Being a project manager VS technical project manager VS management consultant? (company, job)
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I am currently a systems analyst in a healthcare firm and have 3 career options. What I do will be very similar but the title will be different. I will support solution team for clinical IT implementations.
Option 1 is to be a Project Manager.
Option 2 is to be a Technical Project Manager.
Option 3 is to be a Management Consultant.
I will accept one of these roles and work for 3 more years. After the third year, I plan to move a smaller company for a director or associate director position. My question is that which title can be the best pick for my future career and can lead me a management position. Although the job descriptions will be almost identical, I believe that title plays an important role for future position. It makes my application more visible. Can you please share your industry experience.
Note: I am have an engineering undergrad degree and work in healthcare IT
You are funny,
So basically you would be doing Project Management ?
Yes, I will be doing project management more like IT project management. I am just lucky that I can pick 3 different titles I just do not know which one will lead me a director or associate director position. Many people keep telling that consulting is a great title to have in your resume but I feel like technical project management is the way to go!
Management Consulting can be a be-all, end-all into and of itself. In other words, one can be a management consultant and work for various firms short to mid-term, and be paid increasingly well based on increasing level of responsibility. You can stay IC or go management, depending on personal and client needs, skills, etc. I think of management consultants as those with a broader business skill-set in addition to technical knowledge.
PM is PM, read PMI's website about that as a discipline. Tech PM is a special flavor of PM.
More on MC: a firm I'm aware of had the unusual mandate to bring in someone at director-level to a tech major in the Seattle metro area. The person they were trying to backfill for the client had to go on maternity or other medical leave. That is a pretty senior role indeed to "backfill", and I questioned if that was even possible given the ramp-time needed. (Role was offered to me for exploration couple year ago. I declined it.) Was that "management consulting?" I was thinking yes: senior people, broad knowledge base, leadership, take-charge. Those bringing solutions to challenges based on business and technology, in this case.
Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC), another example of "management consultants", have a set of tools and frameworks they arrive with to create, solve, fix, or otherwise affect a process or group. Sometimes, oftentimes, to large firms or government or ...you name it.
The above as a career track may or may not lead to additional leadership, like (for example) engagement management. Engagement managers, in the management consulting world, are quite-senior roles with overall delivery authority for larger projects, programs, or managed service delivery uh, engagements. Couple buddies of mine from business school went that way and are today engagement managers, practice directors, regional practice directors, etc. Not unlike what I'm doing now, though as an employee of a tech major it's phrased a bit differently.
If you're intellectually curious, read an online "guide to the Case interview" for a bit about how big firms like Bain, Boston, and McKinsey interview management consulting candidates. That might tell you much more about the nature of the role. Business acumen required. MBA helpful. MBA from a real school mandatory, almost always, to work for the majors.
Thanks for the info! Do you have any recommendation for management consulting? Does it have a path?
What is stated in the post above, management consulting means a different thing and has little to do with anything you are involved in (from what I understand).
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I just do not know which one will lead me a director or associate director position. Many people keep telling that consulting is a great title to have in your resume but I feel like technical project management is the way to go!
