If you share your experience of being a project manager and network with others who work in the same type of role this can be a really good idea for anyone aiming to expand their career prospects. The question many project managers might find themselves asking is how can I share my experiences? Let’s take a look…
LinkedIn is a great place to find others who work in the field. It is a social networking site that focuses on career development and professional networking. Whilst you can use it to share your CV and look for jobs there is a lot more to LinkedIn than just that. Users can utilise it to interact with others and enhance their own professional reputation. This means you can share your experiences, and read about those of other people and you can even use it to create networks of like-minded people.
Blogging
This can be a very rewarding and relatively simple way of sharing your experiences with others. Setting up a blog doesn’t need to be difficult – there are plenty of “plug-and-play” systems to help you get up and running quickly. Posts doesn’t need to be done every day; in fact, it is often better to create blog posts only when you have something worthwhile to share. Opening up your blog posts for others to post questions will allow you to share your experience further and can also help you to build a network of people who work in the same field.
Become a trainer
Providing training or coaching can offer you the perfect opportunity to share your experiences with others. Teaching others the skills necessary to excel as a project manager and how to put them into practise is, however, something that is best done by experienced PMs who have had plenty of real-world experience. Being able to give real life examples based on projects you have worked on and scenarios you have been faced with will offer others a much better learning experience on their project management courses.
Start a podcast
If you like talking about your experiences as a project manager but don’t think that becoming a trainer is for you, then why not consider starting a podcast? It isn’t difficult to start a podcast, in fact you won’t really need too much equipment; however, a good quality microphone is essential if you want everyone to hear you properly. Be confident with what you have to say, perhaps make a few notes to help you along the way and make sure that you don’t speak too fast or too quietly. Consider podcasting with a partner (that’s exactly what we do here at Parallel for our popular podcast series). Be confident, and if you can, inject a little humour into your podcast to keep your audience interested.
Not only is it easy to share your experience as a project manager, but it could also help you if you’re looking to move into a new role in the future.
