Should I include projects that were cancelled?

Yes, if you can say what you delivered or learned before cancellation. Cancellations are usually a business decision, not a performance one — but frame it as the work you completed, not the project that died.

Do I need PMP or PRINCE2?

Not universally, but they are often used as automated filters, so an uncertified resume can be screened out before a human reads it. If you hold one, make it prominent. If you do not, lead harder on delivered scale.

Agile or waterfall — which should I emphasise?

Whichever the posting names. Most experienced project managers have run both; leading with the one the employer uses is accurate and clears the keyword match.

Project manager resume example

A strong project manager resume proves delivery under constraint: what shipped, on what timeline, against what budget, and what you changed when it slipped. Name the methodology only if the posting does. Recruiters screen for scale — team size, budget, and number of stakeholders — so make those explicit.

Summary section

Project manager with eight years delivering regulated software programmes in financial services. Delivered a 14-month, £2.4M core-banking migration two weeks early by resequencing dependencies after an early vendor slip, coordinating 30+ stakeholders across four countries.

Achievement bullets that work

Written to show the result first and the method second. Adapt the structure — never copy the numbers.

Delivered a £2.4M core-banking migration two weeks ahead of a 14-month schedule by resequencing dependencies after an early vendor slip, with zero unplanned customer downtime.
Recovered a programme running six weeks late by cutting scope to the three features driving 80% of the business case, renegotiating the deadline once rather than slipping it four times.
Coordinated 30+ stakeholders across four countries and three time zones, replacing a weekly status call with a written decision log that cut meeting time by 40%.
Introduced a risk register that surfaced a licensing dependency four months before it would have blocked launch, avoiding an estimated £180K in emergency procurement.
Ran the first post-incident review the team had held; the three process changes it produced reduced repeat incidents from nine to two per quarter.

ATS keywords for Project Manager roles

Terms that postings for this role commonly contain. Use the ones that are true of you, in the posting’s own wording.

project manager
stakeholder management
risk management
budget management
Agile
Scrum
waterfall
RAID log
project lifecycle
resource planning
change management
PMO
Jira
status reporting
cross-functional

Scale is the first thing a recruiter screens for

A project manager who has run a £50K internal tool and one who has run a £5M regulated migration are doing different jobs with the same title. Recruiters know this, so they scan for scale first: budget, team size, duration, number of stakeholders. If those numbers are buried in prose or missing entirely, your resume is hard to place and gets set aside.

Put scale in the summary and repeat it in the first bullet of each role. It costs a few words and it is the fastest way to be sorted into the right pile.

Show what you did when it went wrong

Everyone claims on-time delivery. What separates candidates is evidence of judgement under pressure: the slip you caught early, the scope you cut deliberately, the dependency you found before it bit. A bullet describing a recovery is more persuasive than one describing a project that never had a problem, because interviewers do not believe the second one.

This is also the honest option for anyone whose projects did slip. "Renegotiated the deadline once rather than slipping it four times" is a real achievement and a far better answer than implying a clean record you will have to defend.

Methodology: name it only when they do

Listing every ceremony you have run — stand-ups, retros, sprint planning, backlog grooming — reads as filler, because it describes the job rather than your performance in it. Include the methodology as a keyword when the posting names it, and spend the space you save on outcomes.

Certifications are the exception worth being explicit about. PMP, PRINCE2 and Scrum Master credentials are frequently used as hard filters, so put them in the skills block and near your name rather than at the bottom of the page.

Which template suits a project manager

Clean single-column structure that keeps long stakeholder and delivery detail readable without fighting a sidebar for space.

More about this template

Questions

Should I include projects that were cancelled?: Yes, if you can say what you delivered or learned before cancellation. Cancellations are usually a business decision, not a performance one — but frame it as the work you completed, not the project that died.
Do I need PMP or PRINCE2?: Not universally, but they are often used as automated filters, so an uncertified resume can be screened out before a human reads it. If you hold one, make it prominent. If you do not, lead harder on delivered scale.
Agile or waterfall — which should I emphasise?: Whichever the posting names. Most experienced project managers have run both; leading with the one the employer uses is accurate and clears the keyword match.