Do you know that Georgia Tech Project Management is the official Academic Partner of PMI Atlanta and an Authorized Training Partner with PMI National? As part of this relationship, Georgia Tech is offering PMI Atlanta chapter members an exclusive 10% discount on select Project Management and Agile courses. Taught by PMPs and PMI-ACPs working in industry, these courses help you solidify skills, prepare for the PMI examinations, or earn PDUs to maintain existing credentials.

Project Management the Georgia Tech Way:

• Led by PMPs and ACPs working in industry.
• Taught in-person (Atlanta) and online. · Save 10% on select courses with promo code PMIATL.
• Enjoy hands-on learning with an interactive, modular format.
• Fulfill educational hours for the PMP and PMI-ACP exams or earn PDUs.
• Develop your testing strategy with PMP and ACP exam prep courses.

The Chapter Mentoring Program has been active for the past ten years. Participating mentors always mention the willingness to help others and to “pay it forward” to honor mentors who helped them advance their careers.

The mentor mentee relationship is beneficial for both partners. Mentors learn during the process and get the satisfaction of doing a good deed. Mentees get the benefit of mentors’ background, experience and knowledge. They learn others have gone through some the same growing pains getting to where they are today.

Many of us have worked with great mentors in our business career and have been fortunate in being able to rely on their support and implement their advice. Many of the mentors have previous experience mentoring at their work, charity and  social organizations. Some have mentored in the between 12 and 15 times or more in the program.

The Chapter holds three mentoring sessions a year typically held early in February, June and September. On average, we serve between 80- and 100-chapter members per year. We provide one-on-one mentoring and also have a Group Mentoring program with 8 to 10 participants if they are new to project management or have limited business experience.

Mentoring operates under the umbrella of Professional Growth which fosters chapter members to evolve from new member to a higher level of participation and even chapter leadership. Some chapter members enter the mentoring program as a first step in chapter involvement. Others use mentoring as an entry point to serving the chapter. Also, some mentees have become mentors themselves.

Sign-ups for the mentoring sessions for Mentors and Mentees appear in the Chapter newsletter about a month before the session start, mid-January, mid-May and mid- August. Feel free to contact the mentoring program for additional information.

To sign up for the upcoming Fall Mentoring session, log in to the website to verify your membership and click below.

We are proud to introduce our new Social Impact Committee Leader, Bryan Carpenter. He has come into this role with an abundance of energy and initiatives for our Atlanta community. Hear what he has to say:

"Throughout my career, I’ve specialized in turning strategy into action - leading project management, strategic planning, and large-scale transformation initiatives for over 30 years. I currently lead the Integration Management Office (IMO) at Gallagher, where I oversee mergers, acquisitions, and operational improvements.

In addition, I’m the founder of Bold Oak, a consulting practice focused on supporting nonprofits and small businesses. I believe our profession isn’t just for corporations - it’s a tool that can empower any organization to create sustainable, meaningful change.

As Social Impact Committee Leader, I’m excited to partner with Atlanta’s nonprofit and educational communities, helping deliver on PMI’s mission of sharing project management skills for social good. Whether through youth workshops, nonprofit capacity-building, or new volunteer opportunities for our members, I’m passionate about making project management both accessible and impactful across our community.

I look forward to collaborating with many of you this year - please reach out by email if you’d like to get involved!"

by Mike Ososki, PMP

Announcing!

• Now accepting nominations for 2025 Executive Board of Directors Elections
• Sat 8/23 – Career Series event: Brand and Land ChatGPT for Project Management
• Thurs 10/2 – Career Series event: “Can Recruiters Find You?” with Al Smith
• PMP Study Group Fall Session 8/19 to 10/21

As the most recent Career Series event, five savvy recruiters shared their time and advice with ~130 attendees, speaking about various aspects related to their work, your work, job-hunting, resumes, and more. Many thanks to Amy Chestnut, Rare Disease Research; Chris Auer, Apex Systems; Erin West and Mike Christoferson, Vaco; Kateryna Hodovaniuk, KForce. 

... and thanks to Thomas Wooldridge, PMP, for moderating the event.

Resumes are always a hot topic, and everyone had plenty to say about them. Kateryna declared that there is no job shortage, and you just need to stand out from 100 other people. She encourages us to try something different, and don’t remove information from your resume.

Mike feels that AI may now be used too much in resumes, and it’s more important to be honest and genuine. He prefers the 1-page resume or 2-pages max, or maybe 3-4 okay, but it had better be great content!

For best clarity, Chris likes to see both the month and year for durations, including gaps. He is fine with long resumes as long as their content is good. He, too, advocates to be concise, honest, transparent, genuine and authentic—be you. Don’t try to cater to the ATS too much.

Erin says that a 3-4 page resume is good and you can always reduce information, but can’t add it if it’s not there to begin with. She encourages to show off accomplishments on page-1, and to trust the recruiter for how best to present to each specific client.

Amy is big on showcasing accomplishments, preferably quantified. What did you do well and improve for the companies in your past work? If unemployed, she recommends to do volunteer work. Also be found on LinkedIn by using good descriptors. There is no magic formula one-size-fits-all for resumes.

No matter the length, everyone agrees that being honest and concise is the best approach. Hiring managers do not want to swim through irrelevant wordiness.

Other tips and tidbits:

• Medium-size companies are hiring more than large ones, for both FTE and contract roles.
• Knowing how to work with AI will increase your value, but don’t over-rely on it.
• It’s about a 50/50 mix between project manager hiring and layoffs at this time.
• Shorten information for older jobs—maybe just company, title and duration.
• If your experience is government work, target highly regulated businesses.
• Be proactive and prepare well to anticipate and overcome objections.
• Be ready with answers re/your contract vs. permanent work history.
• It’s increasingly important to be skilled with change management.
• Make personal connections with hiring managers and recruiters.
• Customize your resume to each specific job description.
• Atlanta is both a huge and small market.
• Connect with recruiters on LinkedIn.

By Mike Ososki, PMP

This is how BrewDog Atlanta’s front door entry floor welcomes all patrons into their fine establishment—a funny irony for project managers! Nevertheless, we welcomed our new members here, and had a great time. The venue-provided food was excellent, along with a free drink ticket, 3 separate subgroup meetings, and everyone enjoying plenty of friendly networking.

One of the 3 subgroup meetings was “How I Used PMI to Grow My Career,” an activity in which nearly everyone has great interest. Joe Sisto (Chair-Elect of PMI Atlanta’s Board of Directors) led this one with great encouragement to new members. When Joe first became a PM in 1998, some discouraged him, saying that the profession was “like being a secretary.” (No disrespect to secretaries! :), but Joe didn’t see it that way. He states that project management is his passion, and knows that good PMs have great impact to drive success for projects, people, and companies. When Joe asked, “Why do you want to be a project manager?,” new member Ken Ellzey had a great answer: “It’s the way my brain works.”

Another subgroup was “Getting the Most Out of Your Membership.” This one, led by Allison Gardner (AVP New Membership) covered all the many offerings and ways PMI can be an invaluable resource to advance people, the profession, and their employers. Between education, events, networking, volunteers, job searching, mentoring, and the list goes on, please consider to participate and to give and receive the many resources that makes our organization great.

Finally, the Bingo Networking group rounded out the subgroups, with strong emphasis on the networking part, as there were less playing the game while everyone just kept talking with each other—and that’s what it’s mostly about, right?—good communication! Making new friends, building relationships, and helping each other as able seemed to be the general theme of the evening in this fun-driven atmosphere.