PM Network - May 2013

The Company Ranks Who You’re After: Up-and-coming talent to fill an entry-level project man- agement position

“We always look internally first,” Ms. Batara says.
“For an entry-level position in project management,
we start by looking at our testers or operations
people as sources.”
After all, mining one’s internal talent ensures
that you’re filling the position with an individual
who’s already familiar with the company’s corporate
culture and project management methodologies. A
Wharton Business School study found that external
hires earn 18 percent more than talent promoted
from within but have significantly lower perfor-
mance ratings.

Talent-management software that tracks employees’ strengths and weaknesses allows senior-level executives to flag and groom employees that demonstrate leadership qualities and real project management potential.

Get Them Up and Running: “Even if our internal employees don’t have specific project management skills, we’re likely to engage them in a curriculum that will train them, especially if the company wants to motivate its staff,” says Eugénie Hercouët, PMP, consultant in program management at Safran Consulting in Paris, France. PMI’s Pulse of the Profession In-Depth Report: Talent Management found that 83 percent of organizations that are successful at developing high-performing teams make training a priority.

The more formalized the training offered to internal employees, the better, according to Jozef Suchoza, a managing consultant at Capgemini in Bratislava, Slovakia. “You need to participate in internal training programs in order to absorb corporate methodologies and people-skill trainings.”

Industry
Events
Who You’re After: Seasoned proj-
ect managers who may not be in
the job market

If an internal search fails to produce qualified candidates, organizational leaders can use industry events, such as PMI global congresses or chapter meetings, for help in discovering local talent who might not be circulating their résumés.

“I’m quite involved with the PMI chapter in
Sydney and attend as many of their events as I can,”
says Maja Kowalski, PMP, a program director at
consultancy Beyond Projex, Sydney, Australia. “Rec-
ommendations in the project management world
have always worked for me. The best way I’ve ever
found talent is through networking.”
To fill highly specialized roles, thinking beyond
general conferences can pay big dividends. Lead-
ers on the hunt for a project manager with strong
risk-management expertise might attend finance-
oriented events hosted by a local chamber of
commerce, says Ms. Kowalski. In the search for
a project manager with lean expertise, seminars
presented by a manufacturing association, for
example, can yield great leads.

Get Them Up and Running: For seasoned project managers, effective onboarding may be more about transitioning to a new office culture than formal training, says Ms. Kowalski. She recommends setting up casual meetings in less formal environments, such as a coffee shop, for project managers from a variety of disciplines to convene to talk shop and swap tips.