Project Manager Resume Guide – Best Tips and Examples

Introduction

A project manager is one that takes the responsibility for setting goals, planning resources, and making the team understand the goals of the project and all other related project tasks.

To begin with, there are a few things to be considered when you decide to get started with making an attractive project manager resume to start your career. Every organization receives a minimum of 400 resumes a day, at the very least. That is a total of 12,000 resumes a month. What makes your resume stand out from all of those 12 thousand-plus resumes?

This article introduces you to all the necessary details you need to know, which will guide you in building a progressive project manager resume.

What is Project Manager?

The role of a professional project manager in an organization is to take responsibility to make sure that the project is properly managed, planned, and executed as scheduled. They also have to work under some limitations, like budget and schedule.

Project managers play one of the lead roles in managing the project resources and project tasks. They take the risk of dealing with the failures and successes of a working project.

Project managers make the project team clearly understand the scope of the project. The senior project manager or the director of project management makes sure of it.

Levels of project manager

Before building a progressive and effective project manager resume, you must first understand what level of project manager you are. Based on the hierarchy, the following is the list of levels of a project manager.

-Project Manager:

It is a position of mid-level role in the company's hierarchy. In companies, project managers report all updates to a senior or to the director of project management.

-Assistant Project Manager:

Hierarchically, an assistant project manager comes under the project manager. The updates are sometimes directly reported to the project managers. They also perform the same tasks and duties as a project manager.

-Senior Project Manager:

Hierarchically, a senior project manager comes after a project manager. This position in the corporate company is an advanced role in project management. When one gets promoted to a senior level, one also follows the same responsibilities of a project manager together with the supervising responsibilities.

-Director of Project Management:

The Director of Project Management is one of the highest-ranked staff members of the company's project management team. The director of program management controls the flow of deliverables and project planning.

All the project managers of the company would directly report to the director of project management, who makes sure of keeping the project on track. The director takes the responsibility for completing the project on time according to the plan and schedule.

-Team Leader:

A team leader guides and advises everyone in the team while the team leader follows instructions from the director. Members of the team get to pick a team member who will be labeled as a team leader.

This would help the team with taking one final decision while the team leader discusses all other alternative decisions taken by the director, clients, and stakeholders.

What is a Project Manager's Resume?

To begin with, what is a resume?

A resume also called a curriculum vitae in some parts of the world, is a formal form of document presentation. This describes one’s skills and qualifications as a person and presents their background in skill accomplishment.

A resume is usually written to express one’s interest in a specific position or job role at a company within the organization.

A resume includes all the necessary details, such as background education, projects worked on, skills attained, work experience, and other such details. In conclusion, it is more like a summary of your career which you want the organization to know about to see if you are fit for the role.

In the field of IT professional project management, it is important for a project manager to be more creative while designing a resume.

A project manager's resume must show how well they can handle the tasks provided. All the skills and experience you mention in the resume are what make the organization’s managers see you as a perfect fit for the specific role.

What to include in a Project Manager Resume?

A well-designed project manager resume can make a project manager appear more intriguing. It all depends on what details you add and where you add them. When you continue to design your resume, you must first understand the reason why you are doing so. With all the details you provide, your resume would speak for you.

Before getting started with designing a job-achieving project manager resume, it is important to understand the job description. Providing too many details can make you over-qualify. Hence, you have to be wise while designing a resume for any organization.

It is important that you check that all the mentioned sections are covered.

- Header is the section of the project manager's resume which holds all the necessary personal information like name, current and permanent address, and contact information like telephone number and email address. Such details provide an organization to get back to you after you perform an interview.

- Your career Objective is a type of short statement which summarizes your objective for the role you are applying for. When you give your resume a statement, make sure that the objective is related to the specific position that you are targeting.

- Education section holds all the details related to your educational qualifications. This must include the address and names of the education centers and also be listed title-wise in the order as follows.

- High school education

- Pre-university education

- Degree education

- Master’s Degree education

- Certifications

- Experience section must include the details of all types of work and related experience you have for the targeted position of an organization. This section of the resume includes the individual's past work experience, internships, freelance projects, volunteer work, and any other experiences related to the job.

Every organization seeks candidates with at least a little experience. Hence, it is important to mention in your Project Manager Resume all the experiences you have had, including internships and work experience with your previous employer.

- Honors section in a resume holds all the other skills you possess. This can include any type of honor, like trophies, medals, certificates, and other such honors you have earned in your life. The fact that you mention it on the resume makes the organization understand how involved you can be in solving tasks.

- Skills part of the resume carries all the skillsets you have practiced and learned. In a project manager's resume, skills play a very vital role since they describe what you are capable of and how much you have learned.

You can categorize them into soft skills and hard skills. Soft skills determine your dedication and hardship to working for the organization, while hard skills represent the skillset that you have that can help the organization with its growth and reputation.

Soft skills: (Hardworking, Team leader, being responsible and loyal, etc.)

Hard skills: (Research, Project management, Microsoft publisher, public speaker.)

- Hobbies are the section where you can highlight the small details that make you more interested in the topic. One can add any of the self-esteemed activities that they do on a regular basis. This helps the organization make you maintain a good relationship with the team members.

With the hobbies you provide, the managers would understand your soft skills in-depth. Such small details make the organizers pick you to help them organize events.

Examples: Playing Basketball, Reading books, Learning new things, etc.

Conclusion

While designing a job-achieving project manager resume, one must know what details to add and what not to. Giving too many details doesn’t qualify you for the role.

In a project manager's resume, all the details provided must be in accordance with the details the organization asks for in their job description. Before designing a resume, it is important to understand the job description.

Every project manager must realize that the resume must be designed in accordance with the level they belong to.

Every organization will look for resumes that carry the required amount of experience. Hence, it is important that project managers earn the required experience with internships or by working on projects to highlight their project manager's resume.

You can also learn more about project management and get certified by PMI (Project Management Institute) as a Project Management Professional (PMP) by enrolling in Sprintzeal's PMP Certification Training Course and making your project manager resume look more interesting.