What Course to do???

money_free_2011

Hello,

After some advice.

I am looking to invest in some new training to re-direct my career..

I have 5K to spend via my employer and was looking at doing a degree in HR which I can complete part time (3 years).

I was also thinking about going in Project management and completing the APMP / Prince2 course. Does anyone have any dealing with this and is it worthwhile. A junior PM is looking at 20kish and I currently earn 30K+. How soon can you start climbing the ladder.

I am looking to finish with my current employer in 3 years ish... So I have time on my side, and open to various forms of employment.

Just hard to know what courses are out there?

Thank you

Oldernotwiser

money_free_2011 wrote: »

Hello,

After some advice.

I am looking to invest in some new training to re-direct my career..

I have 5K to spend via my employer and was looking at doing a degree in HR which I can complete part time (3 years).

I was also thinking about going in Project management and completing the APMP / Prince2 course. Does anyone have any dealing with this and is it worthwhile. A junior PM is looking at 20kish and I currently earn 30K+. How soon can you start climbing the ladder.

I am looking to finish with my current employer in 3 years ish... So I have time on my side, and open to various forms of employment.

Just hard to know what courses are out there?

Thank you

You can't normally do a degree part time in 3 years and £5,000 s unlikely to cover the fees.

What qualifications do you already have?

money_free_2011

I am in the armed Forces so with all the training I have makes up the extra credits so it is less than 3 years. Also the HR Postgrad degree will cost £2700 so is less than the 5K with my money to make the degree up after?

saintjammyswine

Prince2 will be about £1300 for Foundation & Practitioner - check out your local FE College who may provide it. It is the basic steps into Project Management and will give you terminology & processes. It will tick a box as a minimum requirement for a Project role - likely first role would be Project Admin/Co-ordinator with Prince2 only - get experienced and go onto further PM training - check out APM/SPOCE for what else is available.

System

I assume that you are talking about Learning Credits. Unless things have changed, although you may have £5k available, they only cover 80% of any costs up to a max of £5K so you are still required to put some of your own money into the pot.

InsideInsurance

It depends what type of project management you want to get into.... many IT PMs come up from be a technical resource (eg programmer) via being a team/ work group lead then a workstream lead and finally a project manager. It is therefore slightly blurred as to how long exactly they have truly been a PM (many naturally will claim their time as w/s lead as being PM experience).

I personally jumped straight into being a strategy/ business PM through luck more than anything else. A junior PM is normally 2-3 years, PM 2-6 years, Senior 5+ years, Programme Manager 6+ years (none cumulative). That said, dont get hung up on titles as they tend not to mean anything as I have been a Senior PM, taken a new role as a "PM" but taken a 10k pay increase at the same time.

At times I have done interviews with people that did have many years more experience than me but for some reason have always worked on either small projects or small parts of big projects, I don't know 100% why its taken them much longer than my suggested timescales above as some certainly have seemed reasonably bright - saying that Ive never given any of them the job so perhaps thats why

Programme manager typically comes after you've earned your stripes as a PM but there are certainly some PMs that earn as much or more than a Programme Manager and are just happier at the detail than higher level oversight level of a Programme Manager.

money_free_2011

!!!!!! wrote: »

I assume that you are talking about Learning Credits. Unless things have changed, although you may have £5k available, they only cover 80% of any costs up to a max of £5K so you are still required to put some of your own money into the pot.

Yes enhanced learning credits. I actually have 2K per year over 3 years (so 6k in total)

and yes I know I need to put in 20%, but if I get 6K's worth of quals its worth it. I just dont want to get something that is a waste of paper!

money_free_2011

InsideInsurance wrote: »

It depends what type of project management you want to get into.... many IT PMs come up from be a technical resource (eg programmer) via being a team/ work group lead then a workstream lead and finally a project manager. It is therefore slightly blurred as to how long exactly they have truly been a PM (many naturally will claim their time as w/s lead as being PM experience).

I personally jumped straight into being a strategy/ business PM through luck more than anything else. A junior PM is normally 2-3 years, PM 2-6 years, Senior 5+ years, Programme Manager 6+ years (none cumulative). That said, dont get hung up on titles as they tend not to mean anything as I have been a Senior PM, taken a new role as a "PM" but taken a 10k pay increase at the same time.

At times I have done interviews with people that did have many years more experience than me but for some reason have always worked on either small projects or small parts of big projects, I don't know 100% why its taken them much longer than my suggested timescales above as some certainly have seemed reasonably bright - saying that Ive never given any of them the job so perhaps thats why

Programme manager typically comes after you've earned your stripes as a PM but there are certainly some PMs that earn as much or more than a Programme Manager and are just happier at the detail than higher level oversight level of a Programme Manager.

Yes I am interested in the strategy / business aspect of PM.

Obviously you interview for junior PM posts. What would you be looking for. Business degree, Prince2, APMP???? Obviously got no experience in this so would have to start at the bottom.

What payscales should I expect as Junior PM, PM and senoior +???

Thank you for your advice!