Career Transition Question

Submitted by Daniel33 on Sat, 02/16/2013 - 06:23

 Hello,

I'm Daniel from Los Angeles. I work in the film industry as a technical director. The film industry while fun can be very volatile so I've been curious about a career transition to a more diverse and mature industry.

I was interested in project management because its sort of related to what I do however I may be very naive about it so bear with me.

Is PMP certification sufficient enough to make a career transition into project management? Are employers and recruiters willing to hire someone who has worked in another industry but has a PMP certification?

Part of what attracted to me to PMP certification is that I don't have enough time to leave the workforce to go back to school. 

Thanks,

Daniel

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admin

Sat, 02/16/2013 - 11:10

PMP certification is not for making career transition to PM , its a certification of your already existing PM skills. You need 4500 hours PM activity experience to qualify for PMP.

aval

Mon, 02/18/2013 - 12:06

Industry or domain specific skills are also required over and above project management skills.  If I am in an IT industry, by merely taking PMP certificate I can't move to other industry.


You being director in the film industry, might have been doing different activities which fall under different process groups of PM.  For e.g. considering a movie or a TV show while initiating you might have multiple options and you opt for a specific one based on your strategies, you plan for different activities including characters, actors, risks involved, quality, time (schedule) etc, you get it executed according to the plans, control everything such that it moves according to the plans and finally release.


Based on your experience on such kind of activities, you can apply for PMP if you have enough hours of relevant experience - a prerequisite for applying, and after passing the exam get certified.


Having your industry skills specific to skills, you can't move to another industry like IT!


In fact you can find PM positions in production houses or other businesses in Media and Film industry.

raza82

Mon, 02/18/2013 - 14:05

....a PMP exam wrong when u say industry specific skills are required......

According to PMBOOK, Project Management skills can be applied to most of the industries most of the time....

However in real life....as u said....its a different scenario altogether.....