Project Manager
Cover Letter Example

You may be great at leading projects, but communicating your skills as a project manager in your cover letter is a different type of challenge.

To prove to employers you’re the right person to keep their projects on track, you need to showcase your strengths in your project manager resume and cover letter.

Follow these three tips to write a project manager cover letter that will boost your chances of getting a callback:

1. Tailor your cover letter to each job

If you want to convince employers that you’re the right project manager for their company, you need to show them how your qualifications and professional goals align with the position. To do this well, you need to do your research into the company first.

A great place to start is with the job listing. Do a read-through and highlight any keywords to include in your cover letter – these can be skills, qualifications, or primary responsibilities. Doing some reading about the company and its mission, vision, and goals can also be a helpful way to determine how to approach your cover letter.

For example, if you’re applying to a project management position with a digital content marketing agency, it will be helpful to highlight relevant experiences such as:

• Work with clients to develop websites
• Collaboration with design, content, and development teams
• Experience with project management software (Asana, Jira, Trello)
• Knowledge of UX design
• Previous work with an agency
• Gathering requirements and assets
• Providing cost and timeline estimates
• Managing contracts

If the job listing includes a description of the company culture, then it’s an important enough factor to mention in your cover letter. For example, if it says they have a fast-paced, collaborative environment, include a sentence in your body paragraphs like this:

“I’m energized by collaboration, and especially love working inter-departmentally to maximize turn-around time on projects and increase efficiency.”

If you can identify what employers are looking for in a candidate, or what expectations they hold for the position, it’s easy to target the job in your cover letter by relaying your relevant experience.

2. Highlight your primary project manager skills

As a project manager, you’re responsible for overseeing complex projects and maximizing efficiencies throughout the project’s lifecycle. So you must assure the hiring manager you have the requisite project management skills and enough understanding of information technology to get the job done.

In addition to showcasing your knowledge of IT infrastructure and architecture, highlight a variety of hard and soft skills in your cover letter to come off as a more compelling candidate. For example, organizational skills and cost management are key project manager skills for preparing budgets and reviewing expenditures.

Here’s a list of key project manager technical skills:

• Risk management
• Information security
• Hardware (operating systems and platforms)
• Access software (Citrix)
• Software and app development
• Accounting software
• Analytical or scientific software (SAS, Minitab, and MathWorks MATLAB)
• Data analysis (MicroStrategy and Tableau)
• Calendar and scheduling software
• Computer aided design (CAD) software (Autodesk Revit and Autodesk AutoCAD)
• Customer relationship management (CRM) software (Oracle Eloqua and Salesforce)
• Google Analytics
• Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software (SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, and Oracle PeopleSoft)
• Project management software (Confluence and Microsoft Project)

Additionally, here are some  project manager soft skills that complement your technical expertise:

• Time management skills
• Communication skills
• Leadership skills
• Problem-solving skills
• Critical thinking
• Teamwork
• Delegation
• Negotiation
• Client relations

As a project manager, you’ll spend your time defining the scope of projects, conducting system audits, and identifying gaps in current strategies and procedures. Companies seek project managers who are analytical, resourceful, adaptable, and most importantly able to resolve problems.

Emphasize your problem-solving skills in your cover letter to show a company you’re the perfect person to step in and operate as their newest project manager. For example, mention your experience addressing and resolving project risks, roadblocks, and obstacles while securing resources to efficiently complete projects on time.

3. Provide examples of your achievements (with numbers)

Companies rely on the expertise of project managers to ensure projects are completed on time, on budget, and according to specifications. So employers are looking for examples of effective planning, monitoring, and directing projects in applicant cover letters.

In your own cover letter, highlight one or two of your most impressive accomplishments as a project manager and use hard numbers to back them up.

Here’s how to effectively quantify your project manager skills:

• Attained $1.8 million in new revenue by implementing professional services projects for various public sector clients
• Directed a $5.8 million digital transformation project for an air transport company, which reduced the incident rate from over 5% to 0.8%, increasing goods safety
• Saved $2 million in costs for a tire manufacturer by conducting system gap analysis to identify discrepancies in the supply chain process

Knowing how to quantify your achievements properly can make a big difference in the initial impression you give hiring managers, so make sure to add numbers when and where you can.