Category Archives: Friday Snippet

Friday Snippet, Networking, News, No, Project Management Events

Free Project Management Event – Friday snippet

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Project Challenge Expo 2012 is a bi-annual show for Programme, Project, Process and Resource professionals. Now housed at London’s Olympia Exhibition Centre – the show offers a range of presentations and a number of stands; exhibitors include software, training, recruitment, process, and membership bodies. For those who are keen to keep abreast of new methods and learn something through seminars – this is a must. It is one of very few free shows which is focussed on project management and is perfect for some networking too.


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I shall be there – taking in a couple of presentations and checking out the new software on the market; feel free to come say hello and have a coffee with me!

 

CV Tips, CV Writing, Friday Snippet, Job Applications, News, Project Management, Project management career progression, Project management CV, The CV Righter

Free Project Management CV writing essential guide

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Are you trying to put together your resume but unsure of what you should be included in your CV? Over the past couple of months we have covered a great deal of information on CV writing for project professionals on the blog and have drawn together all this information into one easy guide.

Covering areas such as:

  • An explanation of why job applications are rejected – a great start to writing your CV is to understand the pitfalls of making an application.
  • Basic CV structure – an easy guide through the structuring of a professional CV, what to include!
  • Understanding your target audience – you need to know what your prospective employers want to know about you, some handy hints to get you started.
  • Specific detail about writing your profile and examples of good and bad profiles.
  • The benefits of adding key achievements and what to state.
  • Employment history – addressed with specific examples of a role, written the right and the wrong way.
  • Information about stating referees and hobbies in your CV – understand how an employer views these.

This document has been compiled for those of you who want to write your CV yourself – however once you start to understand the complexity of writing your CV to include your experience and skill-set versus what the employer needs to understand, you may decide to take up the services of a professional CV writer such as The CV Righter. There’s no shame in it – in fact having a recruiters’ perspective to how your CV reads is invaluable in the ever competitive job market.

If you would like a free essential guide to CV writing, please contact us through our webpage here.

Careers Advice, Collaborative working, Friday Snippet, Happy work environment, identifying weaknesses, News

Transforming yourself in the work place – Friday snippet

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Being good all the time can be hard work and sometimes you feel it is hardly worth the effort but if you could wish away a few of your bad habits – how different would your work life be? We all have colleagues with annoying traits and if you don’t then you may well be the one with all the bad habits! Here I have listed a fun way to identify and manage them:

  1. Identify – find out what your habits are and which are less than attractive, ask your colleagues to write down 3 of your habits which they find aggravating, fold them up and place them into a bowl. Once you have them all (now this is important) do not take them to heart as you are actively looking to remedy the habits, by being proactive you are taking the right steps to a happier work environment. Now compare all the results and pick the 3 most popular to work on. To make this an inclusive and more fun exercise – why not ask everyone to do the same.
  2. Penalty – having identified your 3 bad habits you then need to set a penalty for each time you do one of them. A “swear box” for want of a better phrase, can be used. Set a fixed penalty cost for each habit.
  3. Replace – it is a common theory that to lose a bad habit, you should look to replace it with a good habit. Find something else you can do which is positive and helps to fill the void.
  4. Reward – at the end of a set period of time, say a month or two – take the penalty cash and go buy cakes for everyone. If it is a large office with everyone involved and a fair few colleagues are being fined regularly then the collection may be worthy of buying lunch in or a drinks kitty in the pub one evening.

Often we are unaware of our habits or unaware that they annoy others so it is important to highlight them and address them – this type of activity can be a real team building exercise and if facilitated professionally can really help build a much happier work environment for all.

Careers Advice, CV Tips, Friday Snippet, Networking, News, Project Management, Project management career progression

Building up your PPM network

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With the increasing use of social networking sites such as Twitter, Linkedin, Google+, Facebook, Pinterest etc there is no excuse not to get professionally involved in project management groups to widen your networks – however some groups can seem a little cliquey to begin with and when first starting out it can seem like your first day at a new school when you have no friends. The key to engaging with groups is to make sure you sit back and take a look at how others communicate, gaining a sense of etiquette and what is OK to talk about will set you in good stead to start engaging with like-minded individuals. Do not be afraid to ask questions to get involved in the groups and strike up a conversation. Also take a look at some of the more prominent and respected members of the groups to see their backgrounds and read through their blogs. Taking an interest in a particular subject or adding your opinion will gain you credibility quite quickly too. Once you start to strike up conversations you will find others get involved and add their comments too.

If you have a particular interest in a subject then research to see if there are groups already formed covering the subject and also check out journals – each month they will pick topics for their content and you may well have something you can add in the form of an article. Make sure you are prominent in social networks if you plan to do this so others can make contact after reading your article. You will be surprised by how many do make the effort to make contact to discuss the subject further or simply to agree / disagree with your opinions.

As a project professional I would suggest as a bare minimum you have a Linkedin account which is up to date and a twitter account which will help you be contactable – then join in some of the active groups, there are hundreds on Linkedin and a good starting point for twitter would be #pmot and #pmchat.

By widening your network you will naturally start to keep abreast of new techniques being used and also share in the war stories of project professionals in the battlefield of project management. Not only will this enhance your working knowledge of PPM you may also get to hear about new job opportunities, writing articles for journals will enhance your resume and demonstrate your dedication to the PPM profession.