Switching from HR to project management at 37: the real timeline

The kitchen table still has a faint ring where my coffee mug sat every night in the fall of 2022. Harper went to bed at 8:15, I opened the prep book at 8:30 and I closed it at 10. Four nights a week, for four months. That's the part of my career switch people ask about, and it turned out to be the shortest part.

I was 35 when I started studying for the PMP and 37 when I walked into my first project management job. From the first night at the table to my first day at the new company took about seventeen months. Here's how it actually went.

2022: deciding, then studying

Spring 2022. I was running the HR side of a department move at the hospital: about 140 employees, new schedules, new badge access and an opening date that wasn't moving. I caught myself enjoying the project plan more than any policy question I'd answered in years. Ben noticed before I did. "You talk about that Gantt chart like it's a person," he said.

July 2022. I checked the exam requirements and spent most of the month documenting my project hours from old calendars and from the running list of work wins I'd kept since 2019. With a four-year degree, you need three years of project experience and 35 hours of project management training. I took an online course for the hours.

August through November 2022. The kitchen table months. Harper was seven and in second grade. I studied Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday nights, took a full practice exam every other Saturday morning and passed in November.

What it cost us, from the budget spreadsheet: a little over $500 for the exam fee and a one-year membership, about $300 for the course and $34 for a used prep book. Call it $850, logged under "career" on the November tab.

2023: eleven applications

January and February. I rewrote my resume from scratch, turning HR work into project language. "Supported a department relocation" became "Led a nine-month relocation of 140 employees; opened on the scheduled date and $18,000 under the moving budget." Same work, different verbs, real numbers.

March through October. Eleven applications, mostly in Huntsville, a couple remote. Five never answered. Three sent polite rejections. Three turned into interviews.

From the HR side: a recruiter screening a stack of resumes reads the most recent title first, and an HR business partner applying for a project manager job gets maybe six seconds. The PMP line near the top bought me a few more seconds. The numbers bought me the interviews.

The first interview, in May, was with a construction firm that really wanted someone who had worked on job sites. Fair. The second, in August, was a good role that required five days a week in an office about an hour from home, and after doing the math on after-school pickups I withdrew. The third, in October, was with an engineering services company in Cummings Research Park: two rounds, a hybrid schedule and a team that asked good questions.

The offer, and my mistake

The recruiter called in November with an offer of $88,000. I'd been making $71,500 at the hospital, and the $16,500 jump looked so big that I said yes before she finished the sentence. I didn't ask a single question about the number.

I'd spent years in HR watching offers get built, and I knew there's often a little room in a first offer. Here's what I wish I'd said: "Thank you, I'm excited about this. Is there any flexibility on the base salary?" Maybe the answer would have been no. I'll never know, and that's the point.

I gave notice in early December, finished at the hospital before Christmas and started on January 8, 2024, Harper's ninth birthday. We had cake that night. I was too tired to taste it.

Here's the whole thing in one place:

If you're 37 and thinking about it, this is what happened to me, not a forecast for you. But I'd plan for a year and a half rather than four months, and I'd ask about the number.