Monthly Archives: August 2013

CV Tips, Project management CV, project management resume, Q&A

Struggling to articulate yourself on your Project Manager CV – Q&A

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Hi Nicola, I have over 15 years experience delivering system integration projects as an interim. I had my CV professionally written a while back by a generalist, however I have not received any contact from my applications over the last 3 months and I am beginning to worry now. I feel my CV is clear but there is something wrong otherwise I would surely be getting calls and interviews?

The reason I originally went to a CV writer was because I struggle to put my experience in a format which meets the terminology and expectations of employers. Can you advise? Rebekah, Project Manager; London

Hi Rebekah, many thanks for getting in touch – I know it can be hard to articulate a great deal of information into a clear and concise document. Having reviewed your CV I can see that there are a few reasons why you are not generating any interest from employers and recruiters, first of all the document is written in the first person which is often frowned upon in a professional environment. The profile doesn’t give the reviewer a clear view of what it is you actually do, this is the introduction into your CV so it is important to make sure it draws the reviewer in to want to read on. The detail about what you were set out to achieve with the projects is quite good, although it is a little long winded so needs reducing. The main issue is with the “responsibilities” bullet points, stating a list such as:

  • Business Analysis
  • Change Management
  • Budget Management
  • Risk & Issue Management

Although you will be hitting the mark with some keyword searching, the reviewer has little information to go on in regards to context, it does make for a good starting point, but you should look to add in further information such as with budget management – how much? Do you hold full budgetary responsibility / P&L? How is it managed? By pulling together a short statement, you are telling the reviewer a lot more about how you work and the complexity of the piece of work.pic 1 (2)

You state a few key achievements which, again, do not tell the reviewer a great deal about the involvement, having since discussed the project you have told me the challenges you have overcome in order to achieve success – now this detail is what makes for a great achievement. Taking these achievements out of the body of the CV and moving them to underneath the profile will highlight to the reviewer how you add value and will certainly set you apart from your peers. I agree that project management is almost a different language and that you need to grasp the lingo in order to gain interest from hiring managers – look back to your formal PM certification/training and start to match the language up to your experiences and you will soon generate some interesting bullets. It is hard not to get too embroiled in the PM language and I know from talking to you that you prefer a more direct approach to communication but striking a balance between the two is key to success.

CV Tips, Project management CV, project management recruitment, project management resume

Underperforming Project Manager CVs

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Our CV is a personal thing, in that we take it personally when we receive no feedback or rejection for jobs. After all we have spent hours of blood, sweat, and tears putting together a document which talks through our life’s work and it reads great to us so why don’t others get it? Lots of reasons I am afraid, it is difficult for you to be objective when you have spent so much time creating it and you understand what the jobs involved. To others though it can be a mix of lists and terminology which they have never come across before, and when they have literally hundreds of CVs to review they will not spend extra time trying to decipher or pick up the phone to ask you to clarify. Let’s take a look at some of the reasons a CV may be underperforming:

  • Gaps in the CV – naturally there will always be a gap or two in a CV, it is (thankfully) not the law that you must go from one role to the next without a break. But you do need to address the gaps, if you were travelling, then fine add in a line.
  • Nondescript profiles – this is very common on a CV, your profile needs to tell the reviewer what it is you do rather than telling them that you are motivated and have good time management – a given for a project professional surely!
  • failure or successLess is not more – often the more senior the PM Professional the less information they add to the CV. Big mistake, huge! As you will be a high earner and the role will demand a lot more, you need to address this and demonstrate your worth. Work hard to really drill down what your role involves and don’t be shy when talking through the project lifecycle – employers do want to see this, especially reviewers who may have a tick list which will inevitably involve a number of competencies based around the project lifecycle.
  • Poor grammar and spelling – yes, we’ve said this over and over but still this is prominent in a lot of CVs. Think about how others will view this, if you cannot construct a document which makes sense and is spelt correctly what type of communications will you be sending out to customers and internal staff!?
  • Structure – PM is all about structure, no matter how ad hoc you perceive yourself to be. Structure is important for success and demonstrating this on your CV with an easy to read, flowing document is a must.
  • Internal terminology – easy to use this especially if you have been a organisation for a while. However it makes little sense to people outside the business.

If you are applying for roles and not getting responses, equally if you have your CV in databases for recruitment agencies and online and no calls – it is time to go back to the drawing board and work on your CV.

We offer a free CV review for UK and EU residents at The CV Righter, you will receive honest constructive feedback and gain a better understanding of how your CV is viewed by a recruiter.

guest blogger, Project Management Software

Advantages and Disadvantages of using a Free Project Management Software

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Projects are a sequence of some planned activities which an organization undertakes for the attainment of some specific objectives. Accomplishment of a project will likely result in monetary, commercial, intellectual, organizational, social or other gains for the organization.

A project has to be researched and planned about before execution. In online project management important aspects like the team members, budgetary allocation, starting date, closing date, tasks, activities, responsibilities and duties have to be properly defined and documented. The sponsors, consumers and other stakeholders have to be determined and effective communication has to be maintained with them. Every minor detail which is going to play a significant part in a project’s execution is given due attention.PM Software

A project manager is appointed as the head of a project who is going to track, control and oversee the operations involved in a project. He is responsible for the conduct of the project and has to play an active role in coordinating and organizing men, resources and other processes involved in a project.

A project manager has to arrange meetings, read emails, inform members, review progress reports, meet and brief the sponsors and communicate with the customers. Managing these tasks manually can be cumbersome and can result in some serious flaws in communication and operations of a project.

Online Project Management Software are the tools of assistance which help a project manager in performing his duties diligently and with more control.  Project Management Softwares can perform a variety of tasks like documentation, communication, arranging tasks lists, sending email notifications, arrange to-dos and highlight milestones with the help of some useful features contained in them such as Calendars, Dashboards, Gantt charts, etc.

These Project Management Softwares are extremely useful tools in managing projects, but organizations have to shell out a huge sum of money for using them.

Providers of such software spend million of dollars in their research and try to recover the costs by offering them at a huge price.

Only the organizations which are financially well off can afford these.

The organizations which are new and are in not so good financial health cannot go for them due to their high price. But their projects are also too complex and in need of such highly priced software. But where is the solution.

Free Project Management Softwares have been specifically designed for these kind of organizations.

All they have to do is to visit the site of a free project management software provider, download it and install in their organizations and use them.

But these free software have their own share of problems and limitations.

A free project management software might be providing some very basic features which may not serve an organization well enough or they might be full of bugs which can put additional financial burden on the organization.

But at the same time, there are some very useful and unique free project management software which have some very useful features which cannot be matched by even paid software.

Another disadvantage of using these free software is that there is no provider support available when needed. An organization might come across situations when it needs provider support, especially when it faces some technical problems or if it needs to enhance the functionality of a free software. In these cases, there is no help available from the provider’s side. **This can result in a major problem at times when an organization has spent a considerable amount of time in using this and cannot shift to other software at a short notice.

Organizations can also switch to a free software on a trial basis. If an organization is thinking about using project management software for the first time, it is a nice idea to start with free software. Once they get the experience in using them, they can switch to paid software for better productivity in the long run.

It is a great practice to read a lot of reviews about the free software to choose any free software. By reading other users experience, you can make up your mind about choosing a particular software and how it can be of benefit to your organization.

Now the question arises why a company which is pumping million of dollars in research for inventing a new project management software is offering it free.

This might be a marketing strategy to popularize it. When a lot of organizations start using it, the providers can come up with a new and paid offer.

An organization wanting to go for a project management software has to analyze and study which software it should opt for paid or free. Only a truthful analysis can be a better guide for an organization in choosing the project management software that can prove productive for its working.

 

Sharon is a business manager of a ProofHub.com, a web based project management software that provides features like discussions, time tracking, file sharing, inbuilt browser chat and more. Her interest includes blogging, traveling and exploring new places.

Business Analyst CV, CV Tips, CV Writing, Project management CV

Business Analyst CV

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Business Analysis is an integral role within organisations – often the role is merged with a project management roles which will see a great deal of PMs and BAs taking on a dual role, as with other areas such as change management it has become an profession which reduced budgets have forced over the years. However a Business Analyst is very much a numbers and facts role first and foremost, investigating both systems and processes. Other important areas for a successful BA are listening and negotiation skills, as such the CV needs to take a holistic view of all these skills and demonstrate this detail. This is where the CV differs to other project management CVs, when putting together the CV you must strike a balance of methods, types of assignments, user groups, and communication plans.

  • Business AnalysisProfile – the profile as with all CVs should be a short statement which highlights what it is you actually do and where your skill-set lays. Talking through (briefly) the types of assignments such as industry and core systems / processes / task in hand.
  • Achievements – Addressing achievements is something I note a lot of BAs negate from their CVs, however this is an area where you can really add some value and set yourself apart from your competitors.
  • Career History – Here is the important part, make sure you give enough detail about what you have been tasked to interrogate. Give some context in relation to the size of user groups, methods adopted, benefits, challenges and how you work (what did the role actually involve you doing).

As a Business Analyst you will look at centralising services to improve working environment  efficiency, address duplication of processes and develop 3rd party supplier relationships – so talk about it!!

BAs are visionaries and need to think outside the box, you will be on top of up-to-date processes and systems and as such will be called upon to recommend fit-for-purpose solutions which keep an organisation ahead of their competitors – give some examples!!

Because there are always elements of project management in these roles, you should also talk through these – the more adaptable you are, the greater value you add to a team (and often reduced budget). It has become increasingly difficult for everyone under the project management umbrella to secure interviews due to tighter requirements and strong competition, unfortunately reputation does little for applications if you don’t have a good CV to back up the experience. The best CVs win every time for shortlists, not necessarily the best candidates – so invest time into your CV and ensure it reaches the top of the recruitment pile.