Operations and admin
Project Manager job description template
The title covers a dozen different jobs. The advert that works is the one that says which of them this is.
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Project Manager job description
About the role
We are looking for a Project Manager to take [type of project] from agreement to delivery. You will own the plan, the budget and the communication, and you will be the person who knows the real status rather than the reported one. You will work with [functions] and report to [role].
What you will do
- Plan projects end to end: scope, milestones, dependencies and the budget they run against
- Run the day-to-day: standups, progress tracking, and unblocking whatever has stalled
- Manage stakeholders, including saying no to scope that arrives without a trade-off
- Track budget and forecast, and flag an overrun while there is still time to act on it
- Identify risks early and keep a register that somebody actually reads
- Report status honestly to sponsors, including when the answer is that the date is moving
- Close projects properly: handover, documentation and what the next one should do differently
What we need
- Experience running projects end to end, with responsibility for the date and the budget
- Comfortable holding a plan and a room at the same time
- Able to write a status update that a sponsor can act on
- Experience with project tooling, whichever one you use
- Judgement about when to escalate rather than absorb
Nice to have
- Certification such as PMP, PRINCE2 or a recognised agile qualification
- Domain experience in [your industry]
- Experience managing external suppliers or agencies
Before you publish the pay
Project Manager ranges move sharply with sector, project size and whether budget ownership is real. Anchor the range to the size of what this person will actually run. Publishing a range is increasingly required by law and is the fastest way to stop mismatched applications.
To appear in Google job results
Fill in title, location or remote, employment type, date posted and a valid-through date, plus the salary range. Google reads those fields to decide whether the role can appear in job results, and the valid-through date is what stops a filled role lingering there.
Adapt it rather than pasting it. The parts worth rewriting are the opening paragraph and the must-haves, because those are what decide whether the right person applies. Our guide to writing a job description covers why.
When it is ready, publishing it on your own site keeps the listing, the applications and the candidate data with you, and generates the structured data that makes the role eligible for Google job results.
Common questions
Should I say agile or waterfall in the advert?
Say how you actually work, in plain words, rather than naming a methodology. 'Two-week cycles with a demo at the end' tells a candidate more than 'agile environment', and it is harder to be wrong about. Candidates have read enough adverts claiming agile to be sceptical of the word.
Do I need to require a PMP or PRINCE2?
Only if your clients or your sector genuinely require it. As a blanket must-have it excludes capable project managers who learned on the job, and it does not predict who delivers. Put it under nice-to-have unless a contract obliges you.
How do I write this for a first project management hire?
Be honest that the role is being created, say what exists today and what does not, and describe the first six months concretely. People who are good at this are attracted by a clear problem and put off by an advert that pretends the scaffolding is already there.
Publish it on your own site.
WP Career Board turns the fields you fill in into the markup Google reads, and applications land in a dashboard instead of an inbox. Free.