

Ask HN: How did you get your first management experience? - druml

Many of management jobs require the candidates to have some experience of managing projects and teams. But how do people get their first management experience? I have heard people with no technical experience got their first engineering jobs by doing MOOCs and practicing coding in spare time, but this approach doesn&#x27;t seem to be applicable for management.
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brudgers
There are formal definitions of "project manager", and in an industry like
architecture/engineering/construction the formal definition is typically a
person who supervises architects, engineers and construction superintendents.
But the joke used to be that in a lot of companies it can mean a CAD jockey
with a telephone [this is in the days before everybody had a cell phone and
email]. I even heard one person tell someone they were a project manager
because they managed theirself. Having just met a fresh CS graduate whose
first job is Senior IT Analyst, I think some things never change.

Anyway, the way most people get involved in project management without title
inflation is by tackling increased responsibilities within their workplace.
This requires a boss who is willing to delegate and an employee who appears
capable of receiving delegated responsibility.

It's important to realize that managing is not supervising. Sometimes a single
person has these responsibilities overlap, but a managing people is orthogonal
to enforcing a company's HR policies except in so far as they relate to who
can be assigned which tasks, how many hours can be assigned, etc. To put it
another way, the supervisor cares what time you roll out of bed and into work.
A manager just cares about the results of your work (though those results may
include the effects on other members of the team).

Good luck.

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helen842000
Leading smaller projects, training junior staff members, deputising for
existing managers & generally showing you are capable and aware of management
responsibilities even before you are in a managerial role.

