I am often approached by PMO professionals who want to make their CV more appealing to recruiting managers, as they feel their roles are the same from company to company (or assignment to assignment). It is easy to fall into the trap of being repetitive or trying to rephrase the same information over and over – but this rarely adds value to the CV and makes for a boring read to others. The trick is to really think about each role and draw out the core areas relevant to the assignment, in reality, there is always a difference in these roles whether it be with process or people. But addressing the core areas pertinent to the role in question will not only make for a more interesting read, it also helps you ensure you are talking through core competencies and situations recognised in the PMO field which should ensure you are getting “ticks in the boxes” of the recruitment wish list and ultimately being put into shortlists for the roles you are applying for.

A key starting point would be to list all the core areas relevant to your role within the PMO and then match up specific areas to roles, that way you are not leaving out any required pieces but you are also then beginning to split out some interesting pieces of information which will provide a flow through the CV and paint a strong picture of how you work and your understanding of supporting projects / programmes / portfolios of work.

Think about how you fit into a PMO, do you create templates and provide consultancy work to PMs and PgMs, have you established project capability to an organisation, are you analysing key strategic data business-wide? As the PMO is a complex field, it pays to really address what your specialism is and spell it out to recruiters who might not necessarily know what a PMO is (never mind the roles within them).