better when these questions are for your potential leader, and not for a recruiter. These are all broken, and they say about the same thing every day - they got the hang of it. It is true that there is no recruiter. If at the same time there are 20+ people in the company - again a big question.

When receiving answers, it is important to understand whether you like what you hear. There are a lot of branches in IT. Project management in enterprise, for example, is not at all the same as website development. The product company is very different from outsourcing. Also, someone works strictly on fixed price projects with TK, someone promotes Scrum. And these nuances can not always be understood from open information. Find out and choose what suits you.

In the case of PMs specifically, I also consider it important to understand whether you will really manage the project, or just coordinate it. These are different positions and it may turn out that they ask you as a leader, and you give authority only to run on premises.
“They ask as if smart, but pay like a fool”

Key


Mutual understanding in a potential leader and team, IMHO - the most important thing. I in the last publication described what this can turn out to be.

First about the bosses. There are no clear tangible markers, as usual. It's like having a romantic relationship - if you have chemistry, you can feel it right away. And this is the perfect option. But it happens the other way around.

Somehow I refused to work in the company without having any more offers. Just because I didn’t like the leader. With all his might, he pressed on my shortcomings at the interview and rolled his eyes, and a week later he unexpectedly made an offer. And when I left the office, I realized that I did not want to work under his supervision.

The most common case is when there is no chemistry with the leader immediately, and hostility too. Everyone is eyeing, thinking. Here the method is simple - how quickly do you understand what they say to you, and confirm it. And vice versa. When you speak the same language at the first meeting, quickly find the intersection points - it is possible that communication will be good in the future. Not guaranteed, but the likelihood is increasing.

Another important point - the employee is selected not by past merit, but by potential. This is an investment, and sensible bosses come from precisely this. You may not have all the skills for the position, but if you saw the potential for their development in you, then the offer will be. The opposite is also true - if you are judged solely by the current level and simply try on in the form for PM, most likely this is not the best employer.

Team. To her, of course, you are unlikely to be allowed. If you still managed to talk, you need to look at what kind of people. How they communicate with each other, especially not at work. For me, the level of humor is indicative, and its color. If it is more sarcasm and mocking teenage jokes - jokers are appropriate. It is difficult to work with adolescents, even if they are 25-30 years old. Good jokes, without humiliation and shared by all - is another matter.

Offer selection


So you were interviewed, several suggestions arrived - you have to choose. Everything here is in books - material and non-material motivation. As I did: I set the bar ZP, which I do not want to receive less, and announced it to employers. The material issue is closed. It happened when there was less in the final offer - refused. Then I looked at the totality of all the above factors and added intuition. No mysticism - intuition is the totality of your past experience. As a result, he made a decision.

Job


But the decision is not limited. We will not build illusions, and play Sherlock Holmes. Googling the company and observing at the interview, asking the necessary questions - you still won’t get any complete information. Honestly, you almost always don't know more than you know. Therefore, it is important to carefully approach the first weeks of work.

My record - left work at the end of the first working day. It was a mistake to initially agree: they didn’t get things done at all, but they already began to entrust serious tasks, the office is very far away, the schedule is again American.

Why am I all this, in the first days in the company you will learn more than for all interviews. You adapt to tasks, to people, to everything. And observing how the employer relates to your grinding, you can draw the most important conclusions. As usual, the worst thing is when no one has heard about the adaptation process, and they want results right away. It is also not good when you seem to already be, but formally everything happens bypassing you - they say so faster.

Well, when you are smoothly introduced into the process, they explain what passes through the PM and what decisions need to be made. The first time they help, then gradually leave to work on their own. In general, adaptation is a big topic - worthy of a separate article.

Conclusion


In principle, my approach is quite simple - collect as much information as possible before and during the interviews and listen to yourself. Realize whether what you see and hear resonates or not. Find a balance between pay and intangible incentives. And do not be afraid to change the decision already starting to work.

You need to understand that the level of pleasure, drive and interest from work is more important than how much more you will receive. They get used to the biggest salary in a couple of months, but when work is not a joy, money will not save. It is true and vice versa - no buns and senior title do not fully compensate for the money on the card.

And remember - the first thing you can help the world is to realize your own potential.

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