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.