These are 8 major pieces of a technical resume:

1. Contact Information:
Your name should be no larger than 14 point, and the rest of the resume should be in 11 point. You need to include your name, home address, home phone number and personal email. If you are comfortable with recruiters calling you at work, include your work number, work email, cell phone and/or pager.

2. Summary or Objective:
Include an objective or summary but keep it brief (1-3 lines) and highly focused. Otherwise, this is not necessary.

3. Technical Summary:
Include a detailed technical summary broken down by languages, databases, operating systems, methodologies, web tools, software and hardware. Be sure to include only those technologies with which you have experience. Those technologies with which you have the most experience should be listed first.

4. Education and Certifications:
Include the school, degree, major and any honors. Your highest level of education should be first (i.e. PhD. first, then MS then BS or BA then Associates Degrees). For certifications, include year and certification number.

5. Experience:
This needs to be in chronological format beginning with your most recent position. You should list your company name, title and dates of employment to the month. Try to use bullet format. Project Managers should mention team size, budgets, scope, timeline and technical details. Programmers and Engineers should get specific regarding the technical aspects of the project, your role and impact, team size and application function. Detail is important. Do not substitute this part for "Highlights" or "Accomplishments." These sections usually do not include company names or dates and may give the impression that you are trying to hide something.

6. Publications:
If you have been published, have patents, or have patents pending provide the name of the publication, edition, co-authors, patent name, and patent number.

7. Awards:
List any awards or acknowledgments here.

8. Interests:
We don't consider this optional. By listing 3-7 interests you may make a connection with a recruiter or hiring manager. You may catch the eye of someone who has similar interests as you. This is a positive beginning.

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