The key to a great IT resume? Show your impact
As frustrating as it can be for job seekers, technical recruiting and online job searching today have become largely about keyword searches and matches. That may help filter out unqualified candidates, but it certainly doesn’t capture your full value as a prospective employee.
This reality makes it critically important that an IT job seeker craft the very best resume possible – one that not only highlights your skills, job roles, and education, but also what you’ve done to advance each organization you’ve worked for. It’s important to show not only where you’ve worked, but also the positive impacts of your efforts to boost revenues, reduce costs, or promote innovation.
The growing use of AI to build resumes and find candidates
Complicating the picture is the increased use of artificial intelligence to create resumes, and for recruiters, to search for desired candidates.
For job seekers, AI-driven resume tools are most useful to create a first draft of a resume but then old-fashioned smarts and common sense need to take over, explains Jennifer Hay, a professional technical resume writer who specializes in tech students and recent graduates.
“They’re good at creating formatting that is applicant tracking system (ATS)-friendly, and they provide prompts and suggestions to help shape resume content,” Hay says of AI-based resume builders. “They have some weaknesses in conveying skills, traits, and value because they focus primarily on what a candidate has done with little attention to how and why. That means they’ll capture the hard technical skills, but don’t do a good job of seeing soft skills or interpersonal skills. [These tools] lose sight of real differentiators such as leadership, innovation, and creativity. To get a really good resume it works best to use these tools to generate a first draft, then tailor that draft with a focus on why, how, and differentiators.”
A great IT resume prioritizes results
Tech stacks and trends constantly change, but the core differentiators don’t, explains Kanani Breckenridge, “headhuntress” at technical recruiting firm Kismet Search in San Diego. She says high-impact IT pros are usually polyglots who prioritize solving the problem, not showing off by writing code and features that aren’t pushing the business goals forward.
The consistently best candidates can demonstrate through their resume that once at an organization they can:
- Build scalable, stable, secure systems with clean code
- Choose tools based on fit, not personal bias, preferences or ego
- Communicate clearly across levels and departments
- Adapt to change and actively stay current on what’s new
“On the business side, it’s about understanding the ‘why’ behind the code: What are we solving for? How does this support the company’s strategy? How do we measure success?” Breckenridge says.
The limitations of online resume building tools
If you’re already a senior IT professional, you should be especially watchful if you decide to use a digital resume builder. Many online resume tools simply don’t have the nuances needed to showcase uniqueness, explains Lisa Rangel, a board-level and executive resume writer with Chameleon Resumes in Rutherford, NJ.
Common observations of online tool resumes are that they don’t have achievement-driven language. Instead, they’re more task-focused, Rangel agrees. Task-focused resumes don’t position the candidate as a hireable leader. Most IT leaders do similar tasks, so without outcomes, achievements, and impact stemming from those tasks to set the candidate apart, they end up not standing out.
“The difference is in how you frame it,” Breckenridge explains. “Saying ‘Managed infrastructure migration to AWS’ is what you should be doing, just like everyone else. Saying ‘Led AWS migration that reduced deployment time by 40% and cut infra spend by 25%’ tells me what you did that mattered.”
Assessing the value of online recruiting tools
The full value of online and AI-based recruiting tools can be as suspect as the tools used to write resumes.
“Most ATS and AI tools don’t find talent, they filter it,” Breckenridge explains. “Like most LLM-driven systems, recruiting tools rely heavily on keyword matching and pattern recognition. I’ve used a few that feel genuinely intelligent, like one I use called Noon AI, but even the best are still likely missing hidden gems.”
Much like resume builders, these tools can’t pick up on nuance if the candidate hasn’t provided the right context or detail in their online presence, Breckenridge explains. So, the tool makes assumptions – if someone works at a FAANG company or attended a prestigious university, that can act as a signal of stronger talent but it’s not necessarily accurate.
Automated recruiting tools are great for finding high-volume candidate pools, if the candidates are similarly credentialed, like from a certificate program, specific degree, or a training cohort, Rangel explains. But when a recruiter isn’t finding what they need from these common sourcing pools, then human intervention is needed to tap candidates from varied life experiences who can also have the skills and transferable experience to succeed in the role.
Designing a resume that highlights accomplishments
The key to building a great IT resume is to make sure that your it represents skills, talents, interests, and knowledge in a way that conveys your unique value as a prospective employee. This is particularly important if you’re a tech student or a recent graduate because it can showcase a dedication to growth and ongoing learning, Hay explains.
“For example, mentioning personal traits such as adaptability, curiosity, self-motivation, and a reflective thinking can show a proactive attitude and a commitment to personal and professional development,” Hay says. “This can be particularly appealing to employers looking for adaptable and growth-oriented team members, because technology rapidly evolves and requires ongoing skillset upgrades.”
For logistical specifics in resume building, Breckenridge says IT pros should:
- Lead with a strong, relevant summary – who you are, what you do, and where you’ve made an impact
- Tailor it to the job. Prioritize skills and projects that speak directly to the role
- Quantify impacts with data wherever possible – speed, cost, efficiency, growth, uptime, etc.
- Make it clean with consistent structure, and avoid visual noise (too much bolding, color, or icons)
Further, you need to “show your receipts,” Breckenridge says. “Don’t describe what you did. Show what changed as a result. Your resume is a marketing asset to get a conversation going – it doesn’t need to tell your whole story. In other words, if someone asks you for the time, don’t tell them how to build a watch.”
The differences between best and worst technical resumes
So what separates a great IT resume from the rest?
“The best resumes make you think: ‘This person is a force multiplier’ – someone who accelerates the pace and elevates everyone around them. You immediately know what industry they’re in, problems they’re solving, products they were working on, their direct impacts, and why it all fits the job they’re applying for,” Breckenridge explains.
The worst type of IT-related resume would be 7 pages of technical skills with no context. “If I read it and have no idea what you did, what product you were working on, what projects you completed – it’s useless,” Breckenridge says. Her advice on what to do and what to avoid:
What works:
- Clear project context and outcomes that you accomplished, not just what happened as a team.
- Action verbs with real business value attached
- Clean formatting – don’t bold or italicize every other word
What doesn’t:
- Bullet points that just say “Worked on X” with no data or tangible outcomes
- Tech-stack laundry lists with zero explanation
- Overuse of jargon, superlatives, or word salad that sounds like you’re hiding your lack of impact
Common IT resume sins
One of the most common pitfalls in developing IT resumes is using excessive technical jargon and extensive technologies in resume bullet items, Hay says. Given that many professionals use similar tools and achieve comparable outcomes, it’s crucial to delve deeper into the specifics of your technical accomplishments.
“By providing detailed context—such as why the project was funded, the challenges you faced, how you resolved problems, and the measurable results achieved, either business or technical—you can effectively differentiate your contributions and showcase the unique value you bring to potential employers, Hay says.
Also, when you’re crafting a technology resume, one page isn’t a rule, and realistically only makes sense if you have only a few years of experience, Breckenridge says.
“If you’ve got 15 years of experience and real results to share, do try to fit it on three pages – tops – including awards, patents, and educational details. As most people only review resumes digitally, you can just add a hyperlink to anything lengthy,” Breckenridge says.
“Most importantly, don’t BS. If you can’t speak confidently to something in an interview, don’t put it in your resume,” Breckenridge says. “It’s much better to show your ability to learn and grow – your overall capacity to succeed – versus listing skills you don’t really know well.”
Where digital resume building and online recruiting are heading
Technical recruiters and job seekers alike can expect to see tool advances driven by continuing developments in AI, Hay says. Ideally, the advances in generative AI will also help job seekers by leading to resume building tools that do a better job of going beyond what you’ve done to address the “why” and the “how.” The focus on projects, processes, teamwork, and interpersonal skills will ideally improve as AI becomes more integrated with resume building. Recruiting and applicant tracking systems will also make better use of AI with more sophisticated language processing and the ability to infer skills and traits not explicitly stated, she says.
In addition, technical recruiting is shifting from flat files to interactive profiles, Breckenridge explains. Resumes are no longer standalone; they’re one signal in a larger data ecosystem. Expect more GitHub, portfolio links, Stack Overflow activity, and even short video explainers to become part of the story, especially for more technical or creative roles.
“That said, these assets tend to get built during active job searches, not in the lulls in between when people are focused on their current jobs,” Breckenridge says. “So, hiring teams need to evaluate candidates based on a mix of static and real-time signals, and candidates need to think about how their professional footprint shows up even when they’re not actively looking.”
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