Project management skills can help you identify your project’s goals and accomplish them. How can you list these skills more effectively on your resume?
How to Use Project Management Skills
Project Management Skills
If you’re planning to join a company, especially in a management role, project management skills are likely going to be an important part of your skill repertoire. This is because many managers have to create, organize, and carry out increasingly complicated projects, and having command over the most important project management skills makes it easier for you to keep your team working and deliver projects on time. Here’s what you need to know about project management skills.
Why Project Management Skills Are Important for a Company
Project management skills are necessary for companies because they help you turn individual employees into a productive team. A successful project manager knows how to split a project up into individual steps, assign those steps to the team members that will do best with them, and stay on top of task management until project goals are reached. Essentially, the project manager’s job is to ensure that everyone is using their skills appropriately and completing the project. Project management professionals can spend years learning how to assess teamwork and determine the best roadmap to project success. In some companies, general managers will also be project managers, while in other companies, these will be two different roles.
The Top Project Management Skills to Master
To be an effective project manager, you need to hone certain key skills. Whether you’re planning to apply as a project manager specifically or you’re just applying for general management positions, you should feature some of these essential project management skills in your resume:
- Conflict management and conflict resolution
- Effective communication skills with team members and project stakeholders
- Knowledge of the project lifecycle
- Team building and team management
- Negotiation skills
- General project planning
- Adaptability
- Knowledge of project management tools
- Risk management knowledge
- Critical thinking
- Problem-solving
- Leadership
- Time management
- Budget management
- Knowledge of project management methodologies, such as Agile
- Understanding of task dependencies
- Ability to manage project schedules and milestones
Note that you don’t need to include every one of these skills on your resume, and in fact, it’s best not to. However, these are all skills that a great project manager may have in their back pocket, which means they are skills that you want to showcase throughout your resume and cover letter.
It’s good to note that project management skills include both soft skills and hard skills. Of course, soft skills – intangible skills that show how you can collaborate with others and approach work in general – are crucial for project management. You need to be a good communicator if you’re going to keep your project team on target. However, you will also need technical skills, such as knowledge of project management software. You can even get certifications in these areas to prove your expertise.
Tips for Developing Better Project Management Skills
Generally, the best way to develop your project management skills is just to use them. The more frequently you use your project management skills, the better you’ll be at it. The best project management experts didn’t start using their skill set yesterday, They’ve been using these skills for years and years, providing deliverables of all kinds throughout their career.
Another option is to take classes and get actual certifications in these skills. A good project manager doesn’t necessarily need certifications, but it can help prove your skills to a hiring manager and it can help teach you new skills you’ve never been able to grasp before. You can take many of these courses from established, reputable organizations like the Project Management Institute (PMI) to learn new technical skills.
