While there’s no magic formula for landing a management role, there are a few things you can do to help employers see your potential.
Thursday, September 21, 2017
This Is How To Land Your First-Ever Management Role
While there’s no magic formula for landing a management role, there are a few things you can do to help employers see your potential.
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While simple in delivery, this article does give some pretty sound advise. The fourth point, be ready to explain why you are ready, made an impact on me. "You’ll probably get asked why you want to step into a management role a lot throughout your interview process, so you’d better have a great answer ready to go," is the advice, and while this is an obvious point, I think being able to answer this question is not only important for applying to a new job, but continuing at an old one. Being able to remind yourself why you entered into this field and what led you to this point or why you are ready and capable to handle a particular daunting project is a perfect confidence boost to give yourself along the way. Often times we get so caught up in the daily slog and minutia of a project that we forget why we chose to continue or education and enter into the field of management. Knowing who you are as a manager and why you are the manager you are will also help lead your interactions with others. The more self aware you are, the more likely you can anticipate and prepare as you go on.
This article is a great confidence booster. Most of these things, are simple, if you are prepared of course. Each piece of advice, ranging from higher education to up-playing yourself are things that we know as CMU students, but also tend to forget, as CMU students. A big part of moving up the ladder, is the preparedness and experience to do so. I'm definitely planning on going into a business that is heavily influenced by what prior experience I have. A part that resonated with me was towards the end when the author talked about wisdom and knowing the ins and outs of management, a huge part of what we do as students is learn, interpret, and reinvent; what makes management so creative is its ability to be different varying from person to person, how advice changes depending on the person who you go to.
I agree with this article in that there are many ways to prove you are a leader without being in a leadership role. Its the extra things like taking the time to teach someone or presenting yourself in a confident and friendly manner. Really, its about doing the job you are assigned with great understanding and execution. Before reading this article, I would not be too sure how to highlight leadership skills on a resume without mentioning a leadership organization I was involved in or a certificate I received. I think a list of skills like these seems like a great way to highlight what many people can't see by just looking a t a piece of paper describing your experience. I think it is interesting how the article included that you should be ready to explain why you are ready for a management position. This seems like a given but I can see how it would be easy for people to overlook this step.
I found this article surprisingly full of good advice. One of the most important concepts here is learning to highlight transferable skills. This is something I do constantly when applying for work in the events, themed entertainment, or tv/film world. It doesn't always have to be experience in the exact thing you want to be hired for- if it were, how would any of us secure our first jobs? What is important is how you spin it. "I have never managed a cast and crew on set before, but I *do* have years of experience managing a cast and crew backstage..." or, "I have never been on tour with a show before, but I did pack the truck, set up in a new space, collaborate with new teams, and put up an Xpogo championship in three different cities." In an industry where our experience is everything, we need to constantly be thinking of ways to sell ourselves before we have the exact experience they're looking for, just like a first-time manager.
This is a topic I have been thinking a lot about the past couple months as I move into the more career focused part of my time at CMU. I think one of the most difficult things about a career in management is that when you are young there are a lot of people who don't think you can manage yet, and maybe rightfully so. I found this article to be more useful that ones like it often are, which was a surprise. It is important as people interview and I continue to apply for jobs/internships that you are able to make connections to things that you haven't done by using the experience you do have. It is important to play to your strengths and to make sure that if there is something you are lacking in what an employer wants you are able to sell a different part of yourself effectively to make up for that. It is also important to be confident, which sounds like a given but can be very hard. I know for me when I walk into a room of 15 men that are older and I have more experience than I do it can be hard to trust myself but you have to be confident in your knowledge and you ability or you will not be able to manage effectively.
Management is a very unique department because it is often similar in very different types of jobs. The basic job of a manager is to manage the people in the company and manage the tasks that they are doing for whatever their projects are. The skills used in management in one field can easily be used in a different field. A difference would be that you need to learn the vocabulary of the company and some basic information so you can communicate with your team as well as contribute ideas and information to discussions. We are learning management techniques that can be used in other fields besides theatre. When getting a different job you just need to find which skills you know are useful and how they can be adapted to your new environment. Framing yourself in different ways for different positions is very important because each job is slightly different, but the management skills will be very similar.
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