Become an IT Project Manager (make a TON of money!) feat. Jeremy Cioara - PMP Certification
About this video
NetworkChuck opens by pitching IT project management on two grounds he attributes to Glassdoor: an average IT project manager salary of $97,000 a year and high demand. He then interviews CBT Nuggets trainer Jeremy Cioara about Cioara’s PMP training and why a technical trainer moved into project management. Cioara traces it to running his own company about nine years earlier and discovering the gap between technical knowledge and actually delivering projects in the real world, which he says made project management and soft skills feel essential and badly taught — he criticizes existing PMP courses as exam-cram focused on memorization rather than real practice. He says his course aims to teach PMP through real stories and scenarios (e.g., planning meetings, communicating an outage) so passing becomes a byproduct of competence. They agree the role suits people blending technical, sales or managerial experience, but is not for everyone, and that everyone informally manages projects in daily life. On getting certified, Cioara stresses PMP is not just an exam: it requires documenting thousands of hours of project experience, with sign-off, and the skill only develops by actually running meetings and projects, failing, and adjusting. Chuck notes his own painful experience managing network refreshes without a dedicated project manager.
Key takeaways
- Pitch in the video: Glassdoor-cited $97,000 average salary for IT project managers and high demand for the skill (creator-attributed figures)
- Cioara’s core argument: the key gap for IT pros is between technical knowledge and delivering real projects, which project management fills
- He criticizes typical PMP prep as memorization for the exam and says his CBT Nuggets course teaches through real-world stories instead
- PMP certification requires an exam plus documented thousands of hours of project experience — it cannot be earned by study alone
- Both agree project management is a learn-by-doing soft skill: expect early failures running meetings/projects, then iterate
Episode details: published October 7, 2019 · 15:27 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are NetworkChuck’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.
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