emasonhome wrote:Project Management is typically considered a very transferable skill.
I'm going to take you to task here on this statement since I've heard it parroted time and time again by Prince and PMI practitioners. As a PMP myself with a strong ITIL background, I'll agree that there are similarities in process but nothing else that makes you a candidate for for a PM job in the IT industry. Many others have a lot of the "something" that you don't have.
What do you know of managing implementation teams under contract in Malaysia or Indonesia or Korea or Thailand or Australia, for that matter? What do you know of the Asian work culture and ethic? What do you know about the ins and outs of an SOW for managed services... of for the installation of VOIP telephony... how can you tell if the contract is bad or good? Or the intricacies of a server room build out? What do you know of global process for break fix and IMAC's? You may know the PM process but if you can't solve the technical problems you aren't going to succeed, and you can't solve the problems if you don't have strong technical insight into the project you are managing. Although I am a highly skilled and competent IT project manager, there is no way that I would walk into a construction office and tell the owner that I could build his 50 story building. My specialty was rescuing broken projects... where the "experts" had screwed up the specifics and the project manager didn't know any better. I'm talking big projects, too... implementation of managed services for 17,000 PC's in 17 countries. Ready for that?
A story. I knew a British couple, both highly experienced PM's in the IT arena who came to Singapore on the promise of a local recruiter/business development manager. After more than a year searching for jobs, they were about to go back to England when my firm met them at a bar and hired them (my business partner was the former MD of a large managed services company in Asia and had a very large Rolodex of contacts... that's how we survived and prospered). And this was in 2004-2008 when the place was booming in the IT world.
It's a lot different than that now. The 2008 recession redefined the IT landscape in Asia. It drove globalization of IT and made my business model obsolete. It drove out call centers from Singapore and into Manila, KL, and India. It drove software firms into low cost programming countries. It drove PMO's and regional management into global PMO's located in Europe and the United States. What was, is no more.
You won't find a job with a client company who uses IT services. You may find a job with IT suppliers like Datacraft and Dell and Getronics and Toshiba and a handful of others. But, you don't need to come to Singapore to find out if you can. They are all global. You can start with their websites. Dell has a bunch of postings in Singapore. Anything you can do?
Apologies if I come across too hard. The realities are hard and your expectations are unrealistic if you think project management experience alone is going to get you the job. I'll close with one anecdote. After coming back to the USA, I had a chance to bid on a job. I lost out to a Chinese "project manager". He had the credential but no experience. His big saving grace? He worked REAL cheap compared to me. How will you fight that?