Last week I asked the Twitter community if there were any specific questions on project management careers advice that were current hot topics or issues with them, this question forms the basis of this blog article “How do you indicate on a CV that your job may have included several roles?”
This is quite a common occurence for many people, especially if you are working within a smaller business or have been promoted within a company but still have to carry out the duties you previously performed too. People who work in roles which include project based activity as well as BAU (Business As Usual) also tend to find it difficult to represent themselves well, especially if they are looking to pursue a project management career.
And that’s the key to how information should be represented on your CV, it really does depend on what role you’re looking for next in your career.
Here’s an example of how a current dual role CV looks:
Dual role – Project Manager / Head of Facilities ,
Key responsibilities include:
· ·Delivery of specified projects within budget and timescales.
· All procurement and supplier management.
· Planned and reactive maintenance of 280 retail units, 4 call centres and 1 head office.
· Day to day management and development of 5 Facilities consultants and reports.
We’ll come back to the example above and I’ll show you how it can be improved.
Organisations are unique which often means the positions of employment within the organisation are unique too. The chances of finding a new position which require all the skills, activities, and tasks that you have been performing in your current or last role is very slim (if not non-existent)
Of course, many people when they are looking for a new role are not looking for the same job in another company so the first question to ask yourself is “what are you looking for?” and “what kind of position do you really want?”
When you’ve decided, that’s when you can think about representing your current position on your CV.
Your CV is not a document for writing down every single thing you’ve ever done in your working life, it’s a document that you’re going to use to get you your next position. Writing about every single role you’ve performed, skill you’ve picked up, task you’ve carried out and hoping the reader will pick out what’s relevant to them, is not going to happen.
It’s about picking out the skills and experiences that best represent what you’re bringing to the table BASED on what the organisation you’re applying to want (the job spec).
Organisations are not interested in reading about the skills and indeed roles you’ve performed which are not relevant. It sounds harsh but think about it, there are many CVs to read through when an organisation is looking for a new employee, do they really have the time to read through all the “fluff” you’re presenting that is not relevant to them? You have time in the interview to talk about other skills you bring if the right opportunity arose so don’t bomb out at selection stage!
Clearly presenting details in the CV enables an organisation to see what you’ve got, the benefits you might bring to their organisation if they hire you and make a firm decision about bringing you in for an interview.
You will end up creating more than one version of your CV (remember, each organisation is unique therefore each position is unique) because some previous skills you’ve acquired will be more important than another based on the job you’re going for.
When you’ve got a fairly good idea about the kind of role you’re going for it becomes much easier to see which skills and experiences you should be bringing out in your CV for each individual role you’re applying for
Let’s go back to our example, Candidate X wants to definitely pursue a project management career and leave the running of the facilities department duties behind. The example given is the only detail stated for that period of employment, in other words, not a lot!
Here’s the example again with some notes on improvement
Dual role - Project Manager / Head of Facilities , (drop the dual role in the title)
(Consider including a Key Achievements part here before the key responsibilities)
Key responsibilities include:
· ·Delivery of specified projects within budget and timescales. (consider breaking the bullet points to show the details of the specific projects, making sure the project management skills are clearly highlighted)
· All procurement and supplier management. (think about how these core tasks of the Facilities Manager role can be given a project management slant – think contract management, third party management etc)
· Planned and reactive maintenance of 280 retail units, 4 call centres and 1 head office. (very good experience here for the candidate moving forward in facilities project management so you want to keep this in the CV but think about the project management angle, I’m sure the planned maintenance included several project management elements)
· Day to day management and development of 5 Facilities consultants and reports. (again, good experience here which demonstrates leadership and people management, core areas in project management. How can the sentence be improved to show more of this candidates capabilities as a leader and manager?)
Top Tips
- Don’t put details about ALL the roles you’ve performed on your CV if it’s not relevant to the job you’re applying for
- Remember, at interview stage you will have an opportunity to show additional skills (which you acquired in different roles) if there is an opportunity to do so
- Keep key achievements that you know will be a good match for the role you’re applying for, ditch the ones that add nothing!
- I can’t emphasize this enough, tailor each CV for each role you’re going for
- Consider changing the order of the key achievements
- Update the profile summary or objective to include prominent keywords
- In your Career History, move bullet points around so some key skills are more prominent than others
The CV should contain more details about career oriented tropics and the skills we know rather then our personal details.