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Adding value to your Career Documentation | Career Coaching

Resumes for Project Managers

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Project managers lead the planning, documentation, execution, and close of a project that might span multiple functions, business units, and geographies. If you are a project manager or considering a career in project management, your resume should focus on the following facts:

  1. Your experience as a team leader and your ability to interact with people from other areas. Few projects are self-contained and even fewer are led and executed by one person. Your ability to lead cross-functional and cross-geographic teams is important.
  2. Your education and certifications. In addition to formal education (and many colleges offer a degree in project management), a certification from the Project Management Institute provides assurance that you are able to work with many different projects and employers. Your career may also benefit from certifications in techniques or programs such as lean manufacturing or agile management practices.
  3. Specific achievements as a project manager or lead. You should be able to produce numbers: for example, hours saved; costs reduced; revenue generated; and size of budgets controlled. Part of a project manager’s job is to forecast and track numbers. You should share the problems you were facing, and what it took to overcome them. If you have been a long-time project manager, you may forget current information when you move on to a new project, so begin now to record it.
  4. Technology you have handled. Most projects involve some form of technology, whether for documenting the project itself or for solving a business problem (for example, implementing Customer Relationship Management or Salesforce software). Your credentials in using or implementing software are important.
  5. Evidence of analytical and communication skills. Because you are solving business problems, you must be able to analyze the situation and the best solution, given the resources available. You may need to convince others that your analysis is correct and you will certainly need to communicate any positive or negative results along the way.

Project management is an excellent career, with opportunities in many industries. You want your resume to be focused enough to appeal to the companies where you are applying and broad enough to show your expertise to advantage. Contact Robin’s Resumes® today for a resume that will accomplish both those goals.

Resume Q&A: LinkedIn Profile vs. Resume

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Q. Everything on my resume is on my LinkedIn profile. I don’t understand why I even need a resume. I think companies should just ask for an email expressing interest with a link to your LinkedIn profile or online portfolio—why bother with a separate resume? It is so old-school.

A. Maybe in the future job applications will be handled the way you suggest: everyone will simply look online. But right now there are three major reasons why companies have not discarded resumes.

  • One is the simple fact that all of us still print out important information. The “paperless society” never took root, and that is unlikely to change in the immediate future.
  • The second reason is that resumes create a “standard template” that ensures every applicant supplies the same essential facts, from contact information to previous positions to education.
  • The third, related reason is that most companies now rely on applicant tracking systems (ATS), in which all resumes are loaded for comparative analysis. There is no equivalent automated method for gathering up individual online resumes from LinkedIn, Pinterest, Indeed, or private sites and then comparing them.

Think of your LinkedIn (or other online) profile and your resume as separate but equal documents. Instead of making them completely identical, use your LinkedIn profile to expand on information that might not fit in your resume; for example, use “Projects” under the Accomplishments tab to give more detail about specific projects or accomplishments. You can list up to 50 skills on LinkedIn—excellent for keyword searches although far too many for a resume. More important, LinkedIn encourages your peers and clients to give you endorsements for those skills. Finally, LinkedIn allows for multiple recommendations at length, something that would weigh down your resume.

You can also use your LinkedIn profile to show more of your own professional personality. For example, in my own LinkedIn profile, I go into the history of Robin’s Resumes®, something I would not do on a formal resume or job application.

Precisely because your resume and LinkedIn profile are different in some ways, you should make sure they are equally professional, clear, concise, and focused on the job you want. If your resume gives one impression and your LinkedIn profile gives another, hiring managers and recruiters will be confused and less likely to trust either version.

How do you achieve that different-but-equal balance? Contact Robin’s Resumes® and I will be delighted to help you.

What to Do If Your Job Search Has Stalled

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As a certified career coach, I can recommend many job hunting strategies that will complement your resume and increase your chances of finding that perfect job. I recommend a balanced set of job search techniques; if there is one you have not tried, now is your chance to charge up your job search.

  1. Search Online vs. Networking In-Person

Both online job searches and in-person networking are essential. Online, make sure your LinkedIn and other profiles and all your social media accounts are professional. For the time being, either make your social media accounts private or wash them clean of anything that might undermine your professional image.

At the same time, network in person: Get yourself out among people, spreading the word about your job hunt and letting them see what a great employee you would make. Talk to family, friends and former colleagues; attend business networking events and expos; and always remember to open a conversation by finding out about the other person first. You are not out to harangue people but to see if there they have (or know of) a business problem you can solve.

  1. Keep Working in Your Field vs. Broadening Your Skills When Unemployed

If you are out of work right now, you might want to take on freelance and consultant opportunities that could become job offers. But at least you are bringing in income and keeping your skills sharp and building contacts. However, if finding freelance work is not an option, you have the time now to also take professional courses or to volunteer for organizations that can use or expand your skills. The more value you bring to a company, the happier they will be to interview you.

  1. Stick with Your Current Resume vs. Building a New Resume

If your current resume is bringing you an invitation to interviews, there may be no need to re-write it. The problem may rest with your interviews. Make sure that your interview skills support your resume; if you flounder when describing previous accomplishments, the hiring manager or recruiter will begin to doubt you.

However, if you are not getting to the interview stage, you should consider hiring a professional resume writer to rewrite your resume. Maybe it is not targeted enough to your chosen position or industry. Maybe it is too repetitive, vague, long, short, quirky, or dull. The objective, informed opinion of a professional resume writer and career coach will help set you and your resume on track.

Do you need help upgrading your resume or with any other aspect of your job search? Contact Robin’s Resumes® and let a professional resume writer help.

Education on Your Resume

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You should include an Education section on your resume but how detailed should it be?

Graduation Years/GPA

If you are a recent college or high school graduate or a rising senior, then you should include your graduation year; if you have recently graduated with a high GPA (say, over 3.5), include the GPA if you want to. For everyone else, the year and GPA are not needed.

If you graduated with a high school degree years ago, your work history is now more important than information about your high school. However, if you did not attend college, you should still list your high school. If you have attended or graduated from college, in most cases, do not list your high school. There are exceptions, and you may want to speak to a resume professional to discuss if you are confused.

If you graduated or attended college years ago, you still should list the name and location of the college(s), the degree(s) (A.A., B.S., MBA), and your specialization (“B.A. in business communications”) but omit any high school information entirely.

Specific Courses

Here, again, the closer you are to graduation and the less work experience you have in your field, the more important it is to mention the courses you have taken that apply to the position you want.

The further from graduation and the more work experience you have, the more you should concentrate on work, as opposed to academic, accomplishments.

There are two exceptions:

  • If you did not achieve a degree but took courses toward a degree, you may want to briefly mention those courses or at least state that you have “30 credits toward an A.A.”
  • If you have taken professional courses (for example, in lean manufacturing) or been selected for training by a company you worked for (for example, management training), that information should be on your resume. The knowledge you bring into a company is invaluable.

Honors

Your college or high school career might have included volunteer, sports, or other activities that you are proud of. Be careful about listing them unless they have some bearing on the work you want to do. For example, if you want to enter the nonprofit world and you raised significant funds at an event at your school, you may want to include that achievement in your resume. Also, if you are a recent graduate, you should include your volunteer work. Many employers look for volunteer experience when they hire students for their first jobs.

If you worked your way through high school or college, received a prestigious scholarship, or were selected out of many students for an opportunity, that information may be relevant in showing your determination and the high regard in which others hold you. Just be careful of holding on to high school or college honors too long: resume space is limited, and you want to leave room for your most current and relevant accomplishments.

Attended College and Did Not Graduate

List any college experience on your resume. Even if you did not complete your degree, the courses you took gained you valuable knowledge and experience which will be useful for employers. Also, there are ways to list this type of college experience on a resume that can help you get through barriers such as initial Applicant Tracking System (ATS) scoring scans. Robin’s Resumes® understands these strategies and can help you with them.

At Robin’s Resumes®, we write Education sections that bolster a candidate’s appeal. Contact us today.

Civilian Resumes for Veterans

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Earlier this year I had a question from a former member of the military asking how to translate military experience into a civilian resume. In honor of Veterans Day, I’d like to expand on some of the advice I gave that correspondent. Here are a few of the most important considerations if you are a veteran looking for a civilian job:

  1. Know what job/industry you are interested in. The military assigns you where they want you; civilian companies expect you to tell them where you fit.
  2. Military abbreviations and jargon are hard for civilians to understand. Keep acronyms to a minimum and spell them out first. You also may want to use a non-military equivalent.
  3. Numbers are as important in civilian life as in military life. Maybe you supported 1,000 troops with your supply chain skills; trained 300 individuals; or kept a 30-vehicle motor pool humming—all those numbers are easy for civilians to grasp.
  4. When relaying your experience in your civilian resume, concentrate on the common denominators between the military and civilian careers. In both environments, people value individuals who communicate clearly, are able to work with all levels of the organization, have leadership skills, and have demonstrated concern with efficiency, productivity, and cost control.
  5. Focus on results. Companies are less interested in how you saved $5,000 or organized the transfer of 400 troops than in the fact that you did it. Even if military procedures have no equivalent in civilian life, the results definitely resonate.
  6. Focus on the numbers, experiences, and results that are most in line with the position you are applying for. Your resume does not have to include everything you accomplished during your military career, only those accomplishments that relate to the job you want.
  7. Person-to-person networking is just as important as filling out forms online. Make sure of local veteran resources and also attend the Chamber of Commerce and other business groups to get a handle on what businesses are looking for and to sharpen your networking skills.
  8. In many cases, your security clearance, overseas experience, ability to work with diverse or remote teams, and quickness of advancement will generate interest in civilian employers. Make sure you mention any awards or special recognition you received.

If you are a veteran in need of resume writing and career advice, please contact me.

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