The Insider Guide to Careers
Insider information, secrets and tips about getting hired and building careers. For employees and job candidates.
Reader question: My project management experience has been niched in one domain within one industry, so while I highlight my transferable skills on my resume and in interviews, it feels like a challenge to convince interviewers, especially if they’re set on that specific domain and industry experience which I don’t have…What should I do?
Answer: It is a good thing that you are in Project Management because you definitely have a lot of transferable skills. It is not like you are a Research scientist in food manufacturing. Your skills then will not be valid in other sectors like big tech or AI. These are some things to do:
1) Look at the Job Descriptions of roles in companies you are interested in. List the technical, business, and people skills they are looking for. Ask yourself if you have the skills and rate yourself as beginner, intermediate, or advanced. Also, try to guess which level of skills the company wants. If there is a gap between what you bring to the table and what the company wants, you will need to bridge the skill gap. Come up with an action plan to make that happen.
2) Assuming you are interviewing for jobs at the manager level and below, recruiters expect you to have a lot of learning agility. This term means that you may not meet all the JD expectations, but you can be counted on to pick up skills in 3-4 months. No two jobs will ever be exactly similar; every company does work differently. Your job is to convince recruiters that you will learn on the job. One way to prove this is to provide examples of how you picked up skills on the fly and created significant, positive change. These horizontal moves are less likely at the director level and up unless you are exemplary in some other way.
3) One tactic I have seen work is closing the interviews by admitting that you may not be the best fit for the role on paper but will work the hardest and give it your all if the company bets on you. I tried this when moving from General Mills to interviewing at Microsoft and ended up with an offer. Just be honest about what you say. Once you get the job, you should be able to give your 100%, if not more. At that point, you cannot talk about work-life balance.
4) Talk to people within the company and network in advance. Sometimes, you may need to do this a year before your target date. If you build a strong relationship with a leader who wants you, you have a much higher chance of getting through the interview process. All interviews need a strong advocate, and good networking in advance can be the silver bullet.
5) Do not assume that companies are not willing to experiment. If they are so, they would never be talking to you in the first place. You also cannot read the minds of people. Instead, you should be confident and put up a good show during interviews. Trying to read the interviewer’s mind is futile and risks making you look desperate and scared. Project confidence and show keen interest. Even a lousy interview could be interpreted by the interviewer as average or good if you show the enthusiasm and interest the company wants. Companies are human. We all want people to work with us who are interesting, unique, fun to be with and passionate about work. Not dull slobs shirking work and throwing their work to you.
6) Some of your failures may be due to bad macroeconomic conditions that are neither under your control nor the company’s. For example, there may be excellent employees who may be laid off and are desperate to find any job they can get. They may have much more work experience and expertise than you have. You never know the strength of the job applicant pool. However excellent you are, better people may be competing for the same job. Do not assume that nobody can be better than you. I have seen Vice Presidents of tech companies apply for senior director roles in other companies. Do the best you can and keep trying. A couple of failures are part of the game.
7) If you face continuous failure in different companies over time, you must read the reading on the wall. Is the new sector you are targeting something you are passionate about? Is the new industry right for you? Are you chasing companies just for compensation or location? These are all personal questions, but the answers will reveal that not every sector is for everyone. For example, not everyone can be an investment banker or a surgical doctor. The fact that these jobs are among the highest paid is irrelevant; what matters is if you have the interest and skills. Keep asking yourself why you want that specific job in that particular company.
8) Volunteer with startups in the new sector and spend weekends consulting on the side if that is an option. Over time, you will learn the skills necessary. No person knows every job in a company when they begin work. There is a lifetime of learning involved before one becomes the CEO. It is more important to keep learning day after day. Once that happens, corporate growth will occur over time.
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