Hi all.

I am new to this forum. I moved recently to Geneva and I am looking for a PM job. I am Bulgarian and currently I am working at CERN. I have B.Sc. in Applied mathematics and Informatics, Ms.Sc. in Computer and Network Security. I have 5+ years experience as a developer (1 year Delphi, 4+ Java - Eclipse plugin development, JSF, Hibernate, DB2, MySQL, Servlets, JPA, WebSphere, Tomcat, Design Patterns, Scrum, RUP...). I would like to move to the dark side of the force and find a PM job. Can you recommend me some job sites? Do you think that I could find a PM job with no experience in PM? What salary should I expect?

I can offer job sites:

www.monster.ch
www.jobs.ch

best of luck

PM? Private message job?

You might want to spell out what PM is for those who might not know.

Project Management

www.jobserve.com is predominantly English but has quite a lot of jobs in Switzerland.

I'd advise you to focus your CV on your soft skills... some of the technical/dev keywords in your first post will completely baffle a PM.

I will update your thread title accordingly. Please keep in mind that not everyone here is a native English speaker, nor are all abbreviations universal (as proven here). Abbreviations like this are frowned upon like txtspk is.

And keep in mind that in 99% of the companies I have seen, especially IT, PM stands usually for Product Management. Sounds similar, but is very different from project management...

Thank you for your remark. However, the main 2 questions still stay unanswered .

Do you think that I could find a Project Management job with my background and no experience in Project Management? What salary should I expect?

Another drawback is the language. I can only speak English

You need pmi/pmi/prince2 certifications

Salary is around 500-600

apparently there is also something called program management

Also not to forget.

PM : Prime Minister

PMI certification would be useful!

Yes, you are right but I am curious if I can start without. I have several years experience as a software developer and in my opinion a good project manager should have experience as a developer. Here is another interesting question..

I am also wondering what would be my salary as java developer. I am already a certified java programmer and I have broad knowledge in java technologies.

not for entry level by a million miles. and your not likely to be contracting from scratch anyway.

and PM does stand for Project Management in companies ?? It can stand for Product Management but line up a hundred people in an IT department and ask them what a PM does then 90% will say Project Management. The other 10% will be the company product managers... :-)

What - 2300 CFH a day?!!

no, because even if you did blag 600 a day thats currently about a thousand francs. and anyway, you wouldnt get that as entry.

It might be possible to get a Project Management (PM) job with some smaller companies, where you also do a multiple other activities given your programming skills. Larger companies generally look either for some kind of experience in Project Management or some kind of certifications of the skills. Needless to say that the content of Project Management differs on the size and professionality of the company, as well as the business they are in. A probable suggestion would be to get into programming and grow into a Project Manager, which may make things easier.

Hi Forum,

I would also like to add something here. I am currently an (electrical) R&D Project Manager (have been for 2 years, with a budget of €5M and 8 team members), but current situations with my employer are swaying my mind into looking for an alternative position. Having worked for the same company for 15 years, I have really not that much external interview experience (sure, I have moved around in the company, but they were internal interviews and fairly informal)

The current project that I lead finishes in 2013 and the general feeling I've had from other people is that should at least wait for that to complete, in order to be able to state that I have fully completed a project and not left it hanging..

Reasons for my mind swaying is total lack of support from my manager, resulting in derogatory, belittling and offensive comments (which he seems to find funny..). I would expect that if I have difficulty with something, someone, a manager would be supportive and help his team. Sadly not.

Training is also non-existent. I tried to enrol for the PMI qualification, but it was blocked (by the program director).

Apart from the obvious first step of constructing a CV, where would a next step be? Contact a headhunting firm, advertise myself on job-related websites.. I know the preceeding questions may sound naieve, but in my working life I have only ever had one interview and one job, and for that I can't be blamed !

Thanks for reading
Chris

I believe that after working for 15 years in one place you do not need to wait TWO YEARS if you don't like you job anymore. If it was six months, I'd say closing a project looks good and I would not hire people who switch jobs every few months - but you seem to have rather too much perseverance than too little... if you really are unhappy about your situation why waste so much more time?

Another way in would be to search for jobs whose title is Project Coordinator - these are typically more junior project management positions where you would be assisting more experienced project/program managers. Certification doesn't seem to be necessary here (unlike in the US, from what I have been told) but, as genius says, larger companies are going to be looking either for certification or for evidence based on experience that you understand the priciples of project management, the main project phases and so on.

Salary... I would say anywhere between 100 and 150K depending on location and experience - probably in the region of 100K for one of the coordinator-type positions that I mentioned above.