Project Coordinator Career Path

Why are project coordinators always in demand? Employers are so keen on hiring the right candidate for the project coordinator role. As the job requires, the project coordinators work with top-level managers, vice presidents, directors, managers, and production teams.

How does a project coordinator track every single status, handle projects even before the projects are initiated, and stand out from others?

Let us analyze the career path of a project coordinator in this blog.

Tips to Choose a Career Path

When and how to decide on a career path? Starting your analysis on the career path as early as possible is good. You need to identify your interests, passion, expertise, and social and family responsibilities before choosing your career path.

You can consult your friends, cousins, and college seniors to get an idea about different job profiles; however, you need to do this with caution as people generally include their opinion. Everyone has different skillsets, and something easy of one is not for the other. So make sure you understand only the job profiles and ignore unnecessary distractions. You can also analyze job portals and forums.

After the analysis, you can identify the gap in skillset, i.e., you will know how you need to equip yourself to get into your dream job. The next step is improving the necessary skills and applying for jobs.

Project Coordinator Career Path

You can read through the article '6 Tips for Building a Successful Career Path' to understand the rules of developing a career path framework, which would guide you to work systematically and grow exponentially.

Project Coordinator Job Description

The employers are looking for a wide range of skills from a candidate. Your education, interpersonal skills, managerial expertise, technical skills, and experience decide your eligibility to appear for an interview.

Education

The minimum educational qualification for project coordinator jobs is graduation in any discipline. Industry-specific roles require graduation or diploma in relevant fields. However, to build a good career path, you need to study further and get a post-graduate degree. Certification courses and project coordinator license add value to your profile.

Interpersonal Skills

Verbal and non-verbal communication skills play a vital role in the project coordinator job. You need to maintain a smooth relationship with everyone and get the work done. The position requires well-balanced communication skills – you can neither dominate others nor just listen to what everyone says. Decision-making skills are also critical. Analytical and listening skills are necessary, as well.

Management Skills

Developing a good career path depends on the management skills of a project coordinator. You need to build a budget, quality, schedule, people, and issue management skills. Documenting every process will help you keep track of your projects. Make sure to monitor the progress of your projects and check for the forthcoming schedules and availability of resources.

Technical Skills

Employers always look for candidates who have expertise in their industry. As you have to manage the complete life-cycle of projects, you must have a great understanding of all the processes and expertise in a few of them.

Experience

The requirement of experience may vary widely based on the major subject of your degree and depth projects. Some universities arrange for industrial training and internships as well. Employers may expect at least a minimum level of experience.

Project Coordinator Responsibilities

The project coordinator's involvement is crucial in every phase of projects. Their commitment starts before the assignment of work to the company, i.e., as a project coordinator, you need to analyze the project requirements, availability of resources, schedule, budget, etc.

Once the project is assigned, the project coordinator needs to analyze the requirements once again, create a budget, develop a schedule plan, get the budget and schedule approved, look for resources and book freelancers as necessary, build a project-specific check-list to ensure the quality of every deliverables, and get the complete process documented.

The project coordinator has to conduct regular meetings with the teams and clients to discuss the progress of work. The ultimate quality of a project coordinator is foreseeing the issues well ahead of time and make alternate arrangements for the smooth flow of work. A good project coordinator foresees issues even while handling multiple projects.

Project Coordinator Career Path / Growth

How do project coordinators grow in their careers? What is the career path of project coordinators? The career path/growth depends on where you started your career and how you perform in the current role.

I have furnished below the general career path; however, it may slightly vary as per your skillset, industry, market and global economic status, and your prominence in the company:

• Executive (in production team)
• Assistant project coordinator
• Project coordinator or project manager
• Senior/lead project coordinator
• GM of project coordinators
• Vice President
• Director

The roles and responsibilities of the project coordinators are similar to project managers in some industries. The hierarchy may vary among companies. However, the overall career path is similar to the one given above. The project management process is briefly explained in the article 'An Overview of Project management'. 

As you climb the ladder of your career, you grow older and may face age discrimination. As a management executive, you need to handle ageism efficiently to reach your ultimate goal. 

Salary Range

The salary range varies widely based on your experience, expertise, industry, company, market level, and your salary salary negotiation skills.

You can get an idea of the salary range from Indeed or Glassdoor. If you have any reliable person in your domain, you can check with them.

Conclusion

So you now have a better understanding of the career path of a project coordinator. If you are interested in getting into project coordination/management, you can right away start sharpening the necessary skills mentioned in this article. You can check job descriptions posted on job portals to understand industry-specific requirements.