Project Managers- what's this job like?

It sounds like a good opportunity. My dad took a job similar to yours and continued to advance to a better job within the company. Despite only having an accounting degree, he is now the project manager for one of the largest construction firms in the world's biggest project


Like the poster below said though, lots of blame and you have to deal with extremely hard headed individuals

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Project management sucks. Be prepared to be blamed alot and hated.

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This all the way.

I'm a PM for a decent-sized petro construction company, and much of the time I'm the middle man for bitchfests. Either the customer gripes up to me or our execs are bitching down to me. Very rarely are the gripes directly related to me, but I feel like I am more a liaison between our customers and execs.

But I will say that we do have a lot of complications and disarray in our upper management, and I feel like that does contribute to at least half of my headaches. Hopefully things go smoothly for you.

I've been a PM for 18 months now. Had ZERO idea of what to do headed into the job. Your organizational and documentation skills should be something you are confident about. The better your soft skills, the easier your job will be.

You'll deal with bullshite running downhill and you'll realize that bullshite also runs uphill as well. Just remember that you are not responsible for a single line of code, nor are you accountable for inventing a business process or rule on your own.

But when one or the other is missing or incongruent, you will hear about it. Relentlessly.

Two pieces of advice: choose your supervisory chain of command very closely. The closer they are, the more carefully you should consider how much of a personality fit you are. Very important consideration.

The other thing I'll suggest, and this is something I'd suggest to anyone considering a new job: ask your potential supervisor-the person whom you will be a direct report to-their opinion of what it will take to meet or exceed their expectation in the position you're aiming or interviewing for.

If you get ambiguity, wonder aloud why and wonder whether or not it's a good fit silently. If you get specificity, write it down, commit it to memory, and let that guide your work product daily.

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Because I think the job itself is a great opportunity for me but I'm gaining valuable experience as a CPA, imo. Any advice?

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well, if you are a CPA, you know a little number from a big number - just make sure your project comes in with the little number - aka - on budget or under.

Meetings.

So many meetings.

Learn to be efficient with them and how to control a room.

SAP consulting firm is a way better job than small CPA firm, I'd jump on that quick in your situation.

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Meetings full of blame passing in my experience.

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Dont forget filling out forms. You can't have enough forms.

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Meetings. So many meetings. Learn to be efficient with them and how to control a room.

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Poor project management practices IMO. If you're meeting just to give status updates, that's just ridiculous. Find a way to streamline these updates electrionically and stop scheduling all these pointless status meetings and wasting your time. That time could be better used in other areas when managing a project.

From the way some of y'all are describing your jobs, it sounds like you aren't actually Project Mangers. Moreso like Project Coordinatiors or Project Expediters and your organization is incorrectly titling you as a Project Manager.