I love it when job seekers try something different with their data. CVs or resumes certainly have their place and as much as people hating having to write them I can’t see them ever being replaced (I’d love to eat my own words though!) Last week at Project Challenge, a visitor to the stand shared ...

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I was intrigued. I downloaded a free 30 trail of MindGenius’ mind mapping tool  just to get a better feel for how mind maps can work on projects. Taking a look through the preset templates I came across one for creating a CV. Now I love exploring what we can do differently with CVs (we ...

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Hopefully this short article will make you think twice when it comes to your project management CV. As you can imagine we see a lot of project management CVs of different shapes and sizes and as a recruitment business that specialises in project management you can also imagine that we need to be able to ...

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I think most of us have probably played the game ‘buzzword bingo’ or its more well-known potty mouthed named version (thanks wiki for giving me a polite option). You know the one, make a list of all the latest buzzwords and the next time you’re in a meeting, just keep ticking them off as they ...

The post The Project Management CV – Keyword Bingo appeared first on How to Manage a Camel - Project Management Blog.

In this  Project Management Recruitment Ideas, I’m going to cover this keyword issue that always pops up in a CV.

We know that people read CVs in a certain way – there’s even a phrase coined “the sixty second rule” which basically means you have sixty seconds for your CV to make an impact when it is first opened by someone.

To be honest, sixty seconds seems like quite a long time when there are hundreds of CVs to look at and you’re on a tight deadline. One of the things that happens when you open a CV is a quick scan of the document – you’re trying to get a feel for the whether or not this person just feels right for the role based on the scattering of keywords throughout the document.

You may not like, especially if you have toiled away on the CV for ages but it is human nature unfortunately. Think back to the last time you were faced with a long article or column in the newspaper, if the headline didn’t grab you, you will probably scan the article quickly to see if anything else is going to make you read on. So we know keywords are important but my question to you is; do you know what keywords your CV is majoring on? Wouldn’t you be interested to find out that actually it’s not what you think it is?

Word Cloud – Keyword Discovery

The Arras People new website launch used the lovely Wordle website to create some of our new images. If you are not familiar with Wordle, it’s a website that creates “word clouds”. Word clouds are those things you sometimes see on blogs that quickly show a reader what kind of subjects are covered on that blog; the bigger the word (in font size) the more often that subject is covered on that blog. In this case Wordle allows you to post in anything and see what the common themes are in any one piece of text.

I encourage you to try Wordle out on your own current CV, just choose Create and copy and paste your CV in. You can play about with the colours, fonts and direction of text if you like too. Once you have entered your CV and seen the word cloud; is it what you would expect to see?

Take a look at the word cloud I created for a recent candidate, this is a Programme Office Co-ordinator, she’s been doing the job for over 5 years at a Programme level;

Interesting isn’t it? Working at a programme level and within a PMO for five years and it certainly doesn’t look like her CV is reflecting this well. Where are those keywords like PMO, Programme Office, Programme Co-ordinator?? Time to take another look at the CV and see if those crucial keywords can’t be incorporated better into the CV.

Have a go, and leave a comment letting me know what you think.

Are your credentials "ticking the boxes" on the recruiter's consideration list?

If we’ve said it once – we’ve said it a dozen times: At Arras, we have been mad busy with lots of new diverse roles within the project management arena this past month or two, which is great news! Not only for us as it keeps us out of mischief, but also for candidates out there who are looking to make a move or secure a new role after experiencing redundancy.

However after posting a number of roles on our dedicated PM recruitment website, we have been in receipt of some less than average CVs (amongst some exceptional ones, too) – not uncommon for a recruitment company no, but bearing in mind the follow up calls after being notified they have been unsuccessful – a familiar response is, “But why? I have done all that is set out in the advert!” The general response from the consultants after re-reviewing the CV to provide more detailed feedback is, “It doesn’t say you have in your CV!”

Here’s a no-nonsense way to ensure you have the right detail in your CV:

• Ensure you give enough detail about the project you are involved with – without writing a dissertation, one short paragraph should suffice. Look to include type of project, complexity, budget and benefits.
• What was your involvement? If you managed it or part of it or if you provided support for it – let us know.
• How did you deliver? Think about the responsibilities / skills involved and contextualise within the CV.

Here’s a great tip: get your CV and put it next to a typical job you would apply for – remembering you should only be applying for roles you meet at least 95% of the criteria detailed. Now look down the job description against your CV, does it state clearly in your CV the key skills required? If it does then great you will be “ticking the boxes” for going into the consideration list – if not, you will be going into the reject list. I had a role recently which attracted over 280 applications; we only ever put forward 3 or 4 CVs to the client (after interviewing the candidates). Therefore only the CVs clearly demonstrating the experience and skills required will be considered for interview.

For advice on how to best place yourself and write your CV refer to our dedicated careers support repository here or alternately, book yourself a careers clinic with one of the consultants here at Arras and we will assist you in setting yourself on the right track to securing one of the many fantastic opportunities available out in the field of Project Management today!

My initial thought on becoming a Recruitment Consultant specialising in recruiting project professionals was “Surely it can’t be that difficult?” I will be dealing with people who know what their strengths are, professional people who know exactly what skills they have and how to showcase them in their CVs. I will be dealing with people who know what direction they want their career to take and how best to tailor their CVs to highlight the necessary skills and experience for the roles they are applying for. So, because these are the people I am dealing with it should be relatively easy to match candidates with the specific needs and expectations of the clients.

I am now a few months into my life as a Recruitment Consultant and I have to say that my initial impression of the role couldn’t have been much further from the truth!

To say I have been very surprised at the number CVs I see that undersell a candidate’s ability and experience is probably an understatement. It would appear that probably one of the best skills a recruiter can have is the ability to read between the lines. I am beginning to lose count of the number of times I have read a CV and thought that the candidate might have “something” and then spoken to them to find they actually have much more than just “something” – it was just really well hidden, or maybe omitted altogether!

From initial experiences it appears that many candidates are taking the “less is more” adage a little too far and omitting too much information from their CV. Often, they’re giving us minimal detail on the projects and seem happy to rely on maybe the number of years of experience they have, or possibly the kudos of some of the companies they have worked for to get them through to the next stage of the process. Certainly from a recruiter’s perspective, this is not going to be enough.

Most recruiters will make a decision within the first few seconds of opening your CV, so this is maybe your only opportunity to grab their attention and show them why you are the person they need to talk to next.

Your CV doesn’t need to be a work of art, but there is an art to getting the best out of your CV. The very best CVs give details about what you have done already, e.g.

• An basic outline of the projects you worked on and what they delivered
• What sort of budgets were you are used working with
• List some key achievements rather than a list of responsibilities (certain aspects of being a competent Project Manager are a “given” in order for you to be effective)
• Examples of how you can demonstrate you have a particular skill e.g. stakeholder management – rather than just say “I have excellent stakeholder management skills”.

I would also suggest that your CV is “tailored” for each application you make. It is all too easy to load up a generic CV and click “apply” for any roles you feel you could do, but you need to ensure your CV closely matches the advertised role in terms of skills and experience. There are some very simple guidelines to bear in mind when writing your CV and planning your next career move:

1. Tell the truth! – It is very easy for recruiters and employers to check on the basic details of your CV.
2. Give details of the projects you worked on – Details of the project deliverables, what was the size of the project team, what budgets you worked with, key achievements, etc.
3. Tailor your CV to each application ensuring your skills & experience match the role requirements – transferable skills aren’t as transferable as they once were.
4. Check and double check your CV for spelling and grammatical errors. Maybe even ask a friend to check it too – but don’t rely on spellchecker.
5. Make sure it is well laid out and easy to read, but there is no need for a fancy template or any pictures – remember, don’t put form above substance.
6. Be choosy about what you apply for and only apply for roles where you feel you meet 80% or more of the client requirements – you don’t want to get a reputation for being a “serial applier”.

Above all, put the necessary time and effort into writing your CV – it will be time well-spent. Remember your CV is your only tool to get you noticed (initially) and get you to the all important stage of being submitted to the client.

To find out more information about  project management CV’s visit the website

One of the most common questions I still get asked a lot is how can I make my CV stand out when I’m applying for positions? I get asked it so often that we made a presentation and podcast about it – Differentiating Yourself in the Marketplace. You can have a listen to the detailed answer with practical things to do so here’s some food for thoughts

The number one thing to do to stand out with your CV in the current marketplace is make it relevant

Relevance is a fully old thing – relevant to who? Indeed what does relevance even mean? In this posting we’re talking about making your CV relevant to the person reading it, the job you’re applying for, the role you currently perform and then making it still stand out or having a distinctiveness about it so we can distinguish it from another.

Two audiences

Before putting a CV or application together its worth remembering that different audiences are going to be reading and trying to understand more about you from your CV. These are roughly two types –  people who understand project management and those that don’t. Put yourself in someone else’s shoes for a moment and take a look at your CV again, ask yourself the questions; do I need a course in project management to understand my CV? Am I giving just enough information about what I do to make it readable for a wide range of audiences? Would a line manager (experienced in project management) and an HR recruiter both be interested and act upon my application?

It’s not impossible to do – just think about different audiences when you’re putting the CV together – keep them in your mind’s eye.

Standing Out is Not Difficult

I’ll let you into a secret, it’s not that hard to stand out and you don’t need to do very much at all – why? Because most people are terrible at writing a CV. Most people just write one CV and keep it for ever more, just adding the new jobs they’ve carried out as they go through their career – the same old CV with bits stuck on.

To stand out for every role you apply for you need to make sure the CV changes. How can one CV be relevant to all the project management positions you’re potentially interested in applying for? Where one job advertisement has an emphasis on stakeholder management and budgets and another on large-sized virtual team management it’s not rocket science to see that a few changes to your CV to put emphasis on certain areas makes perfect sense.

Different Project Management Roles Means Different Relevance

As a general thumb of rule – standing out will mean different things to different people. Take a project office or support role. To really do a great job with your CV you need to focus on more details around the tasks you perform. It’s not good enough to just state you carry out project reporting – we want to see how, what do you use, what types of reporting, what process etc etc. With project managers there should be a balance between tasks and outcomes, we need to be able to see that there is skill and experience in how you manage project delivery, how you control risk etc as well as the outcome. In other words just stating the benefits of project X were achieved within budget, time…. yawn. With programme managers there needs to be seniority within the CV, complexity is managed, the strategic understood as well as programme delivery.

The bottom line is standing out means show me you have the skills, capability, knowledge, experience, qualifications, training, and gravitas for this particular post – at this level of complexity, risk, salary and reward. Make your CV and application relevant, tailored and compelling enough and you’ll be in the top percentage of people who regularly receive leads and interviews.

Image – Brian Marshall

I think we are all aware of just how difficult the job market is at the moment with all the uncertainties around the financial status of the EU single currency and the associated knock-on in terms of recession in the UK. This in turn is leading to even more limited opportunities with increasing numbers of applications for every role, increasing levels of competition and only the very best perceived candidates getting through to interview. Throw into the mix the overriding thought of employers that it’s a “buyer’s market” and you can see why it is very tempting to make those slight embellishments, maybe add little white lies to your CV. You are only trying to get a little bit of an edge over the competition, after all you know a few people that have done it, it doesn’t do that much harm and you can do that job, all you need is to be given a chance, right?? WRONG!! In fact you couldn’t be more wrong.

Did you know that over 50% of CVs contain ‘incorrect’ information (or downright lies, if we don’t mind being politically incorrect!) Did you know that it is actually a criminal offence to falsify your CV? Did you know that people have been prosecuted AND jailed for falsifying their CV?

The Bard’s legacy remains somewhat jaded by claims from scholars and conspiracy theorists that some writers claimed his pen name and that documented proof of his actual work is lacking. Likewise, have you ever claimed a work experience, skill or certification on a CV that you can’t actually back up with fact and/or legitmate documentation? If so, the damage to your working reputation could be more severe.

It is very easy to bump up a grade here, add a qualification there or maybe even add £500 or £1000 to your current salary when trying to get that next position and a well deserved pay-rise too. But be warned that employers are on to you: recruiters, too. Among them, we here at Arras People do it on their behalf in the best interest of putting legitmate quality before our clientele. In general, employers may even employ a specialist firm to check out the claims in your CV and this isn’t likely to be limited to your work history. They may well check the validity of your qualifications, which universities you say you attended and even double check your referee’s (some people have given friends and family as referees in an attempt to gain an advantage!). This practice is commonplace in The States, more so than the UK at the moment, but it has crossed ‘The Pond’ and is certainly increasing in popularity here, too.

Even things as simple as an enhanced job title are potential banana skins. You may feel like your were taking on the responsibilities of a Junior Project Manager but if you were employed as a Project Administrator then no matter how much extra responsibility has been heaped on your shoulders you need to represent the role accurately. A basic HR reference will detail your last role and employment dates and if there is a discrepancy then there are potentially consequences it may be ‘just’ an initial loss of trust but it could mean the withdrawal of an offer or even prosecution.

Your parents probably told you that honesty is the best policy; well in this case that adage is certainly true. It is a difficult market out there and there must be a big temptation to take any advantage you can, but before you make those little ‘enhancements’ just stop and ask yourself “what are the consequences of being caught? Is it really worth the risk?” The answer has to be a resounding “No!” because a well written, factually accurate CV will still find it’s way to the hiring manager and the opportunities will still come your way without running the risk of damaging your reputation or even worse.

EDITOR’S NOTE: For those intrigued by the Shakespeare fraudulence debate, start here.

Shakespeare image c/of tonynetone @Flickr, re-used with permission.

Last week I was invited along to the Manchester Metropolitan University‘s Business School to talk to soon-to-be graduating project management students. We’ve done a number of presentations at different universities around the country – and it’s mainly a presentation about getting ready for the realities of life after studies.

Part of the presentation can feel demotivating – but the bottom line is, it’s a challenge for most people these days to end up in the job they’re going to love – which means it’s no different for students that are soon graduating too.

Like any presentation – you can’t just knock people down without bringing them back up so the second half focuses on what you need to do in preparation for the marketplace. There’s the practical advice around personal stock taking – understanding who you are and what you have to offer. This applies to practitioners as much as it does graduates.  There will be plenty of graduates in the marketplace at the end of the academic year – so what can be done to stand out?

There are two important pieces of advice I can give:

Get some experience – any experience.

Without some works experience of some kind you’re just a graduate with a degree. So why not be a graduate with a degree with works experience? This experience can be whilst studying – paid or unpaid, or making immediate plans when the exams are over. Graduates in PM often make the assumption that they’ll be able to secure a project management related position straightaway – but it is not so. Many graduates still enter the workplace through any means they can – and the key to pursuing the PM career this way is to find a position within an organisation that has a project management department.

Think like a project management graduate – write like one too

Half of the battle with graduates finding good opportunities is this issue of “people won’t employ you if you have no experience; but you can’t get experience because no one will hire you”. Classic Catch-22. So you have to work with what you have – which is some works experience (PM related or not), project management knowledge and understanding, plus (hopefully) the intelligent, ambition and drive to make it happen.

Let’s take the CV which will be used to try and open doors. What I would expect to see is the works experience written with a project management slant wherever possible – I’d like to know how your approach to planning your work; dealing with issues; handling people; leadership possibly. With a degree in project management there will be an expectation that you’ve managed projects within the course. Again, good detailed information about what the projects were and what project management competencies you used and demonstrated are the most important things you’re trading with in the job market.

For more information on graduate led advice in project management recruitment, visit the website.

Manchester Met University PM graduates

Manchester Met Business School

A new slideshare just out this month… Congratulations Graduate! Eleven Reasons Why I Will Never Hire You.

photo credit: x-ray delta one via photopin cc

Budget? Authorisation? Decent requirements? The biggest barrier to hiring the right project managers for the job is that thing we all hate – the old dated, old-fashioned CV- curriculum vitae – résumé,  call it what you will.Not only is it a difficult document to write, it’s also difficult to determine exactly what it is that people want to see and read. Add to these problems, the CV is also expected to convey personality!

In this year’s Project Management Benchmark Report (PMBR) we asked hirers of project management staff what did they value the most when hiring project managers, was it:

• PPM experience e.g. the ability to show that I have delivered before
• Domain / sector knowledge and experience
• Personality / personal style and approach
• Professional accreditation e.g., PRINCE2, MSP etc
• Educational Achievement e.g., degree, MSc etc

Hirers ranked these has their top three:

1. PPM experience e.g. the ability to show that I have delivered before
2. Personality / personal style and approach
3. Domain / sector knowledge and experience

Throughout 2013 we’ve been on the road asking practitioners and hirers about these results – especially as personality and personal approach are almost impossible to detect in a CV. Hirers are frustrated that something that they highly value in the decision-making process is difficult to see or read, whilst practitioners are at a loss of how to overcome this problem and present themselves better.

We wanted to take this study further and investigate how the process of selection of project management candidates for a face to face interview is supporting the goal of making personality and approach visible.

If you’re also interested in overcoming this barrier we’d love you to take part in the short survey.

The survey is aimed at any individual who is involved in the selection of candidates for a face to face interview, regardless of their own position within the organisation.

It takes just 4 minutes to complete and the results will be shared with you afterwards. Help us to find the solution to this project management hiring barrier. Click to take the survey now.

One of the most common things I see in a project management CV that jumps out straightaway and tells me that the rest of the CV might not be all that great is the use of the first person in the profile.

Is it just a pet hate of mine or is it something that other hirers have a problem with too?

Here’s what I mean:

I am a highly motivated individual passionate about effective project management. I have proven experience in the successful delivery of various projects across a number of industries including IT, Railway Engineering and Public Affairs. I have strong ‘hands-on’ experience of different project management methodologies with the ability of knowing how and when to apply them efficiently. I have a good track record in effectively engaging various types of stakeholders and managing difficult risks during complex projects. In addition I possess an in-depth understanding of different business analysis techniques supported by the thorough and detail-orientated approach to their application.

I’m also not overly keen on the use of the name either, like this:

Bob is a result-focused and self-motivated Project Manager. He is a certified Prince2 Practitioner & Agile Scrum master with double MBA degrees from Cranfield and Oxford, Bob has a high degree of commercial acumen and technical flair which is demonstrated through an outstanding career record.

Bob demonstrates excellent project management skills providing leadership and guidance to the delivery teams, managing client and stakeholder expectations, delivery teams, delivery risks, issues and dependencies effectively negotiate with clients and internal teams. He has extensive experience in major change / transformation/ transition projects related to multiple technologies from initiating a project to its planning, design, execution, monitoring controlling and closure of the project using agile methodologies. Bob has hands on experience in running day to day project management activities on both very large and small-scale projects.

Bob offers a track record and reputation for delivering high quality complex programmes within demanding cost and timescale constraints with efficient stakeholder management and risk management.

Writing in the third person has always seemed more professional to me; the CV is written about someone rather than a personal story which is what the use of “I” and “Bob” indicates. For the CV profile in particular I prefer a factual account written as if it is one step removed from you.

Here’s how I would rewrite that first profile:

Highly motivated project manager with a proven experience in the successful delivery of various projects across a number of industries including IT, Railway Engineering and Public Affairs. <I would get something in here about the qualifications> Strong ‘hands-on’ experience of different project management methodologies <ideal opportunity for some keywords here? which ones?> with the ability of knowing how and when to apply them efficiently. Excellent track record in effectively engaging various types of stakeholders and managing difficult risks during complex projects. Additional experience and an in-depth understanding of different business analysis techniques supported by the thorough and detail-orientated approach to application.

To make the CV profile even better – make it tighter and punchier with the right kind of detail and keyword use, Arras devised a formula that works very well.

Here it is:

So would you agree that writing a CV profile in the third person is much better than the first? Leave your own comments and thoughts below and let me know what you think.

We all know how ‘modern’ recruitment works in the UK.

Keywords.

Keywords are king.

They have to be.

Recruitment systems that hold hundreds and thousands of CVs have to be filtered in some way.

It’s just like Googling. You have to start with some basic keywords of what you’re looking for.

It’s a start. It’s a way to reduce the number of records to something manageable.

Something manageable that a human can then deal with.

Humans want to deal with the ones that are more likely to be the right person for the job.

Recruitment works exactly like that.

It’s no secret.

Play the Keyword Game

Recruitment is all about the keywords – it’s a game.

Get the right keywords in the CV (and in the right context!) and match what the recruiter or job advert is asking for.

Those are the rules.

In a recent recruitment drive for a Senior Project Manager – Digital Transformation we decided to share some insights of the game to some of the people who applied for the position.

Here’s a basic overview of the job to give you the general idea:

‘We are seeking a Senior Agile Project manager who can take up a 6 month contract which is tasked with the delivery of the UK Export Finance (UKEF) Digital Portal which is a priority project and a cornerstone in the wider UKEF Digital Programme.

In role you will be working with a third-party development agency, and in an Agile environment and take on the responsibility of leading this delivery.

Technical experience of building a Digital Portal into a secure, government, landing page is desirable and you will be able to show experience of delivering in both an Agile and PRINCE2 environment.’

Keywords for Project Managers

We had a lot of responses.

So we had to whittle those down to something manageable.

First up, let’s see who applied and had the word “Agile” in the CV:

• 87% of CV’s contained the word ‘agile’

So that doesn’t help us a lot.

Take a look at the other obvious ones:

• 47% of CV’s contained ‘senior project manager’
• 22% of CV’s contained ‘digital transformation’
• 12% of CV’s contained ‘agile delivery’
• 9% of CV’s contained ‘agile project management’
• 8% of CV’s contained ‘agile project manager’
• 1.5% of CV’s contained ‘senior digital project manager’

So we shared these stats with the people who applied.

We thought it might help them with future applications.

If they understood a little more how recruitment works at the moment, they could make some tweaks here and there in the CV.

Feedback from Project Managers

Here is the first piece of  feedback from a Project Manager when shown the stats about the keywords:

It is a pity that people do not get an opportunity to progress at all past a recruiters idea of what words should be stated! Do you know what a Senior Project Manager for Digital Transformation actually does? Or have you ever been one, to know that your 2 candidates were the best two? Or just that they know how to play the keyword game!!!!

And here’s another one:

I just wanted to mention that this feedback is the best I have ever received in my many years as a contractor.

And another:

It’s interesting to see such stats. Did you get a chance to review my profile ? or was it screened out?

And finally:

Clearly, there is a competitive pool of Senior PM’s/Programme Managers out there in the market place and hence anything a prospective candidate can do to raise their profile or demonstrate experience, etc., is helpful.

That’s all we ever hope to be, giving useful advice for project practitioners when it comes to the project management marketplace.

So would you welcome feedback like this for an application you made for a job? How about knowing before you applied just how well placed the keywords were – or not appearing at all?

Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Looking for advice in your project management career? Why not try the project management careers clinic. Want to know how your CV performs for keywords? Book a career clinic and receive an overview of your CV as part of the service.