If you have been affected by these recent layoffs, you may wonder how best to position yourself for a new engineering, product, or technology management role in the face of so much stiff competition. You need to stand out on your technical resume if you hope to secure a job interview in the technology industry.
The good news is there are valuable resume resources available for job seekers like you. Technical resume writers can help write a resume to get you hired in a technology position. With expert resume writing help, you can rest easy knowing you will have numerous job opportunities at your disposal.
When planning your career path, it’s important to stay updated with industry trends to make educated decisions. Capstone Resume Services can help you find the right resume strategies to succeed in the ever-changing tech job market. Here’s how to optimize your technical resume and get an interview:
Optimize Your Technical Resume for the Current Job Market Climate
To stand out in this saturated job market, you must optimize your technical resume to impress potential employers. There are two key areas to focus on when you need to learn how to optimize your resume to make it more competitive:
Optimize for the Automated Tracking Systems (ATS)
Today, it isn’t just a human that looks over your technical resume. The rise of application tracking systems (ATS) has made applying for a job more complex than it used to be. The ATS scans your resume for keywords in the job description and scores your application based on the algorithms. Thus, it’s critical that your technical resume is an ATS-friendly resume.
You must optimize your resume’s keywords, formatting, and layout to pass an ATS. Applying these techniques can give you a head start in the application process.
Learn more about creating an optimized resume in our blog, 2 Different Resume Optimization Strategies That Are Incredibly Important.
Optimize Your Technical Resume for Human Evaluation
Just because ATS resume scanning systems are now scanning most technical resumes first, you can’t only write for an automated system. A human will at some point also be looking at your resume. You need to ensure that your resume reads well to the person reviewing it. Highlighting relevant skills and experiences is key, so take the time to review and update your resume accordingly.
For technical resumes, include all the certifications and licenses relevant to the position and the technical skills and tools you’ve mastered. Also, tailor your resume to the respective organization’s technical working style.
As a technology leader, your resume should be straightforward and concise, with summaries of applicable technical expertise rather than long-winded narratives that bore hiring managers. Aim to make a great first impression.
Your technical resume could also highlight your projects and accomplishments as well. Including the scope of your teams and involvement within the organization can also give hiring managers a better understanding of your skills and experience within the industry, and demonstrate how you will easily adjust to their organizational structure.
Showcase Areas of Technology Innovation Led or Developed
When crafting your technical resume, you need to make sure that you highlight the systems or products you have personally developed or been involved with. Illustrating the importance and the scope of this work will help hiring managers better understand your capabilities. Ultimately, you need to demonstrate to potential employers that you have the skills and expertise to do the job.
How to Include Engineering, Product, and Development on Your Resume
Be sure to feature the systems, products, or applications you’ve developed, and explain how they solved an organization’s problems that spurred its growth. Also, provide a detailed description of the system or product and mention awards and praises you’ve received (if any).
For instance, if you created an online ordering system for a retail store, discuss how it improved the speed of customer service, resulting in increased sales. Additionally, if there’s enough space on your resume, describe what tools were used in creating the system or product and why you chose them — doing so will showcase your expertise in the field.
Technology Management
Highlight the technology projects you’ve managed or been a key part of. Try to show how your leadership style was instrumental in the success of the projects.
To ensure technology recruiters fully understand your technical expertise, include information on how you led the operations and how well it aligned with established objectives. Include facts and figures that support your statements if possible.
Focus on how your leadership approach enabled new modes of adaptation and integration that helped achieve the organization’s goals. These areas should be explored in detail so potential employers can recognize not just your technical expertise but also your leadership skills.
Demonstrate Your Adaptability and Willingness to Learn
Technology is a field that is constantly changing and evolving. In addition, each company may use slightly different software and technologies to accomplish its goals.
To make sure that you are considered for positions that may include technology that is new to you, you should demonstrate your willingness and ability to learn if possible. Show the hiring managers that you are interested in learning more about new technologies and have done so in past positions.
Most technology companies prioritize hiring individuals that are willing to learn and use new software within their positions.
Expert Technical Resume Optimization
Writing a resume for the technology job market should be tailored and optimized according to the specific role and organization. More importantly, your resume should showcase your professional brand to demonstrate how well it aligns with the organization’s culture and goals.
Providing insight into your methods and approach to work is important because it demonstrates your uniqueness and compatibility with the organization, which makes you stand out from your competitors. Most technology tasks can be completed in different ways, so many hiring managers will be more interested in your method of the solution rather than the actual solution.
By expressing this in your resume, you are more likely to land an interview where you can demonstrate your problem-solving process.
Remember to also include relevant soft skills that match the role to boost your application. When you properly curate your resume and list specific technical skills and soft skills, you can increase your chances of getting noticed by potential employers and recruiters.
Hire the Leaders in Technical Resume Writing Help
Not sure that you are able to write an effective technical resume in the face of so much stiff competition? Don’t worry, there are expert resources available to help write a technical resume. With help from a certified technical resume writer, you can improve your chances of getting your next technology interview.
Capstone Resume Services is the best choice if you need help writing and optimizing your technical resume. Let our team of certified resume writers take the weight of resume writing off your shoulders and provide you with a polished and professional resume that will take your job application to the next level. We provide personalized advice and one-on-one consultations from industry experts who know how to take your resumes to the top of the hiring manager’s list.
Request a FREE consultation today to get professional advice from our team of expert resume writers.
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We are proud to announce that our founder, Amy Gies, CPRW, was recently featured in an article on Dice.com.
Known as the “Career Hub for Tech,” Dice.com is a career website for professionals in the tech industry. Dice also provides great articles on tech and is an excellent source of information for technology professionals. Amy was honored to be interviewed by Dice.com writer, Leslie Stevens-Huffman, who is a business and careers writer with over 20 years of experience in the staffing industry.
The article, “Modernize Your Tech Resume for the New Year,” focuses on what to include in a tech resume and how to take a fresh approach to get the attention of recruiters in the tech industry. As the founder of a Silicon Valley resume writing company, Amy offered her perspective on what should be showcased in a tech resume and discussed the approach we take at Capstone when crafting tech management resumes.
“My contacts at major tech firms such as Facebook and Google say they’re looking for tech pros who take a different approach to their work and bring different perspectives.”
In the article, Amy discussed her approach to technical resumes and how she goes about changing and updating tech professionals’ resumes to best showcase their individual approach. According to Amy, hiring managers in the tech industry are looking for “tech pros who take a different approach to their work and bring different perspectives.” That being said, it’s important to show who you are and how you will work to solve problems.
“Your backstory needs to include the human side. Who did you consult with? How did you work with them to resolve the problem? That’s what they want to know.”
Amy explained how at Capstone, we are sure to dedicate one sentence in the summary to highlight the candidate’s “interpersonal skills” and their approach to tackling technical problems. We’re also sure to include a few non-technical achievements in the resume, to paint a full picture.
The article also explained how we incorporate the technology and specific techniques used into the accomplishments to show the “how-tos” of how they were able to master their skills and achieve their professional goals.
“Tech companies are interested in hiring people who have traveled extensively or worked overseas.”
When it comes to tech resumes, it’s also important to highlight any travel or global experience you may have. As Amy explains in the article, it’s beneficial to show that you have experience working with a diverse audience and have experience working with different or more flexible approaches.
If you’re a tech professional who needs help with your technical resume or technology management resume, our team of certified professional resume writers can provide you with one that’s sure to help you stand out to hiring managers.
Contact Capstone Resume Services today to request a consultation!
]]>Whether you are seeking to move from a technical position into a management role or you are an experienced technical project manager, you will need a unique technology management resume that showcases your talents.
Consider the methodologies and tools that you have used to get get results. A hiring manager wants to know not just what you accomplished, but how you got there and what your role was within the team. These might also be keywords that an electronic system will pick up and get you closer to a human recruiter or hiring manager.
Some tips to make your resume stand out when applying for a technical management position.
- Summarize your IT project experience (in a way that an outsider can understand) to highlight your hands-on leadership capabilities.
- Summarize project results, not job function. HR and hiring managers will assess your skill sets more positively when they can visualize the projects and outcomes you’ve worked on before.
- Showcase tools, techniques and methodologies to get results. This means metrics. Did the result save money or productivity. Did it grow revenue or consumer engagement? Provide the metrics for these. Consider PMI methodologies, PMP certifications, as well as key performance indicators (KPIs),and other related tools and methodologies that you might not have thought to include like: Agile, Scrum, Waterfall, rapid applications development (RAD), new product introduction (NPI), Rational Unified Process (RUP), Six Sigma, DMAIC, ITIL, JAD, RAD, SCM, and PMBOK.
- Research the names of the tools, techniques and methodologies that you currently use and be sure they are not unique to your company, and if they are, find their industry specific name. For example use ERP so that you aren’t weeded out based on knowing SAP, when really your skills would be useful with any enterprise resource planning software.
- Showcase project challenges and solutions. This will give a window into your leadership as well problem resolution capabilities. A great thing for a candidate to have when looking for someone to have a ‘big picture’ scope.
- Discuss interactions with stakeholders. Many times in technical leadership positions, people are looking for the softer skills sets as well. Communication across diverse groups, offshore team management, presentations to Boards and stakeholders. It’s all part of the well rounded candidate they need to fill their position.
- Consider a project addendum with each project’s details. Still, it should be concise. A line for the problem (why technology was needed), action (what you put into place/your decision to implement a specific technology and why) and result (the metric–what it did for the company) will suffice.
- Be prepared to change it up for different job apps. People do not read resumes word for word, so make sure to highlight the specific skill sets desired in the first half page. You still have them, you just need to present them differently to capture attention quickly.
- Save space: remove objective and minimize education bullets, unless crucial to the job
If you are overwhelmed with trying to display your tech management talent and unique goal-driven skill set, we are here to help. As Silicon Valley resume writers, we work with many clients, from tech start-up talent to Fortune 100 talent and we would love to help you market your own skill set to get you seen by hiring managers and recruiters. We specialize in creating great project management resumes and tech management resumes, which means we can help you too!
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