Alexandra Levits Water Cooler Wisdom How to Become a Project Manager

Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom How to Become a Project Manager PM certifications increase your earning potential and differentiate you on the job market. The Project Management Institute offers six certifications, and here are some details about each so you can assess which one is most applicable. Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) The CAPM certification recognizes a demonstrated understanding of the fundamental knowledge, processes and terminology that are needed for effective project management performance. It is designed for project team members who provide subject matter expertise (e.g., marketing, finance, customer care, processing, fulfillment) and serve as project sponsors, facilitators, liaisons or coordinators. The CAPM requires a high school diploma, associate’s degree, or the global equivalent, as well as 23 hours of PM education (without work experience) or 1,500 hours of professional experience on a project team (without project management education). You will need to take a three-hour, 150-question, multiple-choice examination and the cost for non-PMI members is $300 (discounted for PMI members). If you can answer “yes” to more than one of these questions, you might want to pursue the CAPM certification. Have you been in project management for less than two years or are you new to project management? Do you participate on a project team? Project Management Professional (PMP) The PMP certification recognizes competence of an individual to perform in the role of a project manager, specifically experience in leading and directing projects. It is meant for those who are responsible for all aspects of a project for the life of a project, and who lead and direct cross-functional teams to deliver projects within the constraints of time, budget and scope. The PMP requires a high school degree, an associate’s degree, or a bachelor’s degree â€" or their global equivalents. You must have 35 hours of PM education, and if you have obtained a bachelor’s degree within the last eight years, you must have a minimum of three years of non-overlapping professional experience, during which at least 4500 hours were spent leading and directing projects. If you have obtained only a high school degree within the last eight years, you must have a minimum of five years of non-overlapping professional experience, during which at least 7500 hours were spent leading and directing projects. You will need to take a four-hour, 200-question multiple-choice examination and the cost for non-PMI members is $465 (discounted for PMI members). If you can answer “yes” to more than one of these questions, you might want to pursue the PMP certification. Are you responsible for all aspects of a project for the life of the project? Do you lead and direct cross-functional teams to deliver projects within the constraints of schedule, budget and scope? Do you demonstrate sufficient knowledge and experience to appropriately apply a methodology to projects that have reasonably well-defined requirements and deliverables? For additional PM career options, head on over to Intuits Fast Track blog.

Train Your Brain for Better Memory

Train Your Brain for Better Memory Matthew Barrett, founder of Brain Trainers, is the speaker for our November 18 WorkSource Professional Network meeting.   Barrett has a Masters degree in Psychology and calls himself a “personal trainer for the brain.”   His lessons take cutting-edge cognitive neuroscience and turn the science into entertaining and accessible presentations for his audience.   We spent some time together recently talking about what “brain training” is and why it matters to jobseekers. Barrett says that Brain Trainers helps professionals remember and analyze details, make good decisions faster, think intuitively and insightfully, and remain competitive in a changing market.   “Seventy percent of what I teach audiences is about how THE brain works,” he says. “The other thirty percent of what you need to understand is about how YOUR brain works.”   You can improve your brain by working on specific skills that you want to master or improve.   Exercises can help you remember whatever you want â€" numbers, faces, facts or directions â€" and can also help you be more creative, solve problems faster and combat any decline you may experience as you age. In our November 18 meeting, he’s going to focus on a common problem: forgetting faces and names. Full disclosure: I suffer from an inability to remember names and faces, and it frequently frustrates and embarrasses me.   My otherwise reliable memory fails me in networking situations, and I have been reluctant to simply blame my age, because I’ve never been good at this skill.   Barrett says that I’m right to think it’s caused by something else. Most people, he says, remember faces better than names.   That’s because there’s a part of our brain that’s wired to recognize faces; it’s an ancient survival technique from our caveman days.   If you couldn’t remember which caveman was part of your clan and which was your enemy, you’d be more likely to die young.   So our brains developed facial recognition technology.   But we never developed a similar system for names. Added to that is the fact that most of us stopped making fun of people’s names in about the third grade.   Why is that a problem?   Because that name association â€" no matter how cruel â€" was one of the best ways to remember names.   “Ellie, Ellie, she’s so smelly” was a crude but effective version of a mnemonic   (ne-MON-ick) device, a technique for remembering facts or numbers.   “Because we work so hard, from third grade on, at neutralizing any association with names,” says Barrett, “we have no real tools to commit them to memory.” The key to remembering names is to move them from short to long-term memory, or as Barrett refers to them, “from your desktop / workspace to your file cabinet/ storage space.” Our short-term memory “desktop” can only hold four or five concepts for 10 â€" 12 seconds.   After that 10 -12 seconds, if you have not used one of the techniques that will help that information transition to the “file cabinet,” you will almost certainly forget it. Next:   The five associations to help you remember faces and names.

Review - The Career Explorers Journal

Review - The Career Explorers Journal The Career Explorers Journal Quoteful This is my first attempt at reviewing a book. In May I was looking to review a Careers book and wanted a good practical one to start off with. Then I came across Paul Diamonds The Career Explorers Journal and started reading it. A 33-chapter, around 65-page quality careers book for anyone wandering around the topic of career change or discovering another challenge in their career. The Career Explorers Journal Quoteful The first thing that motivated me to read the Career Explorers Journal was the quotes. It starts with the following: You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes You can steer yourself any direction you choose Oh, The Places Youll Go! Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss) Every chapter of the book starts with a quote and that is all you need to get motivated to read the rest of the chapter. The Career Explorers Journal is not only for those looking for a career change but its also a very good career management and analysis book for those who want to expand their career to their full potential. Whilst I was reading the book, I learnt quite a bit and realised how little I knew about my career ambitions. The Career Explorers Journal really provokes you to think about how much you know about your career. I wrote down a few answers, based on the questions in the book and look forward to hanging on to this journal more than any other career management tool for tracking my career progress. Career Explorers Journal 33 Chapters For Your Career The Career Explorers Journal is written in plain English and is different to other Careers books Ive read. Ive always read sports management books because I like the way sports (football) is managed, with high-profile players as employees, the PR,  etc. But Career Explorers Journal does not teach me a lesson, it helps me learn. The Career Explorers Journal has 33 Chapters and it talks to you through all the chapters. At every chapter I realised that this book is different to other books. It doesnt tell you to do this or that or thats what leaders do, or uses that sort of language. It simply asks you if youve considered the questions it asks. I could go into detail about the individual chapters but for $0.99 I think its a worthy investment in exploring how much more there needs to be done with our Careers, or even just satisfying some of the questions you may have about it. An Enjoyable Journey Reading Careers Explorer Journal The Careers Explorer Journal is an enjoyable read. The chapters are nice and tidy, written in plain English. Something that graduates and even the experienced ones like. Not everyone sits with a dictionary on their desk and its nice to see the book using simple language. I love the quotes in the book, well used and best suited for the chapter that follows. What we would like to see in the next edition is a dedicated graduate version. Too often, I believe, graduates think the company they are working for will develop them. It will but only for this specific company and there is so much more to explore in a career. Another thing I think will benefit the future editions is adding more resources to answer the questions the book asks, or creative crafts to note down lessons from the book. OK, I realise that this may just be because I was too lazy to sit with a book to write all my answers or lessons down. But all in all, I enjoyed reading the Career Explorers Journal which was very kindly submitted for review by Paul Diamond. You can find more about Paul and buy the book by visiting his site here. I strongly suggest giving it a look. Its worth it.   15