Match Your Project Manager Resume With A Cover Letter
Now that you know how to write an effective project manager resume, theres one more thing we need to address – how to write an impactful cover letter.
The point of a cover letter is to prove to the hiring manager that youre the full package – a competent project manager and the perfect fit for the company.
So, your cover letter should be personalized for the position and include any important details that you havent mentioned on your project manager resume.
Heres how to write a compelling cover letter :
Project Manager Cv Summary Example: The Overview
Your project manager CV resume summary should adopt a tone of proficiency and confidence. More than anything else, your future boss wants to understand that you are a project manager who can help make the impossible possible. You can handle anything that your future projects will throw at you.
Dont just describe what you do, describe how you do it. Help resume readers imagine what it is like to have you leading their project team. Project managers serve a critical role that will impact so many of their colleagues. So in the few seconds that hiring decision-makers spend reading your resume summary, it has to instill a sense of confidence in them.
Pick The Right Format For Your Project Manager Resume
The reverse-chronological resume format is by far the best option for your project manager resume.
As weve mentioned above, the reverse-chronological format is the most popular resume format worldwide. Its also a recruiters favorite!
Heres what it looks like:
This resume format gives the recruiter a clear picture of your professional background and work achievements by putting your project manager’s work experience in the foreground.
Now that youve chosen a format for your project manager resume, lets address the resume layout.
These are the resume layout elements you should pay attention to:
- Font style. Your project manager resume has to be easily readable, so choose a professional font style that looks good on both PDF and paper.
- Font size. Keep your font size at 11-12 pts for body text and 14-16 pts for section headings, so that your project manager resume is easy-to-read and fits into a single page.
- Bullet points. Whenever possible, use bullet points to present information and make your project manager resume easy-to-scan as well as well-organized.
- Resume length. Recruiters go through hundreds of resumes every day, so its best to fit your project manager resume in one page to make sure they actually read it.
- Resume file format. If not asked otherwise, always save your resume as a PDF file so that it looks the same no matter the device or OS the hiring manager uses.
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Specialization And Industry Experience
Since project managers are in such high demand, they can work in various industries and have a wide range of specializations.
If you’re looking for a more specialized PM role, you must highlight your experience in that specialization on your resume. If you’re looking for an I.T. project manager or technical project manager role, you should focus on your experience shepherding projects related to software.
Conversely, if you’re applying for a construction project manager role, then your experience in the field will be more valuable. Focus your resume based on the position you’re applying for, paying particular attention to the project manager job description.
Technical Project Manager Resume Education Example
This section of your technical project manager resume should be straightforward, even if your education and training path is different from those of other qualified candidates. Start by listing your relevant college degrees in reverse chronological order, from highest to lowest level. Include scholastic awards or other special achievements and honors, including GPA if impressive.
Although not always a job requirement for technical project managers, many candidates will have certifications to include in their resume education section .
According to Coursereport.com, these might include Certified Associate in Project Management , Agile Certified Practitioner , Professional in Business Analysis , Project Management Practitioner , Certified Scrum Master or Project Management Professional from the Project Management Institute.
Mention training or professional development programs youve completed on the job or on your own. Those related to your IT knowledge should be obvious. But be sure not to overlook your learning investments in management, leadership, communication or interpersonal skills.
Professional association memberships also send the right message by demonstrating your commitment to continuous learning, and also possible contributions outside the workplace.
Post-secondary education that is not relevant should take lower priority or be omitted from your resume. High school graduation need not be included.
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Transferable Skills For Your First Project Management Job
- Data analysis and metrics
- Quality control + attention to detail
- Achievements related to successful implementation in previous positions
- Calendar management with attention to deadlines
- Knowledge of project management methodologies
Project Management Resume Summary: Sharing Enough Info To Get Shortlisted
Not sure what the utility of a summary in a resume is?Your resume is a new project you’re going to manage.It starts with an inventory of your skills and resources.Then, you set an attainable goal to work on within a specific timeframe.Your project management resume summary helps you tell that story to your recruiter.So, how do you go from having separate sentences to writing an outstanding resume summary?What hiring managers want to learn is:
- Years of experience as a project manager at different companies
- Most successful projects you worked on
- Strongest project management skills that allowed you to thrive in your past jobs
- Best results and accomplishments you achieved in your career
- Types of projects you were responsible for their implementation
To take this a step further, youll:
- Include precise metrics to support your claims.
- Use short, direct sentences to keep HRs interested.
- Personalize it by including specific project management keywords, skills, and achievements.
- Promote a unique value proposition after reading the job application.
Lets take a look at some project management resume summaries:
WRONG
This barely scratches the surface as to who the candidate is and what theyre up to. Instead, it makes them look too uninterested and lazy to update their resume.Lets make this better with a few simple changes.
RIGHT
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Follow Up With An Education Section And Professional Certifications
You can close your resume by listing details about your educational background and the professional certifications you’ve earned. Since project managers typically must pursue higher education, you should list your university’s name, its location, your dates of attendance, and any degrees you earned previously. In terms of certifications, you can list the credentials you possess that apply directly to the field of project management.
Read more:The 10 Most Valuable Certifications Today
Project Manager Resume Examples & Templates For 2022
Learn how to write a perfect project manager resume. Follow our step-by-step guide and see best practices for writing a project management resume with good and bad examples.
- Oversaw all IT projects and project management duties and responsibilities, with focus on cost reduction.
- Responsible for managing Lean program.
- Handled implementation of clear visual systems and Poka-Yoke controls.
The first of those senior project coordinator resume examples is award-worthy. It shows youre exactly the right candidate.
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Add Your Contact Information
Now that youve dealt with formatting your project manager resume, you can start filling in the contents.
Lets begin with the basics – simply add your contact information, including:
- Your first name and last name
- Your title
Boston, Massachusetts
linkedin.com/in/laurenanderson29
This step is as easy as it looks – you just have to make sure to fill in the contact details correctly.
Otherwise, you may leave a bad impression which can hurt your application.
After all, no company wants a project manager whos sloppy and doesnt pay enough attention to details.
Finalizing Your Project Manager Resume
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Building a project manager resume can feel like a daunting task, but the hardest part is getting started you can always start with a basic resume outline.
Feel free to edit one of the resumes above in our builder for the best resume format or download the project manager resumes as a PDF if you want a good starting point.
Check out our free resume templates or choose a simple resume template we created in Google Docs follow the rules in this guide, and you’ll be well on your way towards landing your next role as a project manager. Here’s a quick summary of our resume tips:
- Only include skills you’d be comfortable being interviewed on in your resume. Have these skills in your “skills” section and in the context of your work experience.
- Make sure your resume objective or resume summary adds value to your candidacy. Avoid vague or generic statements.
- When discussing your work experience, highlight the details of one to two major projects you worked on instead of focusing on one-off tasks you completed.
- Be sure to include your highest level of education and any certifications you have in your resume objective or summary.
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Add Relevant Additional Sections
If you have extra space left in your project manager resume, you can add some additional sections in it:
- Awards and Honors: If you have any related to project management
- Hobbies & Interests: If you any hobbies you have that can help you put your best foot forward for the job
- Volunteer Experience Section: If you have done any relevant experience
- Certification Section: Add if you have project management certification
How To Write An It Project Manager Resume
Before you start writing, make sure you know how to write a resume in a way that best emphasizes your strengths.
As firms update and improve their IT systems, they need IT project managers to make sure their IT projects are executed properly.
Follow these four tips to show hiring managers you have the right skillset to implement and lead IT projects.
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What Is A Project Manager
Project managers are professionals who direct projects through various stages to meet the needs of organizations and their clients. These professionals typically handle project planning, process management and project control responsibilities, which encompass tasks like budget management, risk assessment, and research. In addition, they usually lead teams, manage their workflow, and monitor team member performance to ensure a project’s timely completion. Due to the highly applicable nature of their work, project managers may serve in a variety of industries, including information technology , healthcare, construction, and software development.
Read more:22 Essential Project Management Skills
Project Manager Resume Education
Project management is a role that requires lots of human interaction, flexibility, and creativity.And you dont learn this anywhere in school.So you might ask:Why do I need to include an education section in my resume anyway?Think of it this way:If youre the hiring manager and had to cut a list from 1000s of candidates down to a dozen ones, what would your criteria be?Youll now focus on the secondary features of the applicants.You want to hire someone who has all that, plus some relevant educational background.Your resume needs an education section. Of course, you wont detail out everything you learned since primary school. In fact, youll do the exact opposite.Youll list your highest school degree, the university or college you went to, and the duration you spent there.Check out this example:
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Resume Layout And Design
Nothing less than a professionally polished resume sample that also looks inviting to read will do for technical project managers. Put yourself in the hiring managers chair to deliver on the expectation of a streamlined, well-organized layout that does justice to your efficiency and attention to detail.The overall look should be eye-catching but not flashy or gimmicky.
And it should go without saying that your resume is letter-perfect and bug-free in every other sense. Put it through multiple beta test runs under anyones scrutiny but your own. Tweak it further and reboot with each proofreading.
Be mindful of the tech-confident impression you are trying to convey when making choices about font style and size, text formatting and color splashes. Strike a careful black-and-white balance on the page by going easy on the text-heavy blocks and augmenting the margins and line spacing. Make everything much easier for yourself by using Resume.ios builder tool with one of our field-tested resume templates.With all of the design and formatting details taken care of, it cant be any simpler.
The necessity of a striking, well-designed resume headeris not only for esthetic reasons. It clearly identifies who your resume belongs to and how interested recruiters can instantly reach you. Consider aligning your resumes graphic style noticeably in the header with the employers own visual brand, reflecting themes in its web pages and printed materials.
Project Manager Resume: Header
The resume header holds a lot of importance in a resume. It helps differentiate your resume from hundreds of other project manager resumes that have come in for the same designation.
The below-given points can help you frame the ideal header of your best project manager resume:
- Your full real name should be written at the topmost part of your program manager resume.
- The header of your project management resume should be written in 16-20 font-size.
- If you have a middle name, write only the initial of your middle name.
- Example: John Mathews Levesque should be written as “John L. Levesque.”
Project manager resume Header Example:
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Project Manager Career Overview
Job Outlook
The job outlook for Project Managers is growing anywhere from 6% to 12% per year, depending on the industry. In 2018 there were 934,400 jobs available.
Average Salary
Project Managers make $67,280 per year on average. However, salaries could be as high as $154,260 per year depending on experience, certifications, industry, and degrees.
Top Paying Salaries by State
The Bureau of Labor Statistics doesnât keep track of Project Managers, but lists them under âManagement Analysts.â Data for this occupation is listed below.
- $112,280 — New York
Creative Project Managerresume Examples & Samples
- Serve as project manager for a variety for creative projects including but not limited to collateral and event materials, HTML emails, microsites, presentation materials and videos
- Support Digital and Broadcast Production Managers in production hiring, scheduling and budgeting on a variety of projects including broadcast, print and digital
- Research potential production solutions including vendors, applications and tools
- 5+ years of work experience specifically managing digital creative projects
- Experience managing teams
- Self-motivated, accountable and highly organized
- Advanced Experience with QA, web issue tracking systems and creative review tools
- Ability to delegate projects and balance workload
- Highly responsive with strong interpersonal and written/verbal communication skills
- Ability to understand legal and brand requirements and ensure compliance to them
- Ability to thrive in fast-paced environment with complex projects
- Comfortable with technical concepts & knowledge of web development and online reporting tools
- Advanced experience with the windows environment and applications such as Microsoft Project, Excel, Word, Power Point, Adobe and WordPress
- Basecamp
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Section : Core Competencies
If you understand the hiring process today, then you understand the importance of applicant tracking systems or ATS. ATS software applications sort through thousands of resumes to find candidates that fit the job description. Applicant tracking software enables employers to save time, keep the recruiting process organized and save paper.
Applicant tracking systems are similar to recruiters in that they both look for key information to make the filtering decision. While recruiters look for grammar or spelling errors, or critical skills that are missing, applicant tracking system automated decisions are driven by the keywords found in your resume.
Key Takeaways For A Project Manager Resume
We hope this project manager resume example has helped you bring your experience and skills to life. With Resume.io’s tools and tips, you’re never alone in landing the perfect position!
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Describe Your Professional Experience
Below your core competencies section, showcase your work experience by describing two to three of your most recent and relevant roles. Hiring managers typically place a high value on this section, as your past accomplishments and development as a professional can indicate how successful you may be in a new role. In this section, you can include information about your previous titles, duties, and the objectives you accomplished using action verbs and quantifiable achievements.
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Project Management Resume Samples
Project management is the art of keeping a team coordinated and on-task in pursuit of a specific goal. Project managers need a unique skill set, including both managerial experience and hands-on industry knowledge. Time management and interpersonal skills are essential to this field, too. A project management resume should emphasize those abilities.
Suppose youre interested in a career as a project management professional. In that case, you can create an eye-catching resume by explaining your relevant skills and accomplishments. Of course, like any other industry, you should tailor your resume to the specific position for which youre applying. With that in mind, below are the seven most common types of project management positions, with sample resumes that work.
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