Admin Assistant doing Project Manager work
Feb 21, 2020
11 Comments
Hi everyone,
I'm an AA at a company where the PM role doesn't exist, and have found myself doing a lot of project management, which I love and am very good at. I'm underpaid for it and am job hunting (ideally in tech), but am finding that my job title is holding me back. I don't want to drastically change it for fear that it might flag in an employment verification check. Has anyone had experience with making this shift? How do I better market myself and get people to look past the job title?
Important details: Haven't been in the role long enough to qualify for a PMP. Working on my CAPM. Would eventually like to get an MBA.
comments
1. Try to internally switch your job title from AA to PM. It is ok to have the same pay. When you switch jobs, you will get a significant pay bump.
2. Get PM certifications to prove that you know what you are doing.
3. Build up PM stories to tell in your interviews. If you have real-life experience doing PM work and are good at it, why would people not want to hire you as a PM? Donβt wait until you get a βPMβ title tag before you start doing PM work.
1. The PM position literally does not exist at my company. We have a lot of analysts doing the job but there's been some high turnover because they are hired to research and are unhappy managing projects. The analyst doing that on the projects I was hired to provide admin support to ghosted the team, so I stepped up and took over. There was talk about a year ago about creating the position and I was included in some focus groups, but if it's happening it will take several years. I am stuck with my job title as my company rarely promotes admins outside of the admin track, and even if I was promoted it wouldn't be to a PM role.
2. You're right about this and I'm working on the CAPM- someone suggested scrum master which I hadn't thought of and will be adding that to the list!
3. I have the stories because I have the experience- but I'm not getting interviews and I worry that it's because of my job title, so I have no one to tell the stories to. Another user suggested I create a more functional resume and hope that helps!
So two different ways to get around it:
1. Try to get a job, any job, that is willing to hire you as a PM, even knowing that you are an AA now. The functional resume thing is great advice. Just leave out your job title completely in that resume and highlight your accomplishments.
2. Escalate to your management chain that you would like to internally transfer to a PM role because that is where your passion lies. I canβt imagine saying no because it is so much easier to hire an AA than a PM, and since you are not going for a pay raise, that is a great deal for your company. Worst case is that you speak to other managers in your company, but treat those conversations like external interviews.
The key is that as long as you have the abilities to excel in the PM role, it is just plain dumb for people not to see that and give you the right role. Eventually you will pull through, it might take a year or two, but I think nothing to worry.
Reached out to a former employee at my company who was also an AA and moved into a different role his current company. He sent me a referral email this morning. I'm in the midst of filling it out and he tells me he just found out the position has been filled.
I won't stop trying- it's somehow just been bad timing on every position!