Your Guide to Technical Program Manager Resume -2024 Checklist

Last updated on January 2nd, 2024 at 12:54 pm

After several TPM hiring drives and having hired and built large TPM teams where I have had to review several thousands of TPM resumes, here are my tips & checklists on what you need to keep in mind when re-writing and crafting a Technical Program Manager’s resume

Your resume says a lot about you. The level of effort, tidiness, ability to crisply communicate, and understanding of the TPM role all come across on your resume. It’s imperative you spend enough time and effort to be your best 🙂

Keep in mind what your resume does for you. Its primary purpose is to communicate your experience and strengths to the recruiter and Hiring Manager (HM).

One other key call out I would like to make is that once you have done all the below and optimized your resume & LinkedIn, you are going to get calls. Be prepared to start interviewing:) I have seen several instances where people are eager to get into the market and have worked weeks to get their resume done but have really not started the interview preparation. The preparation itself sometimes takes months. So do not prematurely apply for jobs before you are fully ready to interview.

The Hiring Manager’s Perspective

As you re-vamping your resume, it is important to consider the recruiter and the Hiring Manager’s perspectives. The primary question here is, does your resume reflect what they are looking for.

When creating your resume, it is important to understand that each hiring manager is looking for a specific set of skills. Reading the job descriptions should ideally give you some insights to what role you should be applying for. It is also important to mentally classify the different types of TPM opportunities and then assess if you are the right fit for them. Applying to the right opportunity is KEY and is as important as having the right resume. At large organizations like Amazon, Microsoft, and google, it’s important not to apply to every random opportunity but to be picky in what matches your skill set and resume.

Types of TPM Opportunities:-

Hardware TPMs
- Eg: Alexa HW, Cruise HW, Microsoft HW (Surface)
Infrastructure TPMs
- Eg: AWS, Azure, GCP, OCI
Depth TPMs
- Embedded into the team
InfoSec TPMs
- Eg: Governance, Risk, Compliance, Corporate Security, Product Security, Vulnerability Detection / Scanning, Data Security?
Front End TPMs
- Eg: Primarily work with UX/UI, Android TPMs, and iOS TPMs.
Back End TPMs
- Eg: Building Back end systems.

The above is to give you the sense to match the skills the hiring manager is looking for and for you to tailor your resume to fit the profile they are looking for. Ideally, you are not applying to roles to which you do have enough experience to hit the ground running.

From a resume screening perspective, we generally do not spend more than 30 to decide. Also, remember we are more interested in the last two 2 to 5 years of work you have done and care less about your entire work history.

Remember, at large organizations, most TPM openings have 100s of resumes that apply for opportunities. So a good resume is key to moving through the first stage of your interview.

Understanding The TPM Role

One key area most folks miss in both the resume and in their elevator pitch is understanding the TPM role itself. This might sound laughable, but if you are not from a product-based or a true tech environment it is hard to get a good grasp of the role itself. And if you do not understand the role, it’s harder to convince what recruiters and HMs are looking for on your resume.

Here are my suggestion to read, listen and learn from the below-listed resources to understand the role better:-

Read

Listen

What Should a TPM Resume Showcase?

There are two main areas you need to showcase as you plan your TPM resume –

Program Management Skills
Technical Acumen

Let’s dive a little deeper into the two:-

Program & Product Management Skills On Your Resume

You ideally want to ensure you are calling out the skills you have experience in. Below I call out the variety of skills I would like to see in a TPM Resume. The need and the proficiency of product management skills would vary depending on the team/organization.

Cross-Functional Program Ownership
Dealing With Ambiguity
Complex Problem Solving
Risk Management
Program / Project Management
Product Sense
- Product Decesion Making
- Product Leadership
ORK/KPI Driven Decision Making
Influencing & Negotiating
Interdisciplinary Program Management
Define your role & the scope you are responsible for
Communicate the IMPACT YOU and your program had

Technical Acumen

Technical Problem solving
Comfort with technical ambiguity
Lead technical conversations
Own technical Product development
System Design
Technical communication – Ability to articulate technical issues & technical constraints, etc.
Modern Design Principles & Technologies

Use the above as a checklist. Does your resume have these attributes? Also, if you think I missed any, add it to the comments below 🙂

TPM Resume Checklist Continued 🙂

Absolutely no longer than 2 pages.
– page if you have less than ten years of experience and Two pages maximum if you have fifteen and above years of experience.
Remove Agile and Scrum jargon. Its largely not used in tech.
One line- on the organization/business unit you are supporting and its primary tenets.
Have a Summary or objective section. Absolutely no longer than 2 lines.
– Call out what YOU specifically bring to the table and possibly your superpower.
Remove the Core Skills, Core Competencies, Career Highlights, Professional Summary, and About Me sections.
Add your LinkedIn profile link. Make it clickable.
If you have over 5 years of relevant experience, move the education and certifications to the end of the resume.
Formatting: Tip – Keep it simple. Eg: Font no lesser than 12.
Grammar – Check your grammar and use a tool like Grammarly.
Never embellish your resume. It’s simply not worth it.
Label your resume file with your frist and last name and the year.
Utilize the space in your resume well. Do not have large blank spaces, etc.
The more your experience the lesser number of bullets in each job/program.
Game Changers:
– Having a great brand name changes the game. You can’t do much here you are where you are. But its something to keep in mind while you look for your next gig.
– Ensure the most relevant bullets are up on the top in each job section. It’s likely only the top three bullets are going to be read.
– Titles: One of the most understated things. Ensure all the titles on your resume are in line with industry standards. When we screen, we are ideally looking for people with a TPM title. IT Project Manager is passable, but we are definitely not looking for ScrumMasters. Yes, it’s a catch-22 situation. A short way to combat this is to try upping your responsibilities in your existing role.

Structuring Your Bullets In Your TPM Resume

As a TPM a large part of what you do is written communication. It is important to make the bullets on your resume concise and informative. Your resume is also your first piece of work people are going to read. So make it stand out. Here are some key pointers on what to include in while designing your bullets using the SMART methodology.

Specific:
- The programs that you owned and its objective.
- What were YOU responsible for.
Measurable:
- What was the measurable impact in terms of OKR’s/KPIs or revenue?
- Call out specific numbers. (And be able to back them up when questioned)
Action:
- What was the action you took?
- Did you bring cross-functional teams together?
- Did you build new org or launch a new program?
- What were the challenges?
Relevance / Result:
- Where did this fit into the organizational priority?
- How important was this program?
- What was the final outcome?
- Did you make long-term process improvements?
- Did you change the way the org now operates?
Timeframe:
- How long did it take?
- How many people/teams were involved?

To re-iterate the ideal you are able to fit two or three of the three above into one single-line bullet point. It takes work :). Try to format it to something like this “Accomplished [X] as measured by [Y], by doing [Z]”

The Importance of Linkedin

A lot of people ignore the importance of Linkedin. Every HM or Recruiter will look at it, and it is as important as your resume. If you have a well-optimized LinkedIn profile, you will get calls from recruiters. Set it up as open for work on LinkedIn Premium.

You do not have to do anything fancy. Just make sure you check for the below –

TPM Linkedin Checklist

Ensure LinkedIn matches your work experience and dates on your resume
Instead of copying the bullets from your resume, try to tell a story of what you accomplished its scope, and its impact on Linkedin.
Creating project sections is a great idea, particularly if you have worked at one organization for a longer time.
Is your profile link optimized
– https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariogerard/ vs https://www.linkedin.com/in/mario-83215116a/
Do you have a good profile picture?
Do you have LinkedIn premium turned on?
– Great for competitive analysis when you apply for jobs.

Action Words For Your Resume

What Is Your Competition Like?

Working at BCG taught me several things. One was, always to know your competition. From a resume perspective, you can see your potential competition here. Be sure to check it out and self-analyze where you would stand if you were the hiring manager.

Resume Resources For TPMs

If you are done with your resume and your LinkedIn profile and would like to have it reviewed by me, sign up here. I will review and mark up your resume and your LinkedIn and let you know the changes you would need to make. Also, if you are looking for better ways to frame the technical and the program management sections of your resume and want examples to check out the resume section of “Ace Your TPM Interview”.

Best of Luck !

Mario Gerard