Writing a Project Management Resume that Will Get You an Interview

Project management is a great career path to go down. Any organization will need a project manager at some point. Project managers need to be adept with a wide variety of skills, and your resume should reflect this fact. Keep reading to find out how to write a project management resume that will get you an interview.

How to write a project management resume

Introducing yourself

Your introduction is absolutely crucial. If you don’t grab the hiring manager’s attention and set the tone well, your resume is getting tossed. Always begin with a headline that clearly states which project management position you are applying for. The company could be hiring for more than one position, so help the hiring manager out by specifying.

After you’ve done that it’s time to write your project manager resume summary. Think of this bit as your elevator pitch, in which you sum up your career highlights and reasons why you are suited for the position in project management. Think about what makes you uniquely prepared for the job. Sum up these thoughts into a focused and concise summary consisting of two or three sentences.

Writing a good summary

If you are having a hard time writing your summary, here are some good directions to go in. “Remember that your goal is to communicate the breadth and depth of your project management experience. A good way to demonstrate this is by briefly describing the scope of projects you’ve worked on, and the specific contributions you made,” advises Becky Vallo, a resume editor at OXEssays.

Prove that you are capable of managing a large amount of people and directing them towards a common goal. Think about some relevant project management skills you have obtained throughout the course of your career and then discuss how you would use them to benefit your new company.

How should you describe your experience?

“In project management, the golden rule for describing your experience is through your accomplishments. Remember that the best way to illustrate your achievements is to quantify them; give the hiring manager real-world examples with hard numbers whenever possible. Project management isn’t about coming in and punching the clock, it’s driven by things such as gaining clients, budgeting well, and turning around projects that were foundering,” writes Jason Nugent, a resume editor at Essayroo.

Don’t just say you managed to bring a project to completion under budget, tell them how much money you saved your client. If you increased annual revenue, say by what percentage you increased it. Focus on these kinds of accomplishments rather than your mundane day-to-day project management tasks. The hiring manager knows what a project manager does, what they’re looking for is your unique experience and potential contribution. What kind of a difference have you made at past positions? What kind of impact will you make if you’re hired?

Talking about your skills

Not everyone includes a skill section, but they can be a great way to make sure your resume is meeting the keyword requirement for the project manager job posting. It’s a common practice for companies to screen their resumes by using a program that searches for keywords. If you do not include enough of these keywords, your resume may be eliminated before a hiring manager even looks at it. On most resumes, the skill section would go near the end, but for project management, you are better off including it near the beginning. You want your showcase of skills to be seen by the hiring manager.

When listing your skills, the key is to make sure each one is relevant to the position you’re applying for. Some good skills include budgeting, marketing, project management software knowledge, and accounting. It’s also not a bad idea to include some soft skills. This includes critical thinking, planning, communication skills, and conflict resolution. Once again, keep things relevant; your ability to play the guitar or spin plates probably won’t come in handy.

Writing a quality resume with online tools

It’s not just the content that matters. How you write and edit your resume tells the hiring manager a lot about what kind of employee you will be. Invest some time into upgrading your writing skills with:

Grammar resources

ViaWriting and WritingPopulist.

Use these grammar resources to make sure you haven’t left any grammatical mistakes in your resume. Like it or not, you will be judged by the way you write.

Academized and EliteAssignmentHelp.

Edit your resume with help from these tools, suggested by WriteMyAustralia. It’s easy to miss a mistake or two, so get some piece of mind by having a pro do it.

Specific resources for working with resumes

Resumention.

This service is designed specifically for people who need help writing, editing, and formatting their resumes. Don’t turn in a subpar resume when there are people who can turn it into a great resume.

Proofreading resources

CV Service and Boomessays.

Proofreading can be a tedious and difficult process.  These tools, reviewed at UKWritings, can guarantee a simple and effective proofreading process.

Career writing blogs

MyWritingWay and SimpleGrad.

Read over these career writing blogs to expand your knowledge about resumes and how to improve them.

Writing guides

StateofWriting and LetsGoandLearn.

Check out these writing guides for a straightforward approach to writing your resume.

Formatting

Now we get to everybody’s favorite topic: formatting. Believe it or not, proper formatting can make or break your project management resume. It’s all about putting your sections in the right order and organizing things so that the hiring manager can see your best stuff easily. Your three main sections of education, experience, and skills should be near the top, easily within view. Leave less important parts such as hobbies, volunteer work, and unrelated experience and education to the end, or consider cutting them out altogether if you don’t have the space.

When it comes to your education, it will depend on your level of experience. If you are just starting out, and lack experience, then you will want to make your education section prominent and expand on it. If you are an experienced project manager, then your education becomes less important.

Conclusion

A good project management resume is focused on what the employer needs, and not what you want. Focus on demonstrating what you can bring to the position, and whenever possible, back it up with hard numbers. Follow this guide to write a project management resume that will get you an interview.