Expert 2-Phase Method: How to Craft a Great Project Manager CV

The gateway to your next great job is your CV; your resumé. While it won’t get you the job you want, on its own, you certainly won’t get that job with a poor CV. There is an art, a craft, and a skill to writing a great Project Manager CV. Let’s take a look…

How We’ll Tackle this Topic

I will tackle the topic of creating a powerful Project Management resumé in seven parts. Much of this will bring together many familiar ideas that you’ll find in other articles. But section 2 is unique. It sets out my 2-phase Method for Crafting the Perfect Project Management CV.

1. Why? What is a CV For?
2. My 2-Phase Method for Crafting the Perfect Project Management CV
3. What are Employers Looking for in a Project Manager?
4. Content is King: What to Put into Your Project Manager CV
5. Style Matters: How to Write Your Project Manager CV
6. Easy Format: Create a Compelling Format for Your Project Manager CV
7. Top Tips: Final Advice for Your Project Manager CV

So, first off, let’s understand why you need a CV and what it is for. Because it is not there to get you a job. It never should.

Why? What is a CV For?

A CV or career resumé has only one job: to get you to the next stage of the recruitment process. That stage is usually – but not always – an interview. However, it could also be an assessment center or some form of testing, for example.

Critically, it doesn’t have to do all the heavy lifting to get you the job. It needs to justify that you are worth the investment in time and resources, for the recruiter to take you to the next stage of the process.

So, in crafting your CV, you need to understand the core criteria that the potential employer is looking to fulfill. Then, you need to make sure that your CV meets those criteria and provides sufficient evidence to back them up.

Applicant Tracking Systems

These days, there is also a very real possibility that your CV will be read, not by a human, but by an AI, an Artificial Intelligence. This is usually in the form of a software tool, known as an ATS.

Jargon Term: ATS – Applicant Tracking System

This means that, in creating your CV, you must ensure that it is easy to read, not just for a human assessor, but also for a computer. The implication is simple… Make all the essential information clear, unambiguous, and easy to spot. Use descriptive headings and keywords.

Put as Simply as Possible…

What is a CV for? In simple terms, it’s a pre-qualification. So:

• make it easy to read
• make it accurate

The second of these is crucial, to avoid wasting the interviewer’s time and yours. The worst outcome is that you get to a later stage in the process – perhaps even employment – and then your recruiter (or employer) discovers you have lied.

My 2-Phase Method for Crafting the Perfect Project Management CVC

Every article and book chapter I have ever read on the topic tells you what to put into a CV. None have told me how to create it. So, let me tell you…

It’s a two-phase process:

1. Create Your General CV
2. Customize it to craft the CVs you will use

I’ll also briefly mention the cover letter (or email) you send to wrap around, and introduce, your CV.

Phase 1: Create Your General CV

Start the process by gathering and sorting all your information. In the fourth part of this article, we’ll see what information you’ll need. But don’t start to assemble it into a CV yet.

A great CV comes from thinking: not from typing up your data!

Ask yourself, what are your:

• Strengths
  What are you most skilled at, experienced at, and capable of doing
• Differentiators
  What makes you different from people who might apply for the same opportunities?
• Goals
  In what direction do you want to take your career next?

Finally, use these to answer the question: ‘What can you offer an employer?’

Now, build your basic, general CV out of your information. But build it to demonstrate your answers to these questions.

However, you should never, ever use this CV.

It is just the starting point for crafting the CVs that you will use.

Phase 2: Customize it to craft the CVs you will use

For every application, you need to create a new CV. You should always tailor it to the particular opportunity.

Now you should be asking yourself: ‘What can you offer this employer?’

Did you spot the difference from last time? I made it easy!

How do you do this?

You need to figure out what this employer wants. The places to search for the answers are the:

• Job advert
• Employer’s website and literature
• Application pack
• Job description (JD)
• Person Specification (Person spec or PS)

Go through these and look for the keywords, jargon, and phrases they use. Use these to:

1. Re-select which information you present
2. Get rid of information that has low or no relevance
3. Determine which information to prioritize and lead with
4. Craft the way you represent that information, so it is relevant to this employer
5. Ensure that their keywords are in your CV in a relevant and easy-to-find way

Cover Letter

A cover letter is a courtesy to the human being who gets your CV. But don’t turn it into an insult by making it too long. Chances are, if it’s too long, they simply won’t read it. They won’t have time, because they will probably be getting tens, maybe hundreds, of applications.

And, if it’s an ATS that ‘opens’ your letter or email… Well, probably its instructions are to not read the cover note at all.

So, what this means is that your cover letter should never contain anything of substance that is not in your CV. If it’s relevant, put it in your CV. If it’s not, then keep it out of your CV and your cover letter.

That said, what should you emphasize in your cover letter?

I would use it to highlight why you are a good fit for their requirements. Highlight one key part of your CV that makes your case most strongly. And, in the way you do this, show your enthusiasm for this opportunity. And end by confirming your availability for the next stage.

What are Employers Looking for in a Project Manager?

Of course, your potential employer is looking for strong project management skills:

• Planning and scheduling
• Budgeting and cost management
• Risk and issue management
• Stakeholder engagement
• Project governance
• …and all that

That show goes without saying. And, any candidate should have all of that.

More Detail

For more on these core skills, an article you should read:

• 12 Essential Things a Project Manager Should do: How are you doing?

And here are two videos, that focus on technical and non-technical skills, respectively:

• Top 15 Management Skills that Project Managers Need to Master | Video
• Top 12 Non-Technical Skills that a Project Manager Needs | Video

But, when I was recruiting, there were three things I was particularly focusing on. And the first place I’d look for evidence was on the CV. I’d be looking for examples that showed me a candidate has:

• Flexibility
  Can you find different ways to rapidly adapt to changes in your situation? Have you got examples of how you solved problems and removed impediments to progress?
• People-skills
  Can you work well with other people and get the best out of them? Are you self-aware and able to treat everyone you meet with respect?
• A can-do attitude
  Do you start with the assumption that you and your team can solve problems, recover from setbacks, and make things happen? Do you have clear aspirations and a plan for how you will move towards achieving them?

Learn More

Here are some further articles from this website, which develop these, more distinctive capabilities:

• How to Be the Best Project Manager You Can Be
• Alpha Project Managers: What you’ll Learn and Whether to Buy it

And here are some videos – each with a different perspective:

• How to Succeed in Project Management: 8 Skills to Cultivate | Video
• How to Become a Great Project Manager – 3 things you need | Video
• What do Good Project Managers do that Average PMs Don’t? | Video

Content is King: What to Put into Your Project Manager CV

I’ll split the content of your CV into two main parts:

1. Essential Content
   I cannot imagine a CV that won’t include this stuff
2. Additional Content
   This is discretionary. Whether you include it or not will depend on things like:
   • Your preferences
   • Where you are in your career (early, mid, or mature professional)The culture where you are in terms of geography and industry sector
   • Specifications that a potential employer sets out

Essential Project Manager CV Content

I will list this in the order in which it most commonly appears on a typical Project Management resumé.

Name and Contact Details

Make sure your name is clear and bold, and placed at the top of page 1. And, by the way, it is also good practice to ensure your name appears in a header or footer of all other pages, in case they get printed and later become separated.

You’ll also want to put your contact details and the usual places are at the top, with your name, or at the end. As a minimum, give your email address and phone number. Most organizations want an address, and I would recommend your LinkedIn details too. However, if you do add these, be sure your profile is up-to-date and completely consistent with your CV.

Summary

This is usually at the top as the first substantial piece of content. But, when you’re preparing your CV, don’t start with it. Instead, draft it after everything else is in place. Sometimes, it will be the only thing someone reads. So, take your time to craft the message, style, and detail with great care.

Experience

List your work experience in reverse chronological order. That is, start with the most recent experience and work back.

Usually, your more recent experience will also be more relevant. So putting it first makes the most sense.

Allocate space and detail according to the priorities for the role at hand. You should ensure the text reflects what you achieved and the difference you made, rather than just the role you played and the responsibilities you held.

Wherever you can, quantify your results and also give metrics for the scale of your project, like personnel numbers, budget, and reach.

At the start of your career, list project or work experience that you have from placements, internships, and voluntary or community work. Projects or roles you have helped with, at university or school, and in social or sporting settings can say a lot about your capabilities and character.

Qualifications

If you have relevant qualifications, list them, with the date achieved and, if appropriate, any grading. These will usually be far more important to employers than your education record (for which, see below).

Additional Project Manager CV Content

I shall list this in no particular order. However, as you go through these, these items become less common in my own experience with professional CVs. But this may be very different where you are.

But, please note, there’s just one thing that is important in determining whether to include this information: relevance to the job opportunity.

Skills

What are you able to do? Don’t waste space on things every candidate would be able to do. Focus on what matters most for the job and what creates the greatest differentiation. You may want to split this into:

• Job-specific technical skills (like PM methodologies)
• Transferrable and soft skills

A Strapline or Headline

I like this idea. Come up with a few words to describe yourself, and place it below your name. This can be either:

• Strictly Factual, for example:
  • Finance-sector Project Manager
  • IT Project Manager
• Descriptive, for example:
  • Creative Project Problem-solver
  • A veteran of three mega projects

Languages

Do you speak additional languages and, if so, to what level of competence? Most employers now value this additional flexibility. Some will require it.

Education

The further you get into your career, the less your formal education matters to employers. However, at the start of your career, this may be one of the only objective measures they have, of your capabilities. I usually recommend you stick to the highest level of formal education you have achieved. However, the rule is to understand expectations in your region and industry.

Training Received

Although certifications are verifiable, it can also be useful to a potential employer, to know what other (job-relevant) training you have had.

Industry and Technical Specialisms

If you have particular expertise in one or two industry sectors, or perhaps in a niche or a particular Project Management methodology, this can be useful information to put on your CV.

Your Career Goals or Aspirations

Some people like to articulate career goals or aspirations within their CV. This can have the benefit of helping a potential employer see how to fit you into their organization long-term. But be sure that you are honest. As they say, ‘Be careful what you wish for: it may come true’!

And, if your career goals don’t match the job role, then what on earth are you doing applying for this job keep them to yourself!

Publications and Conference Presentations

A great way to show expertise and eminence in your profession is to list prestigious conferences and publications to which you have contributed.

Relevant Interests Outside of Work

Employers don’t care whether you like sport at the weekends or knitting after work. But, where outside interests have real relevance to the job, they can be an asset.

Style Matters: How to Write Your Project Manager CV

Once you have decided on what content to include, you now need to think about how to articulate the information.

The imperative is that your writing is:

• Clear
• Unambiguous
• Easy to read

So, my tips are to use:

• Action words: what you achieved and did, not what you were
• Results: changes you created
• Facts: data and metrics that quantify your achievements
• Bullet points: convey information more concisely than paragraphs
• Active voice: ‘delivered $100,000 revenue increase’ rather than ‘$100,000 revenue increase was delivered’

Create a draft, and revise it several times to hone the style. My 2023 hot tip is to try pasting it into ChatGPT or Gemini, and ask it to re-write it with fewer words and more impact.

By the way…

I did exactly that with the previous paragraph.

ChatGPT suggested:

‘Draft, revise, hone style. 2023 tip: Paste in ChatGPT/Bard for shorter, punchier rewrite.’

Gemini made two suggestions:

‘Create a draft, revise it several times, and use ChatGPT or Bard to make it more concise and impactful.’ – and:

‘Use ChatGPT or Gemini to rewrite your draft, making it more concise and impactful. Then, revise it several times.’

Easy Format: Create a Compelling Format for Your Project Manager CV

Once you have the content text in place, it’s time to format it. Create a template that makes effective use of:

• Layout
• Color
• Font
• Proportion

Better still, unless you have good design skills, I suggest you find a template online by searching for either ‘Project Management CV Template’ or ‘Project Management Resumé Template’.

You may not need to buy a template. My trick is to find a couple of good examples and then use my own formatting skills to replicate them. Then add your text to both and decide which works best for you.

Formatting Tips

Your priority is to make your CV appealing and easy to read. So, pay attention to:

• Fonts
  Use a standard font that the employer’s printers will render correctly. Make it one that is clear and easy to read (by a person or an ATS) and keep the point size at 11 pt minimum. 12 pt is better as a standard.
• Colors
  You can use color to make your CV stand out. However, avoid creating the wrong impression – some colors are playful and may convey the wrong message. Always try printing your color CV on a black-and-white printer to check legibility. And ensure a high contrast between the main text and its background. Black on white is a classic for a reason!
• White Space
  If you crowd too much content onto your CV, with not enough space for it to breathe, your CV will be off-putting. Short paragraphs and gaps between them help readability.
• Layout
  This needs to make sense, clustering similar information and presenting it in a logical sequence.

How Many Pages?

There is a very common perception that you should keep your CV to a maximum of two pages. Not bad advice in many cases, but, like everything, the truth is… ‘it depends’.

• Does the employer set a formal requirement or express a preference?
• Do you have too much relevant information for two pages? This is increasingly likely as your career progresses.

Top Tips: Final Advice for Your Project Manager CV

Most of my top tips have already come up in the major principles I have outlined. But it does not hurt to remind you of them.

1. Make it easy for the reader to extract the key facts of your career
2. Tailor your CV to the opportunity
3. Hit the keywords of the job specification
4. Keep your CV concise (but not terse!)

There are two additional tips I’d like to share…

File Format

I looked this up on the web and found equal amounts of two conflicting pieces of advice (bear with me). Submit an electronic copy of your CV in:

1. PDF format
   This is a universal file format, that can bake in fonts and formatting to ensure that your CV prints out exactly as you intended. By the way, PDF stands for Portable Document Format.
2. Word Document format
   Some ATS software cannot read PDF documents reliably, so submit your CV in Word document format

Hmmm. What to do? The answer, my friend, is easy…
First, check your application documentation for an instruction. If you cannot find one… Ask!

Proof Reading

Your CV is the next step towards your future. And, I presume, towards a future you want. So, don’t squander that future with a shortcut. Take the time to proofread your CV several times – leaving at least a day before the final read-through. Better still, give it to a trusted friend or colleague before finalizing your CV.

Proofread for:

• Factual errors
• Typos and spellings – especially with names and numbers
• Grammatical mistakes
• Style and readability
• Layout and overall impression

Here’s a tip. Copy and paste your email from an electronic copy and send a test email. Does it arrive? Now do the same for your phone number and text it to a friend, asking them to dial it. Does the call reach you?

Please Share Your Thoughts

I am always keen to hear your thoughts, opinions, and experiences. And, of course, I will always answer any questions you ask. So, please do join the conversation in the Q&A section, below.

Learn More

The PM Job role

• What You Need to Know about the Project Manager Job Description
• Do You Understand the Role of the Project Manager?
• The Role of a Project Manager: Project Management Responsibilities | Video

Getting a Project Management Job

• Can you Get a Project Management Job? (Here’s How)
• How to Get Your First Project Management Job | Video

Interview process

• Essential Project Management Interview Questions

• Project Management Job Interview – How to Crack it! | Video
• What is the STAR Format for Behavioral Interviews? | Video