INDUSTRY STATS
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Proposal Manager positions are at a 14% growth rate, which is faster than average. With that said, there are currently 907,600 jobs in the market right now. The total number of jobs is expected to increase by 124,400 to 1,032,000 in the period of 2020-30.
What’s more, the median annual wage for the Proposal Manager jobs was $87,660 in May 2020. The lowest 10% earned less than $50,990, and the highest 10% more than $156,840.
Our conclusion? The Proposal Manager job market is wide open for candidates.
Top proposal manager sections that make the best resume
- Header
- Professional summary
- Experience (with numbers and results)
- Relevant skills
- Education
- Certifications
What to write in your proposal manager experience section
Perfecting your proposal manager resume experience section:
- Focus on results, not responsibilities;
- Use 4-6 bullet points per position;
- List only positions that are relevant to what you’re applying for;
- Include at least some form of quantitative data – it can be linked to the number of people you’ve managed or the - percentage decrease in costs that’s followed from your work - you decide;
- Choose action verbs over buzzwords.
We’ve collected some of the top resume experience sections from real Enhancv users. Check them out when drafting your own Proposal Manager resume!
- Analyze customer’s requirements to facilitate a win strategy and appropriate messaging
- Identify required deliverables, define document structure, and create/maintain the bid plan
- Ensure the bid team understands the customer’s requirements, proposal process, deliverables, and due dates
- Interface with internal organisations (e.g. legal, HR, finance, and BU) to ensure checkpoints and approvals are scheduled and adhered
- Provide a full first draft of proposal, excluding pricing, to include cover letter, executive summary, corporate information and technical responses.
- Track the status of deliverables and escalate issues in a timely manner. This involved working with Product Management, Executive staff, and Engineering.
- Identify resource/solution issues immediately and escalate
- Meet the customer’s requirements and schedule Manage the final proposal review for approval and sign-off
- Ensure that the proposal generation process continues to improve, by quality improvement and cycle time reduction.
- Analyze customer’s requirements to facilitate a win strategy and appropriate messaging
- Identify required deliverables, define document structure, and create/maintain the bid plan
- Manage an effective multi-BU proposal delivery team (Up to 25 people)
- Ensure the bid team understands the customer’s requirements, proposal process, deliverables, and due dates
- Interface with internal organisations (e.g. legal, HR, finance, and BU) to ensure checkpoints and approvals are scheduled and adhered
- Provide a full first draft of proposal, excluding pricing, to include cover letter, executive summary, corporate information and technical responses.
- Track the status of deliverables and escalate issues in a timely manner.
- Meet the customer’s requirements and schedule the final proposal review for approval and sign-off
- Ensure that the proposal generation process continues to improve, by quality improvement and cycle time reduction.
- Compliance and attention-to-detail: Analyzes solicitations and controls development and delivery of responses for 100% compliance.
- Leadership: Leads and guides a team for more than 30 members; provides writers with clear direction and focused guidance and mentorship; cultivates an environment that follows processes, best practices, and compliance.
- Innovation: Track record for creating distinctive responses with detailed graphics, eye-catching call-out boxes, and win themes with complete reference to the past performances and achievements.
- Process developer: Specializes in developing and documenting proposal management lifecycle processes using Shipley and other best practices for winning proposal management development.
- Team player: Works with everyone, from proposal writers and coordinators to subject matter experts to C-levels (CEO, CFO, COO, CTO) to provide results to win deals.
- Mentorship: Teaches team members on how to analyze solicitations and requirement documents, Request for Proposal (RFP), RFQ, Amendments, Statement of Work (SOW), Performance Work Statement (PWS), etc., and put together compliant winning proposals.
- Continuous education: Always learning more about how to be the best proposal manager and get the best results.
- Provide a structured approach, including pre-bid qualification and preparation
- Analyze customer requirements to facilitate a win strategy and appropriate messaging
- Identify required deliverables, define document structure, and create/maintain the bid plan
- Manage an effective proposal delivery team
- Ensure the bid team understands the customer requirements, proposal process, deliverables, and due dates
- Ensure deliverables meet sales team expectations
- Track the status of deliverables and escalate issues in a timely manner
- Coordinate customer question and answer process
- Identify resource/solution issues immediately and escalate
- Meet the customer's requirements and schedule
- Manage the final proposal review for approval and sign-off
- Execute the bid closure process (post pursuit) and ensure the successful bid termination
- Delivery of compliant professionally produced and thoroughly reviewed proposals to the market unit CEO and CFO within customer defined timeframes
- Coordinate and review / edit proposal input from a variety of stakeholders, typically involving contributions from sales
- Develop sales calculation tools and perform training for sales
- Contribution to approval meetings with the Market unit CEO and CFO through coordination and participation
- Acting as a bridge between Sales and SCM, Engineering
- Continuously mitigating the existing commercial misalignment in sales proposals by acting as a bridge between supply chain, product lifecycle management and sales departments across NE&ME and APAC ON and OF market unit.
- "Cost cube" concept responsible - correct factory pricing alignment on a quarterly basis.
- Full validation of all sales proposals´ prior to management discussion.
- “New Calculation Logic” integration responsible for NE&ME - the target is to strive for competitive forward costing with implementation of direct cost-out measures as part of forward costing approach, thus striving for improvement of the base gross margin and contribution margin, but also the overall EBIT level.
- Daily commercial project discussions with Sales representatives in EMEA region.
- 626 thoroughly reviewed and approved sales calculations in FY17 for both market unit OF and ON.
- Contribution to approval meetings with the Market unit CEO and CFO through coordination and participation.
- Secured deals worth $800M+ through effective technical proposal writing
- Devised technical proposals for more than 20 products and services of DELL EMC
- Resolved pricing conflicts and negotiations with account teams in more than 30 countries in EMEA
- Trained 50 Presales consultants on new processes and tools which led to reducing SLA breaches
- Implemented new onboarding materials and process for new hires
- Developed a queue management tool that helped even workload and shorten response time
PRO TIP
The person reading your Proposal Manager resume will be busy, make sure you never waste their time with fluff.
Action verbs for your proposal manager resume
Recommended reads:
Proposal manager resume skills section to impress recruiters
Checklist for a perfect Proposal Manager resume skills section:
- Make sure to include most if not all essential skills for the job;
- Check the job description and add some keywords to pass ATS;
- List both hard and technical skills;
- When it comes to soft skills – elaborate on them in other sections of your resume (e.g. the experience section).
Top skills for your proposal manager resume
SQL
Microsoft office
Tableau
Salesforce
Jira
Google Analytics
Project Management
Time Management
Interpersonal Communication
Decisiveness
Delegation
Patience
Creativity
Self-motivation
PRO TIP
Add a Talent Section to your resume, where you can pick your top 3 soft skills and describe how you used them to complete a project or balance departmental communication.
Recommended reads:
Proposal manager resume header: Tips, red flags, and best practices
Checklist for your proposal manager resume header
- Your name and surname in a legible and larger resume font
- The job title you’re applying for or your current job title as a subheading to your name
- Link to your portfolio or online profile, such as LinkedIn
- Address (City and State for the US; just your city for rest of the world)
- Email address
- Headshot (required or welcomed in the EU; not required and sometimes frowned upon in the US)
Stick to popular email providers such as Gmail or Outlook. And use these professional formats to create your username:
- first.last@gmail.com
- last.first@gmail.com
- firstlast@gmail.com
- f.last@gmail.com
- first.l@gmail.com
Recommended reads:
PRO TIP
Include a link to your portfolio in your Proposal Manager resume header. Most companies will require that you include one in your resume, and even if they don’t, it’s an excellent opportunity to directly show them your proudest projects.
Writing an effective proposal manager resume summary
Impressive proposal manager resume summary checklist:
- Point out the achievements that make you a valuable applicant;
- Mention the total years of experience you have;
- Highlight the things you believe make you the best fit for the position;
- Keep it short: aim at having no more than 3-5 sentences.
Resume summary formula:
PRO TIP
Highlight specific past projects that you’re most proud of in your summary. It sets an excellent tone for the rest of your resume. You can talk about all of your former jobs in your work experience section later on.
Recommended reads:
Drawing the attention to your proposal manager resume education section
Crafting a job-winning education section:
- Use the reverse-chronological format when listing your degrees;
- Tailor the classes you’ve taken to the position you’re applying for if you’re an entry-level candidate;
- Mention the awards and honors you’ve received;
- Add your certifications (but only those relevant to the position).
Top certifications for your proposal manager resume
Change Management Theory for Proposal Managers
How to drive transformation that sticks
The Project Management Course: Beginner to PROject Manager
The Complete Course for becoming a Successful Project Manager
Great Product Manager: Product Management by Microsoft's PM
Become a Great Product Manager! Land your dream job with Microsoft's Senior Product Manager. Free CV review included!
Proposal Writing & Management (+APMP Foundation Exam Prep)
Everything you need to win big!
Basic Grant Proposal Writing for Nonprofits
Crafting Winning Proposals that Get Funded, with Effective Outcomes Statements and Proven Communications Methods
Recommended reads:
PRO TIP
If you hold a certain major and a minor, your majors should be mentioned first.
Choosing the best format for your proposal manager resume
The content of your Proposal Manager resume is what will get you hired, right?
But even when your content’s amazing and you’re a true over-achiever, recruiters might not think you’re a good fit if your resume looks messy or is not formatted the right way.
In general, there are three basic resume formats we advise you to stick with:
- Reverse-chronological resume format;
- Functional skills-based resume format;
- Combination (or Hybrid) resume format.
Deciding which one to use depends on your experience, the industry, and the company. In short — you need to know what your applicant profile is.
For instance, reverse-chronological resumes are great for people with over 10 years of experience and no employment gaps. Here, you need to list all your relevant experience in a reverse-chronological format, starting from the most recent and going back to less recent positions.
Functional skills-based resumes, on the other hand, are great for entry-level applicants, graduate students, or people who have different kinds of experience. It focuses on skills, education, and character traits, rather than experience.
If none of these work for you, and you dream of adopting a more creative approach that makes a difference, the combination (or hybrid) resume format is exactly what you’re looking for. It allows you to focus on both your experience and your skills, making it a ‘best of both worlds’ format. It’s also suitable for those who want to spice things up by adding different creative sections (e.g. ‘life philosophy’ or ‘what my day looks like’).
Here are some additional tips on perfecting your resume layout and style:
- Go for a traditional resume font sized 12p;
- Use standard 1-inch resume margins for increased readability;
- Make sure your resume fits on a one-page template. In case you’ve got 10 years of experience or more, your resume’s length can reach two pages;
- Avoid unwanted editing and plagiarism – save your resume as PDF before sending it to the recruiters.
Want to take it a step further? Learn how to make your resume stand out without relying too much on creativity.
Recommended reads:
PRO TIP
Sometimes you’ll want to go after a job which requires more experience than you have. Instead of using a typical Proposal Manager resume layout, you can use a creative layout. Getting noticed is the most important challenge and a creative resume layout might help you get invited for an interview as most of other accountants have boring resume designs.
Want to include something more to your proposal manager resume?
So you’ve already listed details about your education, experience, and skills. You’ve also crafted an amazing summary.
But now you feel a creative urge to showcase your personality and not just your expertise.
We’ve got you! Thanks to our modern templates, you can now include a chart of what your typical day looks like or even a word or two about your life philosophy. All this without sacrificing your Proposal Manager resume’s professional feel.
Some non-traditional sections for your resume include:
Making your proposal manager resume stand out
You want to make a strong first impression to all recruiters that get a hold of your resume. Sure you do! But how?
Well, the easiest way to stand out is by adding a bit of creativity to your Proposal Manager resume. You could do this by going for a colorful layout or adding a creative section or two. It all depends on the industry and the position you’re applying for!
For instance, a position in design would allow for a more colorful resume, while a position in finance would probably not.
What makes a great proposal manager resume: key takeaways
- Choose a resume layout that sends the right message across and fits your current career situation;
- Create a resume header that shows your desired job title, and easy to find contact numbers;
- Be specific about your experience, accomplishments and future goals in your summary;
- Feature detailed metrics and specific examples that show the impact you made in your previous roles when describing your experience;
- List soft skills backed by examples;
- Add all of your technical skills and certifications that you have and match the job description;
- Show off a dash of personality in your resume that will demonstrate your culture fit and the right mix of hard and soft skills.
