Project Manager resume skills. The words recruiters search for.
The 16 skills, tools and credentials that come up in project manager job posts, sorted by type, and how to put them in bullets a recruiter believes.
By Nazir Elmurodov, Founder, LaunchCV · Updated
/ The list
Keywords by type. Use only the ones that are true for you.
Hard skills · 10
- Project management
- Project planning (used in Kevin's sample resume)
- Scope management (used in Kevin's sample resume)
- Budget management (used in Kevin's sample resume)
- Risk management (used in Kevin's sample resume)
- Agile (used in Kevin's sample resume)
- Scrum (used in Kevin's sample resume)
- Waterfall (used in Kevin's sample resume)
- Change management
- Resource planning
Tools & software · 4
- MS Project (used in Kevin's sample resume)
- Jira (used in Kevin's sample resume)
- Smartsheet (used in Kevin's sample resume)
- Asana
Licenses & certifications · 1
- PMP (used in Kevin's sample resume)
Soft skills · 1
- Stakeholder management
11 of 16 appear in Kevin's sample resume. See where
/ How to use them
Put keywords in bullets, not just in a skills list.
A skills list tells the software you have a skill. A bullet shows a recruiter what you did with it.
Smartsheet
Weak: Skills: Smartsheet
Strong: Supported an EHR upgrade for 14 clinics, tracking 400+ tasks in Smartsheet
Agile
Weak: Skills: Agile
Strong: Ran sprint ceremonies for a 7-person Agile team after earning the CSM certification
Delivery
Weak: Managed projects
Strong: Delivered a 9-site warehouse system rollout 3 weeks early and 4% under budget
Scale
Weak: Handled multiple projects
Strong: Managed 6 concurrent projects worth $4.8M; 5 delivered on or ahead of schedule
Strong bullets come from Kevin's sample resume and our project manager bullet examples. Names and figures are illustrative.
/ Use them honestly
Keywords get you found. Proof gets you hired.
Mirror the job post's wording for skills you really have. If a project manager post asks for Project management and you've used it, say Project management, in the post's spelling, and show where.
Mirror the job post's wording
If a project manager post says "PMP", write "PMP", not a near-synonym — as long as it's accurate. Recruiters search for the post's exact term.
Only claim what you can back up
Expect to be asked about every term you list. If you couldn't spend two minutes on Project management — what you did and what changed — leave it out.
Show it in a bullet
A skills list says you know Smartsheet. A bullet like the one under Project Coordinator in the example above shows what you did with it.
No stuffing, no hidden text
Repeating a word or hiding keywords in white text doesn't make you a better match. A person reads the resume in the end.
Which of these does your resume say?
Free ATS score and missing keywords in about 10 seconds.
Applying to one post? Scan its keywords against your resume.
Keep going
/ Questions
PM keywords, answered.
Something else? support@launch-cv.com
How many keywords should a project manager resume have?
There's no magic number. Kevin's sample resume uses 11 of the 16 terms on this page — the ones that fit that job. Cover what your post asks for that you can back up, each where it fits; repeating a keyword doesn't help.
Should I copy keywords exactly from the job post?
Use the post's wording for skills you really have. If a project manager post says "Project management", write "Project management" rather than a synonym, so a recruiter searching for that term finds you. Don't add skills you don't have just because the post lists them.
Where should keywords go on my resume?
In your summary, a short skills section and, above all, the bullets under each job, where you show what you did with the skill. In Kevin's sample, Smartsheet shows up in a bullet under Project Coordinator. Plain text in the body of the page is easiest for applicant tracking systems to read.
Which tools should I list on a project manager resume?
The ones you've used and the post mentions. Common ones in project manager posts include MS Project, Jira, Smartsheet and Asana. Name the tool in the bullet where you used it, not only in the skills list.
How should I list PMP on my resume?
Spell it the way the job post does, and include both the abbreviation and the full name if you have room. Put licenses and certifications in their own section or next to your education, and only list ones that are current.
Keywords for related roles
All 88 rolesSee which of these your resume already says.
Free ATS check — no sign-up, about 10 seconds.