With most companies adapting DevOps methodology, the DevOps job market is booming. DevOps market size is expected to touch $14969.6 million by 2026. If you are planning to start or shift your career in any of the DevOps roles, you are on the right track and your job search will not last long.
The first step towards landing a lucrative DevOps role is to write an impressive resume. Let’s look at some tips and tricks that will help you create a great DevOps resume that stands out and ensures many interview calls.
1 Choosing right format
The key to an eye-catching resume is its format. A right kind of format greatly increases the chances of getting an interview call. Most commonly used format for a DevOps role is the reverse chronological format where the focus is on presenting your work experience in reverse order, keeping the current job first. The major sections will be in this order - contact, summary, work experience, education, skills and additional.
For career changers, from some IT role to a DevOps role, using combination resume format is more suitable, where the focus is on skills. Here you can have sections like skill summary, work experience and education.
2 Resume Objective/summary?
A resume summary or objective should provide the hiring manager a sneak peek into your work experience and accomplishments. It should not just emphasise your passion towards work, role or company.
For example, a bad summary would be – “Seeking DevOps engineer position due to passion towards tech. A quick learner and problem solver”. However, a good summary would be – “A skilled DevOps engineer with networking and programming experience. Experience of setting up 10 servers as well as writing automation scripts. Was instrumental in cost cutting by 15% at so and so company.”
3 Rightly highlight your education
For a DevOps role, hiring managers would be more interested in your experience rather than your education. Still, your education may become relevant to hiring managers if clubbed correctly with accomplishments related to the job.
While providing information of your college, year and degree, you can mention accomplishments relating to the job you are seeking. For example, along with degree you can mention – excelled in programming and networking.
4 Include Skills and Competencies
This is the most important part of any DevOps resume. However, most people commit a mistake here by listing all the DevOps skills that they have ever heard of. Result? Hiring manager knows within a second that you have spoofed.
The key is to tailor your resume according to the skillset required for the job. Highlight those skills that you really know well and are also there in the job ad.
5 Have Certifications?
Although certifications are not as important as to have a hand-on experience, nevertheless they can come handy for an entry level DevOps position.
Few certifications which can be considered by hiring managers are – AWS, CCNA etc. So, for entry level jobs, don’t forget to highlight any relevant certifications if you have them.
6 Have hands-on experience?
Nothing can beat the solid hands-on experience in DevOps. However, you have to present it in a way that clicks. For example, in a DevOps puppet resume, if you just put – “Was in-charge of configuration management”, then it will not help you. Instead write – “Used Puppet, improved quality and slashed customer complaints by 25%” for a more effective resume.
7 Add a link
Keep your LinkedIn profile up to date and provide its link. This is because almost all the recruiters are there on the LinkedIn. Also, if possible, you can provide the link of any relevant past project or work that you have worked on. You can add a link to your work for example - GitHub, SlideShare etc. This will provide some credibility to your resume.
8 Include Open Source Contributions
In addition to above all, you can leverage your open source contributions to stand out from the crowd. You can tell about your contributions to any open source project.
In case you do not have a hands-on experience on any particular technology or tool that the job requirement mentioned. In such cases, you can tell about your open source contributions to any related technology or tool. For example – If the job requires you to have knowledge or experience of Jenkins. Let’s say you do not have a hands-on Jenkins experience. However, you know the principles of continuous integration testing through your work on projects using Buildbot or Travis CI. In such cases it will surely help if you provide information of your open source contributions.
9 Need a Cover Letter?
Its wise to add a cover letter to your resume. The reason is – it provides you an opportunity to become “The one’’ from “One in thousand candidates’’.
To best utilise this opportunity – personalise it by starting with manager’s name, show that you know why this position is needed in the company and how you can help in meeting company need. Bingo! You are sure to get the interview call.
10 A starter in DevOps?
If you have never held any DevOps position but have experience in IT or development, you can be considered for a DevOps position. For entry-level positions, you might have to think and work differently on your resume since you may not have enough technical skills to impress your hiring manager.
The key is to highlight any skills that you learned in your last position and that fit into DevOps philosophy. For example- instead of writing no DevOps experience at all, you can write - setup and managed 10 windows 2008 servers. Additionally, you can also mention any organisational goals that you helped to achieve in your last position like – Helped cutting company cost through vendor management. You can also tell about any scripting, relevant volunteer work or certifications that you have earned.
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