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What's the Best Resume Format for IT Professionals?
By J.M. Auron, ACRW — IT Resume Writer & Career Coach
This is an important question—and, unfortunately, the answers can be confusing—particularly so for IT job seekers, given the very specific requirements of an IT resume.
So I'd like to give some insight into this—based on my more than 15 years as an IT resume writer, and my previous experience as a headhunter.
Should You Use AI to Write Your Resume?
By J.M. Auron, Expert IT Resume Writer—The Best IT Resume Writing Services for More than 15 Years.
This is a pretty timely question. Most things you'll read tend to split about evenly between "Yes! AI is amazing! Use it!" or "AI is terrible! Evil! A threat to humanity! A career-ending mistake! Never use it!"
I've thought about AI resumes a lot. In fact, I've thought about AI a lot. And I'd like to take a few minutes to give a more nuanced answer—so that you can make the best decision for your resume, and your career.
In this article, I'm going to go through some cases where an AI resume may actually be the better choice than other alternatives—particularly resume mills or DIY.
By J.M. Auron, Expert IT Resume Writer—The Best IT Resume Writing Services for More than 15 Years.
In this article, I'll give you some quick, relevant, actionable tech resume tips based on my more than 15 years of experience as an IT resume writer. I'll start with some broad issues around staying sane during a tough job search, then get into the IT resume formatting best practices, content, and grammar details that can make a real difference...
By J.M. Auron, Expert IT Resume Writer—The Best IT Resume Writing Services for More than 15 Years.
Today, I'd like to talk about one of the most common, prevalent, and damaging myths that we hear from the career "experts" on Reddit, LinkedIn—and every other bloody place on the internet.
That's the 6-8 second resume myth
If you've done even cursory research, you've seen it everywhere.
By J.M. Auron, Expert IT Resume Writer—The Best IT Resume Writing Services for More than 15 Years.
Today, I'd like to talk about something I see very often in the resumes that my clients send me—and that's a lack of context for their accomplishments. This isn't something that many (I suspect) who aren't professional IT resume writers are likely to think about, but lack of context for your accomplishments can really weaken your CV—and in these difficult times, you need the best IT resume possible to showcase your career.
Now, it's understandable to not put a lot of thought into context. It's very easy to think up individual sentences (I suppose that's another reason all-bulleted is so popular). It's harder to see how everything in your career—from duties and responsibilities to results—ties together to tell one coherent, compelling story.
By J.M. Auron, Expert IT Resume Writer—The Best IT Resume Writing Services for More than 15 Years.
I hate all-bulleted resumes. I really do.
For a while, this ineffective, unclear, cluttered, unreadable approach to IT resume writing had become less common—though it had never completely disappeared, alas.
But, unfortunately, thanks to the "experts" on Reddit and the rest of social media, the all bulleted format for IT resumes has made a major comeback—to the point where the majority of resumes I see are using this approach.
That's really unfortunate.
Because bulleting everything on your IT resume is one of the worst possible ways you can convey the details of your career to a hiring authority.
By J.M. Auron, Expert IT Resume Writer—The Best IT Resume Writing Services for More than 15 Years.
There are many philosophies on IT resume formatting—and I'm not going to say that my way is the only way. But I can say that my approach has helped my clients get interviews at Meta, Google, Microsoft, Siemens, Nvidia, and many other companies big and small. So my view on best resume formats—and the one that I use to help my clients—is an approach that has enabled Quantum Tech Resumes to become one of the best IT resume writing services in the US and globally.
By J.M. Auron, Expert IT Resume Writer—Providing Professional IT Resume Writing Services for More than 15 Years.
I've built one of the best IT resume writing services globally not only because of my personalized approach—but because I take the details very seriously.
That includes grammar and style. Because the grammar used in IT resume writing—like many other aspects of resume writing style—is a bit different from standard use.
By J.M. Auron, Expert IT Resume Writer—Providing Professional IT Resume Writing Services for More than 15 Years.
When IT professionals sit down to write a resume, generally, they focus on content. Content is absolutely critical—and I'll address both the kinds of content and the best way to present content in future posts.
But structure is the first thing the reader sees—and a clear, accessible IT resume structure can make a huge difference in whether a busy hiring manager takes the time to actually read you resume.
By J.M. Auron, Expert IT Resume Writer—Providing Professional IT Resume Writing Services for More than 15 Years.
So, over the last couple of weeks, I've written about a couple of things that are keeping IT pros awake at night; fears of the AI apocalypse (which I believe are exaggerated) ATS paranoia (which I also think has been blown up online to be a bigger problem than it is), and job application burnout (which is, alas, all too real).
Today, though, I'm going to talk about a problem that is serious—one that's impacting the lives of many technology professionals and leaders.
By J.M. Auron, Expert IT Resume Writer—Providing Professional IT Resume Writing Services for More than 15 Years.
ATS Paranoia and Application Burnout
These are, obviously, topics I hear a lot of as an IT resume writer—and they're closely related.
Many of my prospective clients are terrified of the ATS—and many feel that if they're not getting calls back it's because of the ATS. As I wrote for Irish Tech News, the ATS is the bogeyman of the current job search.
By J.M. Auron, Expert IT Resume Writer—Providing Professional IT Resume Writing Services for More than 15 Years.
The AI apocalypse is everywhere. Tech news. General news. LinkedIn appears to have absolutely no other topic (at least in my feed).
By J.M. Auron, Expert IT Resume Writer—Providing Professional IT Resume Writing Services for More than 15 Years.
Some advice is repeatedly, loudly, continuously, and endlessly on the internet.
Within my profession—I've been providing professional IT resume writing services for more than 15 years—one of the worst, loudest, and most destructive pieces of advice is the relentless drumbeat that, "You have to tailor your resume to every job!"
By J.M. Auron, Expert IT Resume Writer—Providing Professional IT Resume Writing Services for More than 15 Years.
As a solutions architect with years under your belt designing scalable systems that both enable and transform the enterprise, your solutions architect resume shouldn't read like a spec sheet.
By J.M. Auron, Expert IT Resume Writer—Providing Professional IT Resume Writing Services for More than 15 Years.
CAR can help you analyze your career, uncover your unique value proposition, and create a resume that can win the interview.
As one of the world's leading CTO resume writers, I've worked with a lot of great Chief Technology Officers—both executives new to the role and seasoned leaders looking to move to even more challenging opportunities with greater scope and bigger responsibilities.
The IT Director role can be a critical turning point in your career—the time when you move from a largely technical job description into a position with significantly expanded strategic and leadership possibilities. That's one of the many reasons why your IT Director resume has to clearly reflect that transition from "in the trenches" to a leadership role.
This LinkedIn tip is important. Because everything we write, post, or comment on LinkedIn immediately becomes part of our profession identity—our brand—online. Prospective employers and recruiters are looking at that brand to determine whether a given candidate is a good fit for a new opportunity.
Given that (obvious) fact, it's a bit surprising—but LinkedIn, like every social network, does have its share of trolls—or folks who may look like trolls because of offhand, often arrogant or condescending comments.
But if someone looks like a troll? Odds are good that person isn't going to be the first person a good recruiter will contact for a fantastic new opportunity.
We've all seen one. The CIO resume that leads with "27 years of experience" in the first line of the resume summary on page one.
On the surface, that seems like a great strategy. It's apparently clear, and seems to give a sense of career level. Also, many job postings do start with number of years required for the position – so, it seems reasonable to address the issue of experience directly, at the very beginning of the resume.
I was speaking with a client of mine yesterday, and we were discussing his unique value proposition - and his equally unique approach to technology leadership.
And he told me an interesting story (with all details changed to protect his privacy). He was recruited - by a large, US-based manufacturing firm headquartered in a major Midwest city - to lead a very low performing IT organization. His mandate, essentially, was to fire the entire team within a month, and rebuild from scratch.
"The most transformational job in the corporate world right now isn’t glamorous, certainly isn’t easy, and at times is even a little thankless. It’s a job where little can go right and a lot can go catastrophically wrong. If that isn’t enough, it’s probably the hottest seat in corporate America today
We're all driven by metrics these days. Whether it's cost, revenue, increase in market share, streamlined operations, or KPIs, numbers often seem to tell the story of success or failure.
That's why Executive Resumes Writers - myself included - work to dig out the quantifiable achievements to demonstrate our client's success.
It's a rare week that I don't see a blog post or article with the 3, 5, 7, or 10 things that a job seeker MUST or MUST NOT include on a resume.
There's one big problem with articles like this. They go on the assumption that every career is the same, and that there's an simple template - a cookie cutter approach - that works for every career, every resume, every job seeker.
I've blogged on this topic before - but I think that it's important - do to the amount of misinformation you'll find on the web.
It's a rare week that I don't see a career "expert" suggesting customizing IT Resumes for every job you apply for.
IT Resumes Writers see a number of critical patterns that can be easily missed - both by IT professionals seeking a new opportunity, and by hiring authorities primarily focused on filling critical positions.
Given the highly specialized nature of my work - and the large number of often unsatisfactory IT resumes that cross my desk, I'm in a unique position to notice those patterns. And it's my responsibility to my clients to make them aware of the bad news that may be keeping the phone from ringing
In this series of blogs, I'm going to address the 3 most significant issues that I see in the IT resumes that cross my desk.
And I'll start at the top of the organization - with CIO and CTO resumes - and continue the series with IT Directors, IT Managers, and then address issues that I see in the resumes of "hands-on" IT professionals.
By J.M. Auron, Expert IT Resume Writer—Providing Professional IT Resume Writing Services for More than 15 Years.
A key career decision in your IT path
Almost every IT professional faces forks in the road—times when you have to make a choice about your IT career path. One of the most common of these decisions is whether to stay a hands-on, individual contributor or move into IT leadership.