Tom Hargreaves
Project Management Professional
Personal Statement
💡
Framing the transition: The statement explicitly names the career change and maps military experience to PM value. Never hide your background — reframe it.
Disciplined and resourceful project management professional with 12 years' leadership experience in the Royal Navy, including operational command of teams of up to 45 personnel in high-pressure, time-critical environments. PRINCE2 Foundation certified with a proven ability to plan complex operations, manage risk, coordinate multi-stakeholder activities, and deliver outcomes on schedule and within budget. Transitioning to civilian project management where my strategic thinking, adaptability, and results-driven approach will add immediate value.
Key Skills
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Skills above experience: In a career-change CV, the skills section comes first. This lets the reader see your transferable value before they see unfamiliar job titles.
Leadership & Team Management
- Led and mentored teams of 15–45 personnel across diverse operational roles
- Conducted performance reviews, training plans, and welfare support for direct reports
Resource & Budget Management
- Managed equipment inventories valued at over £2 million
- Allocated personnel, materiel, and logistics across concurrent operational tasks
Risk Assessment & Mitigation
- Conducted formal risk assessments for operations in challenging environments
- Developed contingency plans adopted as standard operating procedures
Stakeholder Communication
- Delivered operational briefings to senior officers and cross-service liaison teams
- Authored formal reports and post-operation reviews for command-level audiences
Planning & Scheduling
- Planned and coordinated multi-phase deployments with strict deadlines and dependencies
- Used Gantt-style planning tools to schedule maintenance programmes for fleet assets
Problem Solving Under Pressure
- Made critical decisions in time-sensitive, high-stakes operational scenarios
- Resolved equipment failures during deployment through rapid diagnosis and improvisation
Work Experience
🔄
Civilian-friendly language: Military jargon has been replaced with terms a hiring manager will understand. "Petty Officer" becomes a description of responsibilities, not just a rank.
- Supervised daily operations for a department of 30 personnel, ensuring compliance with safety and quality standards
- Coordinated logistics for a 6-month overseas deployment, managing supply chains across 4 international locations
- Reduced equipment downtime by 25% through a preventive maintenance scheduling initiative
- Trained and assessed 12 junior sailors per year, achieving a 95% first-time pass rate on professional qualifications
- Led a team of 15 in the planning and execution of operational tasks during two NATO exercises
- Managed inventory of technical stores worth £1.2 million with zero audit discrepancies over 3 years
- Introduced a digital tracking system for maintenance tasks, adopted across the ship's department
Education & Certifications
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Civilian certifications signal intent: PRINCE2 and APM qualifications show you are serious about PM and have invested in bridging the gap.
PRINCE2 Foundation
PeopleCert / Axelos • 2025
APM Project Fundamentals Qualification (PFQ)
Association for Project Management • 2025
City & Guilds Level 3 in Engineering (Marine)
Royal Navy Engineering Training • 2014
GCSEs: 7 subjects at grades A*–C including Maths and English
Fareham Academy, Hampshire • 2012
References available upon request.