An excellent project manager resume must reflect this occupation's transcendence across career paths and will have you zooming along that path to your next job.
Project managers are the corporate magicians of the 21st century. With a remarkable knack for ensuring each project outcome is greater than the sum of its parts, they rely on a skill set that’s very specific but infinitely applicable in virtually any field making your resume the key to transitioning among fields and projects easily.
Resume.io can help you project that when writing a project manager resume that we hope will secure a range of fascinating offers. We’ve developed more than 500 occupation-specific resume guides and resume examples along with expert advice and job search resources such as our resume builder.
This project manager resume writing guide, along with the corresponding resume example, will cover these topics:
First things first: the easiest part of writing a project manager resume applies to virtually all occupations. Here is the basic framework of components:
Before we move on to each section, we offer a few general writing tips: Above all, a project manager resume should be easy to read. Be consistent in your use of bullet points and lists, and don’t go into too much detail that could be expanded upon during an interview. Avoid repeating the same phrases in multiple parts of the resume unless the context is different. Make sure you include enough keywords for the ATS, but not if it sounds forced and disrupts the flow. Keep in mind your resume will be "read" by machines first and then humans.
Nailing down the content for your project manager resume may not be straightforward. The best project managers don’t take too much time to analyze decisions or weigh options.They rely on their experience, people skills and instincts to make correct call after correct call.
The nature of a project manager's work varies greatly, depending on the industry and functional area. But there are some common aspects. How you go about managing your projects and the attitude you bring to each one are uniquely yours. And in every instance, the impact on those around you is huge.
So what elements of your role should your project manager resume include? Here are some ideas:
A project manager resume has to cover all of these aspects of the role and many more. But first, to make any of it matter, you need to make sure that the hiring manager will actually receive and read your resume at all. So let's look at how ATS software works and how your resume can pass through this digital screening tool.
A project manager resume has to cover all of these aspects of the role and many more. But first, to make any of it matter, you need to make sure that the hiring manager will actually receive and read your resume at all. So let's look at how ATS software works and how your resume can pass through this digital screening tool.
Each project manager position you apply for will have very specific requirements, as outlined in the advertised job posting. The project / job description will contain keywords that the applicant tracking system (ATS) software will be searching for in each project management resume submitted online. Only resumes with a high enough keyword score ranking will make it through this digital filter and the rest are eliminated.
Sometimes the project scope and requirements are not entirely clear or specific in the posted job description, so the right keyword choices can be tricky. Still, the more deliberate you can be in scrutinizing the job description and incorporating well-matched keywords in your project manager resume, the higher its ATS score. Applicants who understand how an ATS works have a much better chance of delivering their resume to human eyes. Then the project manager recruitment journey can begin in earnest.
In many of our resume writing guides, we suggest researching the employer’s website to better understand the job application. For a project manager, this is very important because the expectations and project management structure for every business will be different.
The summary and skills sections of your project manager resume are where keywords matter most for ATS protection. Later on, we'll take a closer look at writing each of those sections.
The most commonly used reverse chronological order format is recommended for structuring resumes in most occupations, and may be suitable for many project manager resumes. It gives recruiters the most straightforward overview of your career highlights, beginning with your most recent project, in the employment history section.
But if you are new to the workforce, making a dramatic career shift, or your project manager background has not followed a linear path of employee positions, take a look at alternative resume formats.
Having primarily a consulting background of contract work might be a reason to consider a functional resume structure. Maybe you want to focus on specific project manager skills, an occupation-specific area of professional expertise or industry sector. This should depend on the position you are seeking, as well as your career goals. Another option is a hybrid resume format, combining some elements of the chronological and functional structure.
When exploring the many resume templates in our resume builder, select the format that best suits your situation. We have plenty of versions of the three formats available as resume examples.
A well-designed header will draw attention to your project management resume for the right reasons. There will be no mistake about who your resume belongs to, your occupation and your contact information so recruiters can readily get in touch with you to set up an interview.
These key facts belong in your header:
Ideally, the header had a lot to do with impressing them at first glance, because of the eye-pleasing design. Consider aligning the visual style of your resume and cover letter documents so it is obvious they are a matched set. Try to be consistent with the brand or image of the employer and industry at the same time.
Kermit Addams
Project Manager
(813) 991-4721
kermit.addams@outlook.com
Tampa, FL
Kermit Addams
Manager of All Things Important
(813) 991-4721
(813) 429-5516
(813) 662-0497
Birthdate: June 12, 1999
kermit.addams@outlook.com
Your project manager 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 thrown at you.
Don’t 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.
The summary, which varies slightly from a personal statement, is one of the few places on a resume for a project manager where you can express the subtleties of your experience in free-form text. It is hard to summarize an extensive, project-rich career in a few sentences. But if you include the most hard-hitting ones and include some sample numbers to back up your claims, your project manager resume summary will create a great first impression.
We already emphasized the importance of using the right keywords in your project manager resume to ensure it passes through the ATS screening filter. The posted job requirements are your best source of keywords for that purpose.
The summary is one place where it's important to strive for a strong correlation with the keywords you've identified in the posted job description. Besides ATS protection to better the chances of hiring managers seeing your resume, the right keywords can actually inform the way you choose to present yourself in the summary to make the best first impression possible.
For more guidance, check out these related resume examples:
You can find adaptable project manager resume example summaries below:
Results-driven and highly motivated individual with a solid educational background in project management, eager to embark on a dynamic project management career. Possessing excellent organizational and communication skills, coupled with a strong analytical mindset. A quick learner well-versed in project management methodologies and tools, and committed to delivering high-quality results within defined timelines and budgets
Dynamic project manager with an enviable track record spanning nine years in the retail sector. Proficient in stakeholder management, risk assessment and strategy formulation. Flexible approach to project methodology means that team performance and cohesiveness is optimized, while ensuring all goals are met within scope and budget.
Strategic Senior Project Manager with more than a decade of spearheading and delivering complex initiatives across diverse industries. Expertise in project lifecycle management, from initiation through execution and closure, consistently achieving on-time and within-budget project delivery. Exceptional communication skills, fostering collaborative relationships with clients, executive leadership, and team members.
When writing the employment history section of your project manager resume, it's important to include the projects most relevant to the future role you seek. Projects completed a decade ago may be somewhat relevant, but your experience will seem more current if you can highlight recent examples.
Substantiate these examples with as many figures and statistics as you can, since the core rationale behind most projects is to bring a measurable business benefit. Unless you can quantify your past contributions, not many potential employers will take your resume seriously. It's important to understand and communicate your contributions in relatable terms.
Make sure there is a “people” thread running through your employment history. No project managers achieve anything by themselves, so describe how you motivated those around you to work together for a common goal. Otherwise, it’s like outlining in a PowerPoint presentation what has to be done, but failing to mention you have to bring people together to achieve it.
For detailed project descriptions in your employment history section, you might consider using the STARR method for outlining each accomplishment: Situation, Task(s), Actions / strategy, Result and, optionally, Reflection. This approach helps keep the work experience highlights on your project manager resume logical and straightforward.
Here are a few examples of how a project manager might elaborate on their skills in their employment history section.:
Below is a project manager employment history resume sample.
Project Manager, Macy's, Inc., Los Angeles
September 2012 - Present
Associate Project Manager, Sam Edelman, San Francisco
September 2008 - August 2012
In the world of 360-degree feedback, it is often a good idea to ask for examples of your core skills. This is an interesting exercise. When writing your project manager resume, it helps you stay true to yourself and focus on your best-fit jobs.
A project manager needs a host of soft skills to juggle the many aspects of keeping a project running smoothly and on budget. Aside from excellent communication skills, problem-solving and organization, project managers also need to manage both time and risk.
Complementing those hard skills are knowledge of the industry in which you work and project management software.
In addition to listing your skills or offering pre-written skills, the resume builder allows you to include your proficiency level.
Check out a project manager resume sample for the skills section below.
Hiring managers will be looking beyond the text to ascertain whether you have the skills for the role, so make it absolutely clear to them that this is the case.
A resume for a project manager should be infused with professional skills throughout. Each bullet item should enumerate one of the actions you have taken to successfully shepherd a project and within your summary, highlight an impressive achievement and the skills you used to get there.
What your project manager resume may have in common with many others is the listing of an undergraduate business degree in the education section, since this can give you a broad understanding of which business levers to pull and how to pull them efficiently.
It's also not unusual for project managers to have an operations background, where higher-level educational qualifications are less significant, or a degree in the specific industry in which the PM works.
While your track record of relevant employment experience normally takes precedence, a mix of education and training will still be considered if several job candidates have similar qualifications. The same goes for on-the-job training.
If you have quite a few courses or other project management qualifications to list in the education section, be sure to include dates. This readily shows a track record of consistent learning. Your project manager resume should reflect your continuing intentions to keep learning and growing
Below is the education section from a project manager resume example.
M.B.A, Pomona College, Claremont
August 2008 - May 2010
Bachelor of Business Administration, UNC Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill
August 2004 - May 2008
While great resume writing is important, project managers know how much presentation counts too. Choosing the best layout, design and text formatting options for your PM resume is a matter of personal taste. Always strive for the right balance between style and functionality.
To take the guesswork out of layout and design decisions for your project manager resume, consider using one of our resume templates, offering quick, professional formatting options that are easily customizable. A great template can quickly take your resume format from average to stand-out in just a few clicks. Resume.io's field-tested templates are organized in four categories: simple, creative, professional and modern. Each is pre-filled with sample sentences that our builder tool makes easy to replace with your own text for an eye-catching project manager resume.
If you can herd cats and juggle all the details of a project, you have the makings of an excellent project manager and good for you, because good project managers are hard to find. This field is expected to see 6 percent growth over the next decade, according to US labor statistics.
Almost all industry verticals require project managers, but here are Knowledge Hut’s top 10 with their average base salaries: