Resumes 1.1

Meanwhile, back at CR Central….

So, I have a loosely held standard of how I believe a resume should be formatted for maximum impact for the candidate and the hiring manager. (Remember, these are only my opinions, you have to follow your own gut when creating your personal resume.) In this posting I’ll discuss the Professional Summary and the Technical Summary.

Professional Summary:

I believe that an IT professional with 2+ year’s on-the-job experience should use this title and concept at the top of the resume, rather than Objective, which I think sounds kinda entry level.

The professional summary is an advertisement for you. This is the section on your resume where you speak glowingly of yourself while giving a very high level explanation of your entire career. This should be 3-4 sentences. Seriously, a four-inch summary is no longer a summary. 15 bullet points is not a summary. You have room for details in the Professional Experience section. This section is a summary.

This summary ideally should be rewritten for each job opportunity you’re applying for, or for each type of position for which you’d like to be considered. You should include very high level and most impressive accomplishments here, relative to the job at hand.

“An IT Professional and PMP with 15+ years experience leading Enterprise-Wide software solutions and business process engineering projects.” “A Microsoft Certified .net frameworks developer (MCP), with expert level experience in Web Services, SSRS, SharePoint, and Crystal Reports.”


Technical Summary

This is an important section for anyone in the IT industry, and it is imperative that it is on the front page of the resume and can be rapidly scanned and digested by the overloaded hiring manager. Organization and formatting are key here.

You want to include things like Platforms, Databases, Languages, Applications, specialty tools, testing tools, etc. Depending upon your specific role, there may be more categories you can use. I use bullet points for each topic, so the manager can focus in on what’s important to her. You may also want to bold the elements that were specifically listed in the job description – sifting those requested skills to the front of the listings cannot hurt.

Business Analysts and Project Managers should also include this section, as today’s hiring managers look for candidates whose experience matches the project at hand as closely as possible. Work flow tools, methodologies, project organization tools, should all be included – in addition to the elements listed above that relate to your background.

If you have earned specific certifications that were listed in the job posting, I believe all your certifications should be listed in this technical summary section – making the requested qualifications most prevalent. (If you don’t have any of the requested certifications, list your certifications in the Education section.)

Professional Experience, Next CR Time, Next CR Channel!

Boffo!