Category Archives: PMO

Careers Advice, CV Tips, Job Applications, PMO, Project Management, Project management CV, project management resume, Starting out in Project Management, Transferable Skills

Let’s talk about transferable skills – starting out in Project Management

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There’s always a lot of talk about skill-sets and particularly transferable skills; however if you want to transfer your career into the project management field then it is important to highlight the right skills which will be of greatest benefit to you and your potential employer. Now we all know there are differing types of project management roles from support through to managing and there are also more technical PM roles too – not just IT, they may be construction / engineering etc where you need to have a good knowledge of the field as well as PM methods to be successful in delivering benefits. So I am going to cover some key transferable skills for the PM aspect not any specific industry based element, here are a few to consider:

  • Investigating – Researching and questioning why? Key components to any good PM professional, being able to push back with quantifiable evidence is required even more now that funding is tight and projects benefits really do need to be explored thoroughly before starting off another project.
  • Planning – Planning / scheduling projects, predicting outcomes / scenarios, organising events and preparing for tasks – it’s a must!
  • Leadership – Core requirement for any good Project Manager and comes in very handy for Programme Support professionals too.
  • Influencing – The ability to gain buy-in is a big requirement for PM professionals, whether it’s from senior management, external (or internal stakeholders), sponsors or suppliers – you need to be able to persuade and encourage others.
  • Teamwork – Proving you can bond with others and build a strong force which produces results is key to successful project delivery.
  • Problem solving – Taking different viewpoints and exploring solutions is a big part of PM, from understanding workstream leads other commitments to supplier issues.
  • Budgeting – At some point you with be either managing your own budget or monitoring budgets on projects in a support element.
  • Decision making – The ability to look at your options and actually pick a way forward is crucial especially in a critical situation.
  • Training – Working with others either as a manager (PM) to mentor and train people in the project team or as a support person (PMO) to train others in various aspects of the project lifecycle such as risk management etc through workshops and 1 2 1 engagement.
  • Organising – From coordinating teams and individuals, arranging meetings and resources to scheduling.
  • Time management – Meeting deadlines and setting priorities are the core factors of project management and being on time is a given.
  • Creating – Not always highlighted as a core skill for PMs but in my experience of delivering projects, inventing, originating, designing or composing play a big part to success.

Now you can use this as a starting guide to performing a skills audit – once you have a list of transferable skills, you then need to provide some good examples of each skill (where you have used them / how / outcomes etc). These will help you form a basis for applications to project management jobs.

 

CV Tips, CV Writing, Job Applications, PMO, Project Management, Project management CV, project management resume

The best & worst CV

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The best CV I have ever seen in my project management recruitment capacity has to be one from a PMO professional – his CV was well presented and stated everything a hiring manager would need to know about his skills and abilities. Apart from having a fantastic variety of industries worked in it also stated the types and maturity of the PMOs, what he actually was brought in to achieve, the tools and methods used and the benefits realised. You gained a great sense of the sizes of teams, types of programmes and projects, challenges faced and how he added value in each environment. Whenever I submitted his CV for PMO roles he always gained a great deal of interest from the client which yielded interviews and subsequently job offers. Because I knew his preference to challenges I could match up his requirements to the right organisations and ensure both the client and he were happy.

The worst CV I have ever reviewed to date has been a very poorly written piece of work which was full of spelling and grammatical errors to start but also did not contain any real evidence of the work undertaken. Stating a short paragraph which basically said he had worked in this company for xx years and managed their projects, giving no indication of the size or complexity of projects or methods used to achieve success. Even the qualifications were misspelt “practioner” not “practitioner” – I remember having a conversation with the candidate at the time as he called to ask why he’d been rejected for the role he’d applied for, when I listed key requirements of the role he told me he had done all these things and I asked him where this was stated in the CV.

Having a CV which can work effectively for you is not always an easy task for some but putting the effort in and following all the great advice on the web for project professionals CV writing is a must.

Careers Advice, Contractors, CV Tips, CV Writing, Job Applications, PMO, Project Management

Understanding your target audience – CV Tips

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Writing a CV can be daunting at the best of times – some struggle to write a page others write a 10 page document fearing that everything they do needs detailing. To a point it does but it is important to ensure you are getting to the point as I am yet to meet an employer who will gratefully receive a lengthy CV. Put yourself in their shoes – they will have a number of CVs to read and are already very busy.

Understanding your target audience is a good way to making a start with writing your CV – do some research, get a feel for what is attractive to the line manager for the roles you wish to apply for. Once you break down into a few categories, what it is you wish to do next, you will soon be able to start formulating a CV which will gain a greater buy-in from the reviewer.

For example – you may be in a permanent programme manager position and having had good exposure to realigning failing pieces of work, feel that you would like a change and want to go into contracting. OK great so the biggest challenge you will need to overcome is demonstrating that you can “hit the ground running” with your potential employer. Therefore starting to list the types of projects and programmes you have picked up in various states of health and detail what you needed to do to bring them back in-line. By talking through the ability to do this you are clearing the first hurdle in the transition from a permanent employee to a contractor. Next look at the types of work being offered in the contract world at present – a good deal of business transformation and IT systems integration are glowing areas particularly for the financial services. Take a look at your portfolio and pick a handful of relevant programmes and projects to talk about, If you do not have a financial services background you make look to place more emphasis on the IT systems you have integrated or the types of transformations – politics, stakeholders, any regulatory / compliance exposure you make have and document this in the CV.

You may have a good length of service within in the PPM domain so ensure the emphasis is kept to the more recent roles and anything over 10 years ago is kept to a line; stating dates, role title, company name and location. Draw out specific key achievements relevant to the types of change you are looking to continue with and take care to add the benefits.

Do not assume the first person to read your application will understand the role – HR staff are often given a list of competencies to work through when reviewing your CV so make sure you address the job description when writing the CV and any buzz words are also embraced, terminology can differ slightly from methodology to methodology so make sure you are consistent with the definitions used in the JD.

Careers Advice, PMO, Project Management, Q&A

Project Management qualifications – Questions answered

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This week we have a fantastic question about PM qualifications from one of our clients’:

I have been working in the project management domain for a number of years and been working to a fair few methods due to the variety of projects delivered, all my methods have been learnt on the job and I feel I have a good grounding which will be attractive to employers. Do you think I should gain formal accreditation in these methods, will it enhance my career moving forward or will employers be happy with my hands on experience?

David, Project Manager; Leeds

Hi David, many thanks for your question – glad to hear you are going about the big qualification issue the right way. First of all having the structured approach experience is always paramount to the majority of employers out there and also for your own professional development. I all too often see a lot of project professionals who have gained accreditations before putting the method to practice; this is often deemed the wrong way to go about things. I agree that more junior PM staff and those starting out in project management would benefit from taking introductory courses which will allow them a good understanding of why / what the stages of structured PM are in place, but don’t recognise the benefit of taking qualifications for methods which are not currently being used unless there is a requirement to bring such structure to the project with no other champions in the field available to oversee the implementation.

As a seasoned professional you would be adding to your current repertoire by taking qualifications relevant to your experience as this adds reassurance to the hiring manager that you are committed in the field of PM and also willing to enhance your own professional development. As such I would evaluate where you see your career heading and take an informed decision as to which qualifications to run with. If you have a particular specialism and can see this as a growth area in PM then it would be wise to follow this route, there’s little point in going for the qualifications which you don’t deem personally useful moving forward. As PM courses can prove to be expensive, you might also look to your current employer and see if they are willing to invest in your professional development. By providing a good business case for the need; such as training others / implementing companywide structures etc you should be able to strike a deal which will be mutually beneficial.