Category Archives: Project Management

Careers Advice, CV Tips, CV Writing, PMO, Project Management, Project management CV, project management recruitment, project management resume

Recruitment for Project Managers – how to make it work

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I was approached this week by a new client asking me how recruitment works – having been in a permanent role for some years he is looking to go interim and wanted to know what the formula is to make recruiters sit up and take notice of him. There is no hard and fast rule as such – naturally the recruiter has a list of requirements from their client which need addressing in the CV, if your CV does not touch on these requirements then you will be discarded and often forgotten about. So what actually makes a recruiter work for you? For a start you need to really understand your own skill set and how this works in the project environment, clearly contextualising your experience and the project benefits is key to the basis of a good CV. Making sure you apply for roles which meet your abilities will put you in good stead with the recruiter and if you are not quite right for that role you have a better chance of being remembered for the right reasons, as from the start you have demonstrated your understanding of the role itself and are not just applying for anything.

If you have a wealth of experience managing a diverse range of projects then the recruiter needs to see the projects most relevant to the role you apply for, however this does not mean you need to leave out other information. The trick is to present a summary of the types of projects, complexity, budgets and team size / locations / skill sets, then you need to talk about how you deliver, the difficulties you have encountered and your specific aptitude – you may be great with demanding and difficult stakeholders or you may be great at manipulating data or balancing finances. Everyone is different and what the recruiter wants to know is what sets you apart from others. Talk about key achievements, don’t be fooled into thinking that delivering a project on time and to budget is an achievement – you are paid to do this right! Think about how you got there, what hurdles did you overcome, what have you learnt from the project and what measures have you adopted for future delivery?

All of this information needs to be kept to a maximum 3 page but ideally a 2 page CV, it can be difficult to edit and condense this information which is why a second pair of eyes can be extremely effective. We offer a free CV review at The CV Righter where honest and constructive feedback is presented to individuals – there is no obligation to take up the CV writing service however should you decide to take the service up then you will only be charged for a service bespoke to you. If you do not require an entire re-write then you don’t pay for one. The review is performed by a former project management specific recruiter and will be executed as such which will give you a valuable insight into how recruiters actually view your CV.

financial reporting, Negotiation, Project Management, Project Management Communications, Project planning

What could possibly go wrong? Irrational fears

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We’ve all had a nightmare at work at some point and project management in its own right is probably home to more war stories than most professions – but how does this affect our lives and perceptions moving forward? For most of us, we learn from our experiences and carry a great deal of battle scars which tend to make us a little more wary if not more prepared when venturing into a new challenge, however sometimes we can let our thoughts and actions go into overdrive and start having irrational fears.

I will share with you an irrational fear I used to have when I worked for a large blue chip business. On a Monday morning – I was tasked with gathering the weekly financial data for output of all the European manufacturing sites. Once I had all the data I had to produce a report of all the figures for a meeting with the heads of sites, company president and other senior managers’. So as you can imagine – this was a task which could not be put to the back of the “to do” list, in all fairness I found the task a bit of a bore but also knew the importance of having the report ready an hour before the video conferencing. I would contact all of the logistics managers across the manufacturing sites every Monday with a friendly email reminder, followed by a call for those who still hadn’t sent over their reports. Now I don’t want to single out a particular site but there was one which was notoriously late with their reports, in fact they were so bad that I would have called at least 3 times after the initial email which never generated a response. I would be patched through to various departments on each call and basically told that the relevant staff had gone for lunch. Sometimes this was mid morning (even with the time difference), so it became a bit of a joke that this site were basically always eating. This is where my irrational fear came about – as I got it in the neck for my report being late and it was always this site which made me late (despite many meetings /conversations and discussions trying to clarify what the issue was at their end) that I began to believe that they were in fact all sat eating ALL DAY on a Monday.

From then on, I have always been very keen to plan project meetings well ahead of deadlines with the manufacturing site in question – even making up deadlines to be well ahead of the real deadlines in a bid to try and get my projects completed on time; it worked and I did just hit my deadlines on projects but the financial reporting never got in on time from them.

I would love to hear of your irrational fears – whether at work or home, sometimes they can prove to be productive.

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.

 

Careers Advice, Interviews, Job Applications, Project Management, Project management career progression, project management jobs

Demonstrating you want the job – Interview tips

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With the double dip recession the market has certainly come around full swing and interviews are not in abundance – they certainly haven’t disappeared but there are less roles being advertised and for those who are less active at searching for new openings then it does feel like there are less opportunities and as a knock on effect less interviews. Therefore it is important to make sure you are doing all you can to make sure you harvest success in the interviews you are being invited to.

One of the key areas employers check for in interviews is your buy-in to the organisation, interviewers are expecting a good level of enthusiasm and are happy to throw prospective employees back into the vast sea of job seekers as it is perceived as an employer’s market. This isn’t entirely the case – yes there are a great deal of job seekers out there at the moment but there are only a few which closely meet the employers’ expectations in terms of experience and skills. Most of the good candidates have already secured work or have been in work for some time and would rather not risk a move into a company whilst we sit in unknown territory with the global recession.

Here are a few tips to ensuring you grab the interviewers’ attention for the right reasons by demonstrating your buy-in to the business:

  1. Make an effort – how you present yourself is very important, think first impressions – putting on a suit and clean shoes (boys & girls) is a must, no matter how casual the workplace is.
  2. Noting down names – seems like a stupid thing to even mention but I have lost count of the amount of people who forget or just don’t take notice of my name when I am interviewing them. Don’t overuse names either – it sounds wrong and almost patronising if you keep repeating someone’s name when you are talking to them.
  3. Research the business, again it seems ridiculous to even mention this but over and over again I have come across people who really should make more effort to understand what an organisation does / produces etc as a bare minimum. However you could actually shine in the subject of buy-in by learning more about competitors and what’s happening in recent news for the company.
  4. Presentations – sometimes you will be asked to prepare a presentation to take along to the interview, make sure you put the work in. I would expect you to ask what presentation facilities will be available on the day and make use of the best ones. i.e. a projector and Powerpoint is ideal, it’s what most use in everyday life at work and helps the interviewer imagine you in a regular meeting (how you fit in, can they actually sit through an entire meeting listening to you etc.). I cannot emphasise enough that “just jotting down some notes to talk through and maybe a handout” is not good enough.
  5. Take examples of work – you may be asked to do this, such as a plan or something similar but you can always take some examples even if you have not been asked to. Try to keep to documentation which is closely aligned to the role you are being interviewed for and don’t force it on them if they are not keen.