The reason for the high demand is clear: Every major industry has to develop new projects, and those projects have to be managed by someone. Improper management results in missed deadlines, bloated budgets, and frustrated stakeholders. Hiring a skilled project manager saves businesses time and money.

To write a professional project management resume that stands out to hiring teams, you need to know the essentials that help your resume stand out from the masses and the resume review services available that can ensure yours catches the attention of hiring managers.

Essential Features of a Project Management Resume

• When applying for a project manager job, include your past project management experience in your resume.
• Describe specific projects you worked on and how they aligned with your business’s objectives.
• If you previously managed a project similar to the kind of projects you will be working on in the new job, include that.
• If you’re unsure how to write the perfect resume, resume review services like Capstone are here to help. Capstone conducts one-on-one consultations with job seekers, then turns that information into a professional resume.

Capstone founder Amy Gies recently shared insight on how to write a project manager resume. In her interview, she explained that “Having technical chops is an asset” because of the big role technology plays in project management. Follow her advice and add your technical knowledge to your resume.

That said, don’t lean too hard on your tech background, and be sure to emphasize your leadership and management skills. Too much tech and not enough leadership may make you seem better suited for a job in development or engineering. Capstone’s professional resume writers will help you strike the right balance between tech skills and management skills for your project management resume.

Key Aspects of a Successful Project Management Resume

It’s not just the past experience and knowledge necessary for project management that employers are looking for. Applicants for project managers also need to demonstrate core qualities important to the role.

There are a few important skills that show project managers hiring teams you’ve got what it takes to lead your team to success:

Leadership Skills

Project managers are skilled leaders, so when you write a project management resume, include all leadership roles that you have held. Be sure to list the major successes of your leadership. Good examples of success include things like:

• Increasing the number of clients
• Completing projects ahead of schedule
• Finishing a task under budget

People Skills

Project managers also need to be team players. List your people skills in your resume. Provide examples of great synergy with coworkers, experience working in customer service, negotiating with vendors, or talking to clients. Show your prospective employer that you are comfortable working with many different people.

Industry-Specific Experience

Next, add some examples of industry-specific experience. If you’re going to manage a project, you need to understand the background of that project. Demonstrate that you are familiar with the needs and challenges of the business. For best results, do some research on the specific company you apply to.

Proof of Results

Proof of results on your project management resume is exactly what it sounds like: results that prove your ideas are feasible. Describe a calculated risk you took that paid off or explain how implementing a business strategy you suggested led to higher profits. If the job application asks for professional references, use those who can vouch for your ability to achieve good results.

Once you have assembled all the information you need for your resume, it’s time for the last step: contacting a resume writing service.

Benefits of a Resume Writing Service like Capstone Resume Services

Having the right experience for a job and having the resume to prove it are two different things. A lot of resumes these days are filtered through software that scans for keywords. Only people whose resumes contain the right keywords will progress to the interview stage. If you don’t know the specific keywords the employer is looking for, your resume might be rejected.

A resume review team like Capstone creates resumes that are:

• Scannable: Resumes should be easily scanned by computers while still being readable to humans. They will optimize your resume to include the top keywords and qualities for your desired job, so you’re sure to get noticed.
• Compatible: In line with Capstone founder Amy Gies’s recommendation, they will also format your resume as a PDF or .docx file, since these formats tend to be compatible with applicant tracking systems.
• Adjustable: If you plan to send out multiple applications at once, the best resume writers will create a template that can be adjusted to each job application. Capstone’s writers will identify the aspects of your resume that apply to any project management job versus those that must be individualized to capture the attention of a specific person or computer reading the resume.

Amy Gies’s Interview and Advice on Project Management’s Resumes

More insight into building the best project management resume was shared in Amy Gies’s recent interview, conducted by the job board Dice. Dice is a leading career destination for tech jobs. They post thousands of job openings — including jobs from major companies like Amazon Web Services and Boeing — and offer career development resources.

Dice interviewed Gies because they know how successful her company is and how many people have landed jobs with the help of Capstone’s expert resume writing services.

During the interview, Gies proved that Capstone’s reputation as a top resume writing service is well-earned. She provided plenty of advice, such as including a profile summary with “the five takeaways that you want the reviewer to know about you” and an accomplishment summary of your biggest achievements.

Additionally, Gies shared a sample of an ideal professional experience summary for a project manager job. Read the full Dice interview and review the professional experience section to get an idea of what employers are looking for as you apply for your own project manager roles.

Create Your Project Management Resume with Capstone Resume Services

Project managers know how to take charge and inspire people. Take charge of your career by creating a great project management resume. Remember, you don’t have to tackle your job search alone. Capstone’s experienced resume writers will happily work with you to design the best possible resume. Request a FREE personal consultation to take the next steps towards your dream career in project management. It all starts with learning how to write the best resume for Project Management roles!

Whether you are seeking to move from a technical position into a management role or you are an experienced technical project manager, you will need a unique technology management resume that showcases your talents.

Consider the methodologies and tools that you have used to get get results. A hiring manager wants to know not just what you accomplished, but how you got there and what your role was within the team. These might also be keywords that an electronic system will pick up and get you closer to a human recruiter or hiring manager.

Some tips to make your resume stand out when applying for a technical management position.

1. Summarize your IT project experience (in a way that an outsider can understand) to highlight your hands-on leadership capabilities.
2. Summarize project results, not job function. HR and hiring managers will assess your skill sets more positively when they can visualize the projects and outcomes you’ve worked on before.
3. Showcase tools, techniques and methodologies to get results. This means metrics. Did the result save money or productivity. Did it grow revenue or consumer engagement? Provide the metrics for these. Consider PMI methodologies, PMP certifications, as well as key performance indicators (KPIs),and other related tools and methodologies that you might not have thought to include like: Agile, Scrum, Waterfall, rapid applications development (RAD), new product introduction (NPI), Rational Unified Process (RUP), Six Sigma, DMAIC, ITIL, JAD, RAD, SCM, and PMBOK.
4. Research the names of the tools, techniques and methodologies that you currently use and be sure they are not unique to your company, and if they are, find their industry specific name. For example use ERP so that you aren’t weeded out based on knowing SAP, when really your skills would be useful with any enterprise resource planning software.
5. Showcase project challenges and solutions. This will give a window into your leadership as well problem resolution capabilities. A great thing for a candidate to have when looking for someone to have a ‘big picture’ scope.
6. Discuss interactions with stakeholders. Many times in technical leadership positions, people are looking for the softer skills sets as well. Communication across diverse groups, offshore team management, presentations to Boards and stakeholders. It’s all part of the well rounded candidate they need to fill their position.
7. Consider a project addendum with each project’s details. Still, it should be concise. A line for the problem (why technology was needed), action (what you put into place/your decision to implement a specific technology and why) and result (the metric–what it did for the company) will suffice.
8. Be prepared to change it up for different job apps. People do not read resumes word for word, so make sure to highlight the specific skill sets desired in the first half page. You still have them, you just need to present them differently to capture attention quickly.
9. Save space: remove objective and minimize education bullets, unless crucial to the job

If you are overwhelmed with trying to display your tech management talent and unique goal-driven skill set, we are here to help. As Silicon Valley resume writers, we work with many clients, from tech start-up talent to Fortune 100 talent and we would love to help you market your own skill set to get you seen by hiring managers and recruiters. We specialize in creating great project management resumes and tech management resumes, which means we can help you too!