Your job as an IT operations manager is no small task—the entire IT infrastructure and operations team is under your care and it’s your job to ensure all systems run smoothly. You’re also involved in driving the technical direction of IT policies, procedures, and strategies.
It’s not a job just anyone can do. You need to have the experience, the skills, and a talent for management and planning. It’s fair to say that it’s a lot to fit into any resume template.
A concise yet comprehensive resume is not impossible to achieve, though. Our cover letter generator and IT operations manager resume examples are great reference points to help you craft a job-winning application. When you’re done, recruiters will be throwing interviews at you!
Why this resume works
- The recruiter, let’s call her Jane, is interested in your experience and career trajectory more than anything else in your IT operations manager resume, making the arrangement of your work history section your most powerful weapon.
- How about unleashing the power of the reverse chronological format? You started your career on the bottom rung as an IT service desk analyst and are now the junior IT operations manager—helloo ambition! Showcasing that career progression, alongside your achievements, will certainly make an impression.
Related resume examples
What Matters Most: Your Knowledge of IT & Experience in Operations Management
As an IT operations manager, you excel in overseeing and optimizing complex IT infrastructures, ensuring smooth business operations. You’re the one that makes sure everyone has access to what they need when they need it.
Your role requires both technical and business acumen, as well as impeccable interpersonal skills, so your resume should showcase a mix of both hard and soft skills to demonstrate your value.
Showcase your familiarity with essential tools like ServiceNow and Ansible, along with your ability to align IT goals with the company’s objectives—and don’t forget to check the job description thoroughly so you can tailor your skills to its needs.
9 best IT operations manager skills
- IT Infrastructure
- ServiceNow
- IT Security
- SolarWinds
- Project Management
- ITIL Frameworks
- Microsoft Office
- Jira
- Vendor Liaison
Sample IT operations manager work experience bullet points
The set of skills you need to do this job is diverse, but your work experience section is the perfect place to cover all of your bases. Highlight your leadership skills by mentioning development teams or infrastructure initiatives you’ve led, and don’t be afraid to use technical terminology to showcase your knowledge.
Focus on sharing your achievements and successes, and don’t forget to incorporate metrics to demonstrate your impact, such as cost savings, efficiency gains, or improved performance.
Recruiters want to understand the value you can bring to the table, so don’t be afraid to claim credit for your work. If the idea was yours, make sure you emphasize that you “initiated,” “spearheaded,” or “championed” the project.
Here are a few examples to get you started:
- Spearheaded a major network infrastructure upgrade, resulting in a 48% reduction in downtime and boosting overall system reliability by 29%
- Conducted network server maintenance to improve application speed by 64%
- Orchestrated a comprehensive IT security training program, leading to a 77% decrease in security breaches caused by employee errors
- Successfully negotiated vendor contracts, achieving cost savings of 22% on hardware and software purchases without compromising quality
Top 5 Tips for Your IT Operations Manager Resume
- Emphasize operational efficiency
- Your job involves more than just keeping the existing systems running—your superiors want to see you making a positive impact. Showcase your ability to optimize IT operations with concrete examples of processes you streamlined or response times you improved.
- Demonstrate your leadership
- Highlight your experience in leading cross-functional IT teams and managing people. Never ask recruiters to assume you’re a good manager just because you’ve held the title before. It’s essential to validate your skills and demonstrate your value, so describe the teams you’ve led and their successes.
- Brag about ITSM successes
- Illustrate your proficiency in implementing ITSM frameworks like ITIL or others, specifying how they improved service delivery, customer satisfaction, or problem resolution times. Remember to use exact numbers wherever you can.
- Quantify cost savings
- Exhibit your expertise in managing IT budgets, mentioning how you effectively allocated resources, negotiated vendor contracts, and achieved cost savings while maintaining high quality. Hiring managers will never get bored of hearing how much money you can save the company.
- Showcase IT project management
- Detail your successful project implementations, mentioning specific projects, their scope, timeline, and how they positively impacted the organization. You can discuss the work that went into the projects during the interview, but for the resume, just focus on what they achieved upon completion, be it cost savings or network stability.
Personal projects are always a great addition to an application! Include a link below your name and title that takes readers to your professional portfolio or GitHub repository in order to show them off.
Mentioning certifications you have or organizations you’re a part of is a great way to show active participation in your industry. It tells recruiters that you’re committed to continuous learning without explicitly saying it.
Always keep to a single-page resume. Cover only the most important and relevant skills and experiences, such as your proficiency in ServiceNow, and make sure all the information the recruiter needs is easy to spot.
