CV writing tips for IT professionals
When you’re applying for IT roles, you need to be able to demonstrate a wide range of technical and interpersonal skills. You also need to convey the complexity of the projects you’ve completed or worked on – no easy task in just a few sentences. What’s more, your CV needs to show you’ve got technical knowledge without getting bogged down in jargon that’ll confuse non-technical hiring managers.
To help you make your IT CV clear, comprehensive and easy to understand, we’ve put together some suggestions to help you stand out.
Personal statement
A personal statement makes for a good intro to a CV, as long as you keep it short and to the point – within the region of a hundred words or so. You should provide a brief overview of your career trajectory. For example: "increasing levels of responsibility over my career have led me to more senior IT project management roles.”
Read the job description again and draw out a couple of specific skills or experiences tied specifically to this job. For instance, if knowledge of cybersecurity protocols is key to the role, mention your expertise in that area. This is all about giving the hiring manager reasons to keep reading your CV by assuring them that you have the relevant skills and knowledge.
Focus on specific project achievements
A common CV pitfall is simply listing job responsibilities. It’s better to highlight tangible achievements where possible. Just because you were tasked with project management for example, doesn’t mean you were any good at it, but if you can point to the successful roll-out of a multi-million-pound systems integration, that’s concrete evidence you can do the job better than others.
It’s essential to go into specifics here. For instance, if you delivered on time and under budget, mention exact figures – describe how a recent project cost £4,000 less than forecast or that a new intranet you deployed boosted organisational productivity by 10%. It’s these specific details that will really make your CV stand out.
Do your research
The very first tip to consider comes well before you start writing your CV… Researching your target roles. For your CV to be successful, it needs to contain the skills and experience that your desired employers are looking for. Hit the job boards, scan through lots of relevant job adverts and make a list of the most sought after requirements for your target roles. Once you have this list, you know exactly what skills and knowledge you should be highlighting in your CV.
This is a crucial step – without it, you will simply be using guesswork to create your CV.
Use a core skills section
A core skills section is a bullet pointed list that sits just under your profile. It can include anything from industry experience and qualifications to skills and IT knowledge. The purpose is to give readers a very quick snapshot of your offering so that they can see that you are a good fit for their vacancy at first glance.
For best results, tailor these points to reflect the requirements of the jobs you are applying for.
Show your impact
When writing your CV role descriptions, it’s important to show your responsibilities. But it’s even better to show what impact your actions have for your employers. You may not be able to do this for every point on your CV, but always try to where possible.
Tailor your CV to every job you apply for
Although your CV will be tailored towards the general type of roles you are applying to, you can give each application a boost by tweaking the CV even further, every time you apply for a different role. Assess each job advert before applying and make sure that your CV is highlighting the most important requirements for each one. If you are hiding any crucial skills that are required for a particular role, at the bottom of your CV, then make sure you move them up to the top of the CV for that application and make them prominent. One quick and simple way to tailor your CV is by swapping your core skills around to reflect the requirements in the job advert.
Shorten older roles
If you are an experienced candidate with years of experience, there’s no need to write huge amounts of detail on your older roles. Recruiters will be focusing on your recent work to understand your current capabilities, so shorten older roles down to brief summaries to give readers an idea of your career path.
Hopefully, the above CV writing tips should give you plenty of guidance for writing your own CV. If you need further help, please don’t hesitate to contact us!
Image source: jobs.ie