Project Manager Resume Sample

“Project manager” is a broad, catch-all term that spans a number of industries. Despite this broadness, project managers have similar responsibilities:

• Managing, hiring, training, and firing
• Managing an establishment or product
• Ensuring timeliness of product releases
• Analyzing, projecting, and distributing budget items
• Harmonizing many moving parts of complex projects

The resume on this page was written for a professional who managed a gym and a contractor construction company. Even if your industry does not match this person’s personal experience, you can still learn from this resume, and these resume writing tips. Even more senior level applicants will follow the below tips, the only difference may be their choice to include a qualifications summary.

Please pay careful attention, and we will show you how to write the strongest project manager resume possible.

1. Career Objective: Relevant, Powerful, and Full

A good resume should start out with a strong resume objective. In this section, the hiring manager will quickly glance over what you’ve written to determine if you are a strong candidate. They will have a checklist in their minds of what they need to see in order to judge your resume as relevant.

The candidate in the project manager resume above hits the following points in their career objective, all of which demonstrate their immense potential as a project manager. (Please note the bolded points with superscript.)

Project Manager ¹ with over 8 years of experience ² managing multi-million dollar ³ construction projects, coordinating workforce team of 90+ subcontractors ⁴, and performing budget allocation and analysis. PMI Agile Certified Practitioner ⁵ aiming to leverage considerable experience and efficiency expertise into your project manager role ⁶. Possess a B.A. in Construction Management and knowledge of BIM Software, AutoCAD, and Revit ⁷.

1. Immediately tells the hiring manager their current position (which is relevant to the open job)
2. Reveals a depth and breadth of acquired expertise
3. Demonstrates the significant size of current/previously managed projects, quickly communicating their competency.
4. Shows that the candidate can manage a massive workforce and can be trusted to handle people
5. Indicates the candidate has acquired extra skills that make them more efficient managers
6. Tells the hiring manager which role they wish to fill
7. Tells the hiring manager they have the required degrees and software skill to get hired and be successful

These 7 major traits are all contained within that one single career objective. Any competent hiring manager would immediately recognize this candidate’s potential, read through the rest of the resume, and call them in for an interview.

2. Professional Experience: Quantified, Targeted, and Specific

Project manager positions are naturally achievement oriented. If you aren’t gaining more customers, turning around a failing project, getting products released on time, managing people well, or staying within budget constraints reasonably, you’re not going to have a very strong resume.

Your resume needs to reflect your achievements — and most of all, quantify them. The candidate quantifies their achievements in several places in the above resume. (Attention to the bolding):

• Manage project budget of $325M+ and ensure company obtains the best possible pricing; determine and minimize risk in buyout processes, reducing costs by 15% annually

There, they list the size of the budget they managed, and how much they managed to reduce costs by. Including numerals will be just another way to safeguard against your resume being trashed.

• Overhauled sales process and systems to achieve revenue goals, hitting targets of 17% revenue increase annually

In that bullet point, they show how they were able to increase revenue by 17% annually — an impressive number to any hiring manager.

• Directed the hiring, training, and scheduling of all gym level associates by an intermediary, totaling 80+

If you were responsible for hiring, training, or managing anyone, this information is very well received by HR, as it demonstrates your competency.

3. Additional Skills: Relevancy is Key

In your additional skills section, be sure to only list skills that are relevant to the job you’re applying for. After all, a project manager probably does not need to know how to play guitar or swallow swords.

This section will change drastically depending on what projects you are responsible for managing (software vs. construction vs. food products), so it would be best for you to think through and consider the specialized skills you’ve acquired. Don’t forget to include additional skills you learned while in school or college, as these can go in your additional skills section instead of your educational section.

If you have any other questions about how to write a project manager resume, please ask in the comment section below. Also, don’t forget to check out our comprehensive resume writing page for details on other aspects of resume writing for all industries.