r/PMCareers

Hello, I am looking to change my management style for my inbox.

When I first started I thought it would be best to create a subfolder for each project I was working on and also a few others for random internal company emails.

I am finding it difficult keep on top of my filing as I am roughly receiving from 100 - 200 emails a day. Although not all emails require my action it takes a lot of time to file these in their respective folders.

I was using my inbox as an action/tracking list for outstanding things and actions I need to complete however now there are too many emails and so I have started tracking these in my book as a “To Do List”.

I’m interested to see how others manage their emails and if you have any tips or tricks to make this easier?

TIA

Hi everyone. I have three years of experience in networking, specifically in the ISP domain. I don't hate the work, but I don't enjoy it enough to continue long-term. I’ve also worked on projects related to automation and end-to-end delivery. Recently, I realized that I enjoy interacting with customers and stakeholders, which led me to explore project management roles. Is it too late to make the transition? please guide

Hi everyone! I'm currently a Software Engineer with a few years of experience, and I'm serious about transitioning into Product Management. I've completed a few certifications so far, but I'm feeling a bit stuck on a few things and would love the community's perspective:

• Preparation structure – How did you organize your prep for PM roles?
• Courses & resources – Which ones actually added real value versus just being "nice to have"?
• Skill-building – What areas (product sense, analytics, stakeholder management, etc.) should I prioritize coming from an engineering background?

I'd especially appreciate insights from:

• Folks who've made the SDE → PM transition and what worked (or didn't)
• Current PMs on what they look for in candidates making this pivot
• Recommendations for books, courses, or communities that genuinely helped you

Any general guidance on leveraging a strong engineering background to move into PM would be incredibly valuable. Thanks so much in advance!

SAw a mid level offer today for like 190k total comp and I swear I nearly chocked on my lukewarm coffee. Did the market just completely decouple from reality last Tuesday or what is happening.

I have about 7 years of accounting experience and I’m looking to get into Project Management. I recently got my PMP and I’m just looking for advice on how to get into the field as well as how I should frame my resume for potential job opportunities. Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone,

I thought I’d share the numbers and takeaways from my 2026 IT PM/PO/Delivery job search, in case it’s useful for others as well. (Hungary, Budapest + remote)

(TL;DR: I was looking for a job with 6 years of IT PM/PO/Delivery experience, advanced English, and a PMP certification, with a salary expectation of gross HUF 1.5–2.0M/month. Over roughly 3 months, 55 applications resulted in 1 offer, while almost every second company ghosted me. The biggest lesson for me was that current job title, application channel, and role-fit matter much more than I expected.)

A bit about me: I have around 6 years of experience in IT project/product/delivery roles. My current official title is Product Owner, but in practice I have also been responsible for a lot of PM and delivery-related activities. I speak English at an advanced/business level, I have a PMP certification, and I was mainly looking for PO / PM / Delivery Manager type roles.

My salary expectation was roughly between gross HUF 1.5–2.0M/month, depending on the role. I mainly applied for Budapest-based hybrid and remote IT positions. (approximately EUR 4.2–5.6k or USD 4.9–6.5k/month)

I didn’t really filter by industry. In my view, after a certain level of experience in PM/PO/Delivery roles, it is not necessarily the most important factor whether you come from the exact same industry. This will now be my third industry switch.

For the applications, I used one main CV throughout, so I did not tailor it separately for every single position. At this volume, that would have been impossible, and several HR people also mentioned that because of AI, almost every CV looks more or less perfect now. I also had a separate anonymized project portfolio PDF, where I summarized my previous projects to make my experience more visible.

The numbers over roughly 3 months:
- 55 applications
- 26 ghosted / no meaningful response
- 18 rejections
- 6 screening interviews
- 3 first-round interviews
- 1 second-round interview
- 1 offer
For me, this meant around a 47% ghost rate, a 20% screening/interview-or-better rate, and a 1.8% offer rate. It felt pretty depressing.

In the end, I managed to land a remote role at a non-Hungarian company at roughly the middle of my salary expectation range. I’m intentionally not sharing the exact position because I don’t want it to be easily identifiable.

My main takeaways:

LinkedIn Easy Apply / cold LinkedIn applications performed very poorly for me. Out of 20 applications of this type, 0 reached screening, and 17 were ghosted, which means an approximately 85% ghost rate. It is quick to apply, but for me it was mostly just a volume game.

Direct company / career site applications performed much better. Out of 27 such applications, 7 reached at least screening, which is around a 26% conversion rate. The ghost rate here was about 30%, so significantly lower than on LinkedIn.

Direct recruiter / LinkedIn outreach worked the best, although the sample size is small: 3 out of 3 led to at least a screening or first-round interview. I would not draw a huge conclusion from this, but the quality of the funnel felt completely different.

There was also a big difference by role type. For generic Project Manager roles, only 4 out of 36 applications moved forward, around 11%. For Delivery / Agile roles, it was 4 out of 11, around 36%. For Product / PO roles, it was 3 out of 6, around 50%. For me, this suggested that role-fit matters much more than the position being broadly “PM-related.”

The Product Owner title mattered surprisingly much. Even though my CV clearly stated that I also handled PM/delivery-type responsibilities, I often had to explain this separately. It felt like at the HR entry point, your current official job title carries a lot of weight.

Remote roles had a higher ghost rate: 8 ghosted out of 13 applications, around 62%. For hybrid roles, it was 18 out of 42, around 43%. I did not feel that remote roles were impossible, just noisier and more competitive. In total, 13 of the 55 applications were for remote roles.

The PMP was a positive where people recognized it. I don’t think it was the deciding factor, but it felt like a trust signal. The separate project portfolio PDF, on the other hand, did not seem to visibly matter to almost anyone. My impression is that the CV, title, keywords, and well-told interview stories matter more.

The gross HUF 1.5–2.0M/month range did not seem unrealistic with 6 years of IT PM/PO/Delivery experience, advanced English, and a PMP certification, but it was highly role-dependent. In the end, I landed a remote role at a non-Hungarian company at roughly the middle of my salary expectation range.

And maybe the most important point: job searching is very much a numbers game. It took 55 applications to get 1 offer, even with experience, English, PMP, and a relevant IT background. So if someone is getting ghosted a lot, it does not necessarily mean something is wrong with them. The market is just that rough right now. Hang in there!

(Limitations: this is one person’s individual sample, not representative market research. The Excel summary and this post were partly created with AI assistance, but the data and experiences are real. Happy to answer questions if there are any!)

Hello everyone, I'm curious about career change experiences of people in this thread. As above, I'm currently a Project Manager (APM Certified) in the charity sector, but I'm considering switching fields to something much more corporate like energy, construction, tech or finance. I want to get more PM experience in different contexts, remove myself from being an SME (I've done charity PMO for 6ish years since the start of my career working from "the bottom" ), and hopefully access higher salaries. Of the people who have successfully made such a career change - how did you go about it?

Any advice would be welcome.

I joined as a Tech in one of big 4 in Banking and transitioned to PM role after 3 years. Its been 10 years since (7 years as PM). I have been with the same company since the start of my career and now looking to move on to other companies (preferring startups as I think I will get to perfect business knowledge of a particular product e2e). I am facing a lot of difficulties and not getting calls (applied to more than 200 job postings). Have paid membership of the leading job portals as well. Any suggestions?

Hi all!
I’ll keep it short
Working in pre sales and directly assisting svp sales in a mid size AI SaaS company!
I am very low on work exp ( 10 months including 6 month intern ), I constantly feel anxious about staying in the same path as it feels theres limited growth in here.

Can I realistically transition to Pm roles or is it a stretch?

What PM jobs are available for post grad even if you didn’t intern in them?

I have recently started the Google PM certification course. But after finishing the 1st course, I realized I couldn't remember what I learnt clearly. For example, I know the course taught about the roles and responsibilities, but I can't remember what the roles and responsibilities are. These are basic things about this topic, right?

How can I remember these?

Hi everyone, I am working as a project coordinator from last 3 years in a mid size IT company in Pune and I am thinking to get certified this year to move into a proper project manager role.

So I started doing research for the past 2-3 weeks, and now I am more confused than before.

There are so many options out there. PMP, PRINCE2, CSM, CAPM, PMI-ACP. I don't even know where to start and which one is actually worth it in Indian job market right now.

Few things I want to understand from people who already done this:

Which certification is actually valued by Indian companies? Like which one hiring managers actually care about when they see your resume.

Is PMP still the gold standard or is Agile certifications like CSM becoming more popular now specially in IT sector.

Some names I keep seeing on Google and LLM platforms are StarAgile, Simplilearn, Henry Harvin, PMI directly. But not sure which one is actually good and which one is just good at marketing.

My situation is I cannot take classroom training because of work schedule and also I am in Pune not Mumbai so options are limited. Online is the only way for me. Budget is somewhere around 20-25k INR maximum. Company is not sponsoring, so it's coming from my own pocket.

Few questions I have:

Which certification you all think is best for someone with 3 years of experience in IT project coordination role wanting to become proper Project Manager.

For those who did PMP or CSM from any provider, was the live training actually useful or did most of the actual learning happen from mock tests and self-study only?

Did the certification actually helped in getting better job or salary hike?

Is 20-25k INR enough for good training plus exam fee or do I need more budget. I checked StarAgile and their PMP course is slightly above that range but after reading some reviews online about what they include, lifetime access to class recordings, mock exams, bonus courses, dedicated batch support, it does seem like value for money. Still deciding for the best option right now.

I am asking here because Google is giving me only sponsored results and I cannot trust those.

I’m someone who came from a really technical role is accepting a pmo manager role a career killer?

For some details about myself, I’m 24 years old living in Vancouver, BC, Canada. I don’t have a degree, I currently don’t have any certifications associated with Project Management, however I am doing my CAPM exam soon.

I have about 3-4 years of experience in supervision (Restaurants, Warehouse, & Field Supervision) and currently lead a Warehouse Department, and do Field-Supervision for the same company.

My goal is to eventually work, and live in the US, and Project Management, although I have no experience currently, is something I’ve always been interested in and is generally covered under work Visa’s in the US.

I have excellent leadership skills, organizational skills, interpersonal skills, and I love being busy with hard work.

Even with these skills, and the willingness to learn, I still need help finding my way into the space so I can get the experience I need to be an amazing Project Manager and leader.

After my CAPM, are there other Internationally recognized certifications I should look for? I’m on a tight budget, and don’t have time for dedicated full-time schooling at the moment. Is there another way I can get my foot in the door that someone like myself may not know about having not been in the field?

If anyone can help me out, I’d appreciate it a ton.
Thanks so much!

I passed the recruiter screen, hiring manager interview, and I am now set for my Round 2 interviews for a Program Manager II role at Google based in the Bay Area.

I've scheduled three separate virtual interviews, one focused on Program Management Fundamentals, one focused on Problem Solving & Critical Thinking, and one focused on Leadership and Collaboration.

I have almost 10 years of experience, including 5 years in local gov, 4 years in partnerships at a nonprofit, and under 1 year as chief of staff at an early stage startup. None of these were explicitly "program management" roles. Outside of the skillset of PM, I've gained domain expertise in the program area in which I am interviewing.

While I've never been a "PM" I have managed programs before, and my biggest concern is knowing how to talk about this experience in a way that translates to being a PgM at Google. I am seeking advice for the interviews generally if folks have experience with the R2 interviews at Google, but especially seeking advice on the Program Management Fundamentals interview.

• What are the types of behavioral and hypothetical questions can I expect?
• Are there PM methodologies that are especially important to employ in a larger corporate tech setting like Google?
• Are there specific tools to be familiar with for PM? I'm well versed in Airtable, Google Suite, and Notion, but anything else?
• Any resources or threads on Reddit that would be a good read in prep?

Thanks in advance for your help!

I'm interviewing for Technical Project Manager roles and keep wondering how experienced PMs answer this.

If an interviewer says:

«"You don't know coding. Developers do the coding. Why do we need you? How will you communicate with engineers if you don't know how to code?"»

For context:

- I have experience managing software projects and working with cross-functional engineering teams.

- I understand APIs, integrations, SDLC, Agile, microservices, JSON/XML, and cloud concepts, but I'm not a software developer and don't write production code.

- I can follow technical discussions, but I don't want to overstate my technical abilities in an interview.

How do you answer this question in a way that is honest but still demonstrates your value?

I'd especially appreciate responses from engineering managers, senior developers, or Technical PMs who have interviewed candidates or worked with non-coding PMs.

Bit of an unusual situation and wanted to get some perspective before I go in.

I’m an AI PM, been doing a structured job search and building out small portfolio case studies tailored to specific roles I’m targeting. Saw a Sr PM opening for a pricing platform team, did a deep dive on the company’s public pricing/margin situation, and left a comment on the job posting with a quick breakdown of how I’d think about the problem.

The hiring manager actually saw it and DM’d me directly on LinkedIn to set up a quick chat. No recruiter screen first, no ATS step that I’m aware of — just straight to “let’s talk.”

A few things I’m trying to figure out before the call:

Is this likely just a casual “get to know you, see if it’s worth moving forward” type of conversation, or should I expect it to be more substantive since they already saw some of my thinking? Does skipping the recruiter step change the format of these calls at all in your experience?

Should I bring up the POC/comment proactively, or wait and see if they reference it first? I don’t want to come across like I’m pitching the same thing twice if they already read it.

How much should I lean on what I already shared vs. have new things ready to talk about? Worried about repeating myself if they want to go deeper on the same material.

Anyone been in a similar spot where outreach happened because of unsolicited content you put out vs the standard application funnel? Curious if the bar feels different walking in.

Appreciate any insight — trying not to overthink this but also don’t want to walk in underprepared given they already have a signal on how I think.

I recently applied to a role in one of the tech companies. I had a decent match in terms of the job description and my profile.

Post receiving the rejection, I asked ChatGPT to evaluate my profile and the job description.

ChatGPT scored my profile - 9.5/10

I believe with that score, the least I expected was a conversation.

I had also asked an internal employee to refer me to the role.

Finally, I asked ChatGPT to explain with the available information why I didn't even get a conversation with the company, this is what it said:

"So if I restrict myself to the evidence available to us, I cannot produce a satisfactory, evidence-based explanation for why there wasn't at least an initial screening conversation.

That's the furthest I can go while staying grounded."

Nothing makes sense any more to be honest.

when i was maybe 3 years into pm i thought the job was basically risk management on a spreadsheet. good plan, clear raci, tight change control, and youd be fine. i was honestly a little smug about how organized i was. then i ran a project that fell apart in slow motion and it rewired how i think about this whole career.

quick version: cross department rollout, exec sponsor who was super hyped at kickoff. i did everything right. plan was clean, risk log was beautiful, status was green for months. what i didnt clock was that two of the team leads quietly hated each other and one of them had basically decided the project was a threat to his teams headcount. none of that was in my risk log because none of it shows up in a status meeting. people just nod and then go do nothing.

we hit integration and it all surfaced at once. one team had been too busy to do their part for weeks. sponsor suddenly went cold cause the politics shifted above me and the project wasnt his favorite anymore. i was standing there with a perfect plan and a dead project, getting asked by leadership why i didnt see it coming. genuinely thought i was done. updated my resume that weekend lol.

what it taught me and what i'd tell anyone earlier in their career: green status is the most dangerous color. its usually not "everythings fine", its "i havent found the problem yet". i now actively go looking for the bad news instead of waiting for it to show up on its own.

the org chart is fiction. the real map is who trusts who, who's threatened by what, who owes who a favor. i spend way more time on that now than on the gantt, and it's the thing that actually saves projects.

and the career one. you will, at some point, be blamed for something that wasnt fully in your control. how you carry yourself in that moment matters more than the outcome. i didnt panic, i didnt throw anyone under the bus, i laid out honestly what happened and what id do differently. the project still failed. but a director who watched me handle it pulled me onto a bigger thing a year later specifically because of how i acted when it went bad.

funny thing is that disaster did more for my career than any of the clean projects ever did. you just cant see it while youre living it.

anyway, whats the project that went sideways on you and did it end up helping or hurting where you are now?