Should you get your Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM)? How is the official Project Management Institute (PMI) course? How does it apply to gen z project managers?
I started the CAPM as a way to accelerate my career and that strategy worked. I landed a new job within 3 months of receiving the certification! This is not to credit the entire success of my job search to the CAPM. However, after receiving the training, I did feel more confident to market my experience as project management experience. Let’s dive into my review of the process, content, and where it has gotten me.
Content and Applying the CAPM
The PMI CAPM prep course is a 23 hour walk through of the PMBOK guide and a practice test. Because it caters towards entry-level, there was no practical application component. This would make it hard to leverage in an interview setting without supplemental experience. In interviews, I found myself mentioning the credential as a segue to talk about my experience. Entry-level PM jobs are curious about what PM experience you already have. The credential helped me to walk through my resume with the correct vocabulary. It was crucial to have real experience to talk about and build on. If not for my past projects, the course would have been very theoretical.
Marketing the experience in the interviews became easier and easier after the CAPM. Planned an event with the events office and external vendors? Actually, you collaborated with external stakeholders, managed the procurement process, created milestones, and managed timelines. While both are true statements, one gives you more credit as a PM using the PMBOK guide as the framework for what you are doing each day.
DE&I Missing from CAPM?
The course had one very small unit/focus on the DE&I which is interesting, considering how much of the role is working with people. Project managers work with people at all stages of the project whether it is their direct team, procurement, peers, or stakeholders, project managers need to know how to interact with people who are not like them with empathy and understanding.
Not only might the people on the peripheral come from different backgrounds and identities but having a diverse internal team is essential to have the best outcomes for the project. It’s important to have context and understand the varying identities on your team. One of the places the CAPM course highlighted this was in your reward systems. Make rewards that are relevant to your team. This did not go to the level I wanted to dive into. Identities factor into every part of work, not just reward systems.
Authenticity in Leadership
As a young professional, I strive to showcase and leverage my individuality and uniqueness in the workspace. Representing my heritage is one of the ways I create a welcoming and empowering space for other minorities. When I am true to myself, others feel comfortable sharing their ideas and being authentic as well. My leadership style is all about showing up as myself so that my team feels comfortable doing the same. While the CAPM course reviews leadership styles I think this point was missed.
Being bold and true to yourself is a really hard skill to learn. This course was taught in a bubble, void of negative criticism or pushback. As long as you know the PMBOK guide you’ll be fine managing projects. In these entry-level PM roles, there will be senior people who will talk over you, try to maintain the status quo, or shut down new ideas because similar ones failed. A PM needs to be a confident leader ready to take on challenging situations that the PMBOK guide could never begin to cover. Especially as a minority in leadership.
What Project Management is to Me
Project management was about 40% of my last job and 90% of that was checking in with my team, supporting them so that they can succeed, and building them up for the next thing. It is some of the most fulfilling work to see a project and the people on the project get to the finish line. I am so proud of myself for making this first step down the project manager path. I am committed to continuing my professional development to take on even greater responsibilities in the future, PMP here I come! Oh, and I mentioned the new job at the beginning of this post! I have the first week under my belt, and I am so excited about what lies ahead on my path as a project management professional.
– Angela George, CAPM
UI Designer Thoughts
Might not seem directly related to CAPM but a lot of my foundational PM knowledge came out of UI/UX.
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Website Relevance in the Age of Social Meida Algorithms and AI
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Arc Browser Review: a UI/UX Success Story
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Interviewing a UI/UX Designer at Target
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