Assignment: Create Portfolio for the post of project manager in IT firm

Introduction

The purpose of this study is to create a portfolio for the post of project manager in IT firm. However, MBA placement Pathway selected in order to provide best job opportunity in UK IT firms. The reason behind to undertake this firm is to grab best chances to work with reputed firm. Moreover, this organisation is specialized to provide the job opportunities to the individual as per their field (Illing et al., 2013). Besides that, MBA placement focus on the authenticity in the recruitment and selection process so that right candidate with proper skills can be achieved the job. Moreover, the organisation also concentrates on the salary and remuneration part by addressing that selected employee gets the best against their performances. That’s why, there are various expectations are there with this organisation.

Additionally, the expectation is to get reliable job in the country like UK which satisfies the candidate with proper compensation and right profile which suites their skills. Other than that, another expectation is that firm should be authority or followed all the company laws so that in future, the candidate gets secured their future. Thus, these are the expectation with the consultancy i.e. MBA placement Pathway (Parutis, 2014). At the same time, it is also expected that placement firm have an enough experiences related to recruitment of candidate as per their choices. So this can be stated that this placement firm could prove to be effective for gaining the best job opportunity in UK on a profile of Project Manager.

In respect to prepare the portfolio for the profile of Project manager, MBA placement pathway include various activities in the portfolio in the form of define the aim of candidate and two SMART objectives which are developed to achieve the mention goal. However, UK current labour market is analysed in context to find the job opportunities (Ash et al., 2013). Moreover, the recruitment and selection process of IT firm in UK is also identified in this part for analysing whether job is available in UK or what type of selection process firm follows to select the employees (Moss et al., 2014). Furthermore, the Personal profile about the candidate skill, abilities and experiences are undertaken in the portfolio so that this can be understood whether applied candidate is suitable for the profile of Project manager in IT firm. Lastly, the portfolio also incorporates the creation of Online Personal Identity (Kang & Shen, 2013). In this, the Personal Identity is prepared on the digital platform in order to define the personal specification and job description.

Aims and Two Objectives

In the preparation of Portfolio with MBA Placement Pathway, the aim of candidate discussed along with two SMART objective which helps to achieve the goal (Scherr et al., 2012).

Aim: The aim is to secure the job related to Project Manager in IT sector for the UK region.

Two SMART Objectives:

One Objective: – To get a better understanding about the UK IT firms

Key Results:

• Perform research work through use of social-site
• Market trend of UK analysed (Davis et al., 2012)
• Acquire knowledge about the UK IT firm recruitment & selection process

Second Objective: – To prepare the candidate skill as per the profile of project manager

Key Results:

• Attend the IT professional workshop and events (Tseng & Kuo, 2014)
• Take the online tutorials for accomplishing the necessary skills

Labour market analysis and recruitment in the United Kingdom (UK)

The analysis of labour market is performed to identify the United Kingdom market for the positions in the IT sector where I wish to work and to identify the trends in the UK market in terms of pay practices, and other merits for a particular job (project manager) in the country.

From the office for national statistics (2018) for UK labour market, it is analysed that there is high employment in relation to full time and part time where the men are high in numbers in full-time employment and women in part-time employment in 2018 as analysed form below figure.

Figure 1: Labour market statistics in UK for July to September 2018

(Source: Office for National Statistics, 2018)

The below figure highlight the trend of job in various sector which highlights that jobs in the professional scientific and technical sector are in around 20 thousands in the UK.

Figure 2: Number of jobs in different sector in the UK from June 2017 to 2018

(Source: Office for National Statistics, 2018)

Labour market trends in the IT sector

The labour market trends in the IT sector of the UK highlights the following:

In particularly, IT sector in the UK, there will be a increased need of the IT staff as many European organisations (32 percent) are planning to increase their IT staff in year 2019 (Carey, 2019). Also, according to the tech nation report in 2018 it was revealed that employment has increased by 13 percent in the digital technical sector from a period of 2014 to 2017. Likewise, it was also found that job vacancies have increase by 19 percent in the 2018 for the IT sector in the UK as per the job site CV Library. These trends suggest that there is possibility for a good number of job opportunities for the IT professional in the UK in 2019. It can be evaluated that this could be a stable IT industry for the year 2019 for fresher seeking job in the IT industry in the UK but for IT professional already working in IT companies or as IT professional in other industries, these opportunities can lead to turbulence in the IT industry in the UK.  This is supported by the reports of Gartner’s latest Global Talent Monitor (that revealed that 23 percent of IT employees have a low intention to remain with their current employer in the UK) and Spiceworks (that revealed 43 percent of IT professionals prepare to leave their current employer in 2019) (Carey, 2019).

In the IT jobs market, the trend highlights the IT employees to leave the IT jobs for the need of better salary package. Thus, it can be evaluated that salary/ pay is a considered to be major motivation factor among the existing IT professional in the UK.

There is variation for in the IT jobs salaries from £37,500 to £67,500 and it also varies for different locations across the UK however, the average salary stands at £52,500 (CW Jobs, 2019). However, the starting salary average in the UK IT sector for IT project manager, IT analysts/ developer,  IT consultant and other IT careers stands at an average of £30,000 (Swain, 2018). Based on the salary range, it is analyzed that the top cities for IT jobs in IT project manager in the UK locations are Birmingham, City of London, Central London, Glasgow, West London and Yorkshire (CW Jobs, 2019).  The below table highlight the IT jobs types and salary variation. From this, it is analyzed that in contract there is high salary range being offered over permanent or temporary jobs for IT project manager.

Table 1: IT jobs salaries

(Source: CW Jobs, 2019)

There is skills shortages in the IT sector thus, employer are giving high preference for the relevant qualifications and experience, technical knowledge and skills  for the graduates seeking job in this sector (Swain, 2018).  On the other hand, it is published that top employers in the UK IT sector like Apple, Accenture, Google, Microsoft,  Capgemini, Cognizant, IBM and Infosys in 2018 look for IT capabilities and IT ethics in recruitment and business transformation and organizational change skills in their existing IT professionals for their growth and development. Thus, it can be evaluated that adaptability, change management, IT ethics, and knowledge development are the top priorities of the IT sector employers.  Thus, this labor market trend in the UK IT sector matches with my placement preference in this sector as the trend points to high learning and great chance of personal development.

Thus, increase in IT market job in near future, salary motivation of the IT professionals, labor market skill shortages, employer focus on IT ethics, change management and business transformation and capability based  selection are some of the key trends in this sector.

The job title of IT Project manager is the top 5 position among different IT careers in 2017.

Figure 3: Top job titles in the IT sector

(Source: JobisJob, 2017)

Job sourcing, recruitment and selection practices in the IT sector

The IT jobs for project manager are advertised in online job sites like CW Jobs, social professional network (LinkedIn) and thorough recruitment agencies for posting job offers in the IT sector. These agencies are Harvey Nash GmbH, Hays, Spring Technology Ltd, Client Server Ltd, Evolution Recruitment Solutions Limited and Nigel Frank International Limited.

There are a range of recruitment practices in the IT sector that includes assessment through interviews and filling questionnaire (Keegan et al., 2012), tie-up with educations institutions (campus recruitment) and recruitment agencies, attractive job posting in sites, staffing through LinkedIn, transfer and internal promotion (Zibarras & Woods, 2010).  The common selection practices are based on the relevant technical skills and IT experience, unstructured and structured interview based on curriculum vitae (CV), individual simulations, assessment skills, filling application form and through the internal references.

Personal Profile

A personal profile of skills, abilities and experiences are provided below to secure the position of project manager in the IT sector in the UK:

Profile:

A proficient IT professional with good knowledge of Agile technologies and good hands in working with Prince2 is currently seeking the position of Project Manager within the IT industry in the United Kingdom. Having a good experience in assisting  the project management team in delivering on time, within budget and meeting quality specification of software projects, implementing projects and managing the project life cycle. I look an agile environment to work to contribute my academic and professional knowledge and experience  I am willing to relocate as per the job demands in any regions in the United Kingdom.

Qualifications and Credentials:

Bachelor’s degree in information technology

Master’s degree in project management

3 months course on Prince2

Certification in Prince2

Skills and Abilities:

Good project management skills

Strong requirements gathering

Good exposure in project governance

Good project documentation skills

Good change management skills

Good communication skills

Good time management skills

Strong analytical skills

Strong vendor management skills

Ability to work on parallel projects

Ability to implement projects

Good knowledge of SDLC (software development lifecycle)

Good knowledge and exposure in IT validations

Good knowledge of MS Office and Prince2.

Experience

Two years of working professional experience in the IT telecom industry. The experience provided me solid understanding and knowledge of the IT regulations and role and responsibility of a project manager. It has also given me experience in collaborating with different IT professionals for gathering requirements of a project and managing the third party vendor of the company.  I have adequate level of experience of delivering software based complex IT projects. I also have an experience of working with MS Office I MS Project and SAP.

Development of Online Identity

In order to reflect the experience, skill development to potential employer, the online identity creates on social-site networking (Agarwal & Barthel, 2015). However, the online platform helps the people to find the job which they are looking for it. So candidate requires to developing an online professional identity on social-media with the aim to convey the qualification and skills to employer. In regards to this, several steps will be included which mention below:-

• Develop a Domain: – The first step is to create an online career brand by register a domain with the selected name. In respect to this, the candidate needs to register name so that the employer can able to give basic detail information to employer.
• Create a Registration with a blog: – In this, candidate should start the blogs so that they can communicate their ideas and views to organisation (DeAndrea et al., 2012). The blogs could also help the candidate to showcase their skills and potential to different individuals.
• Develop an online network: – This step is essential for any candidate who wants a best suitable job on online platform. In this, there is need to develop a social network through use of application such Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This area would support to get the suitable job.
• Develop a resume on online basis: – This is another important step for candidate as in this, they get an opportunity to present their skills, experiences and expectation to the organisation. This is detail documents which include candidate personal specific facts.
• Professional identity: – The candidate needs to focus on the professionalism while preparing the portfolio (Wilson et al., 2012). This area could leave a positive impact on the employer. Thus, the choice of words and presentation are the main aspect which indicates the professionalism.
• Track the Job Opportunities: – It is important for candidate to look at the notification which occurs with the Google Alert. This notification may help to provide different job opportunities to candidate regards how to job description, roles & responsibilities and salary package etc (Parutis, 2014). Based on this, candidate take the decision whether to apply in particular company or not.

Through use of these steps, the candidate prepares their online professional identity and able to achieve the aim regards to find out the best job related to project manager.

Create the awareness related to use of social media in recruitment and employment

The social media is not only useful for candidate in regards to find out the job but it also assists the organisation in regards to make awareness about the vacancy about the job. Moreover, social media is the best platform for firms to easily capture the skilled workforces through use of various applications where student or applicants usually applied. So, it will be beneficial for firm to get registered in such sites so that they can get talent workforces for the position. Similarly, MBA placement Pathway able to find out best job related to project manager in IT sector through use of social site applications. This helps the candidate to get selected in best organisation. Hence, it can be stated that social-site assist both organisation as well as candidate to make an interaction and develop a strong relationship. This is done through making people aware about the job opportunities and based on this; candidate takes decision regards to become part of which organisation. Other than that, the organisation creates the social site opportunities through creating a socialisation as this helps the firms to select the loyal candidate for the profile. Moreover, Men & Tsai (2012) defined that there are various advantage experienced by the HR with the use of social media as they found the right employee for the given designation without spending high expenses. So this benefit is also achieved when candidate use social site for looking a right job. Thus, social-site use of recruitment or selection is the most appropriate for both organisation as well as candidate in regards to generate about the job availability.

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