Tag Archives: project management Q&A

Career change – questions answered

This week we have another great question about entering into project management from the armed forces.

Hi Nicola, I am due to leave the army soon and I am planning ahead my career – on discussing courses with my commanding officer it was suggested that I move in to project management as a lot of my skills match up closely with core PM requirements according to a skills checker used by careers advisors in the MoD. My background is within the officer ranking where I manage large teams in rolling out technology in global locations – as such I have been working to MoD structures and I feel these are transferable outside of the forces.
Keith; Germany

Hi Keith, thank you for getting in touch – glad to hear you are thinking ahead of moving back to civilian life, you have taken the right steps to speak with your CO and I assume you are taking advantage of all the courses and training which is provided to you when you have been given notice of leaving the forces.
Your experience lends itself well to a number of projects across industries – it saddens me that advice for our troops moving back to civilian life is grim at best, especially for project management. Having a brother who currently serves with the army I believe we need to be encouraging the transition of MoD personnel. Personally I have come across a great deal of ex forces personnel who have settled very well into project management roles for sectors such as defence, engineering, construction and manufacturing. Keys areas to focus on would those which you can offer something in return – think about the technologies you have rolled out, global delivery / exposure to cultural change, managing large teams and direct line management. All these skills are sought-after with large global organisations and businesses who adopt a “policing” approach to project management may also express an interest in your background.

What you need to focus on now is your CV – take time to make sure you research the roles you are interested in and check the core areas of interest, now make sure you focus on those aspects in your CV. Such as planning, reporting, risk management, stakeholder management etc. keep the focus on the technologies implemented and use terminology from project management (which you should be picking up from your courses and training) to ensure that the resume reviewer can match up your experience with the role. As with all writing their resume – it is important to make sure you are not using internal language from your current employer in the CV, a common language needs to be used as the hiring manager probably hasn’t worked at your places of employment.