Think your CV could be the reason you’re not getting that interview? I’ve put together some suggestions to help you improve yours, and get one step closer to that dream Digital Project Management role

Writing the perfect profile

Your profile is the first thing a recruiter or hiring manager will see on your CV, so tell us the most important things first. Begin with outlining your job title and a short blurb on the type of projects you have worked on (e.g. website builds, banner campaigns). Follow with other skills you have, for example stakeholder management or user testing. Make sure your profile’s short and sweet, don’t go beyond 6-8 lines.

Layout is key

If it’s tricky for a reader to find out what your roles have been, where and when they were, your CV could be tossed to the side. Make sure your CV is laid out with profile first, followed by contact details –  bear in mind you don’t need to include D.O.B and nationality! Next, explain your ‘Career History’ giving Job Titles and names of companies you worked for (include dates) clearly and in bold before the content on each of the roles itself.

Content – website build projects vs banners campaigns (and everything in between)

The key thing we want to know is WHAT projects you have been working on. If you were working on a large-scale mobile application build, as well as an e-mail marketing campaign, but think you should leave the latter off because it was a smaller project, don’t – outline ALL projects. What you should include:

Agency experience – What account(s) did you work on, and what were the project(s)? Give each a headline then go into the detail on; whether you were leading the project; what the budgets were; whether you completed the end to end project; whether there was a heavy component of design/UX; whether it was completed on time and to budget.

For smaller projects such as banner campaigns, outline specifics such as if they were HTML5, whether they had any motion graphics/video uploaded onto them as well as budgets.

Client-side experience – If you have been working client-side, outline what projects you were working on clearly at the start of the content. Then go into specifics – whether you had to liaise with in-house Design/UX/Tech teams or whether it was outsourced, and if it was, where (offshore etc). Was there any stakeholder management, did you liaise with senior-level companies members?

Beware of too much historical content

Whilst it is important to list all roles, generally hiring managers will want to see information on the most recent projects, over the last 3 – 4 years. For roles past 5 years mention the projects you worked on and a couple of notes around these, but don’t go into too much detail (even if that website build you worked on 5 years ago was really cool!)
There’s a general rule that CV’s shouldn’t be more than 1-2 pages – don’t listen to this! That rule applies to most jobs, however for PMs we need to see detail on projects, so if it runs up to 4-5 pages that’s fine.

Education and Interests

Education and Interests should come at the end of your CV. Under Education, highlight any project management qualifications (Scrum, Prince 2 etc) first. Some people don’t think you need to include Interests but as more and more companies are giving ‘culture fit’ as a key reason for hiring, it’s worth mentioning a couple. What do you do that might spark interest – do you speak different languages (and what proficiency), have you done voluntary work, maybe you lived abroad, had a go at scuba diving…? Have a think about what makes you stand out!

One last thing…

Don’t put references on your CV – you can just give these details to your recruiter/hiring manager.