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Message 19 of 25
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Audience and purpose
It's for the position of an IT manager. The person reading the resume will be HR, possibly the person being replaced, and other managers.

If it was for an IT pleb, then it would be read by the IT manager and technical content would count more.

So I agree that technical content should be tuned way down, and the focus is on achievements. More importantly, the focus is on achievements for the business, not technical achievements.

To me the key points this guy wants to get across in the first paragraph is that he has experience with coordinating distributed teams, implementing scrum (because this is likely to be one of the few buzz words on the HR wish list), and has worked in a large organisation (name drop).

Buried down on the second or third page in some list of technical experience would be the list of technologies. The heading "technical experience" should be enough for the reader to glaze over it and think "yes, he has experience".

The purpose of a resume is to get past stage one and into an actual meeting. So an easy to read page one, with feel good statements is the way to go.

Except if you know exactly what you are going for and the ad listed the technical requirements being sought. Then you drop the buzz words onto page one to make it easier for the technical illiterate HR person to tick the boxes on their sheet.

And back to the original topic, I hate the resumes where someone has dropped every technology they could find onto their resume to impress the reader. A technically competent resume writer would spot this for what it is and cut it down to a more realistic list of achievements. Or burn it.
Posted by shane van
13th Jun