Programmer resumes typically contain a list of hardware and software up near the top of the first page. This approach can leave the reader wondering which skills are strongest and which are recent. The skills section should inform, and not confuse, the reader.
Employers want to hire someone with skills that are relevant to their needs and projects. They are not usually impressed with resumes that aim to impress with the breadth of someone's knowledge and experience. To the contrary, they're looking through the resume trying to assess depth of skills and relevance to their needs.
If you currently utilize the skills the employer is looking for, you may want to include those at the top in a concise list. If you have skills which are antiquated or irrelevant to the type of job you are seeking, refrain from including a skill section on the resume.
Skills Summary Format
If you decide to include a skills section, there is a recommended format we've found to be effective. Firstly, break up your skills into categories such as Platforms, Languages, Tools, etc. Then list the technologies after the title of the category in reverse chronological order.
For instance, if you currently program in MS Windows NT, and programmed in MS Windows 3.1 before that, you would list NT first. It is also helpful to add the number of years you have used that technology in parentheses directly after each skill {ie. MS Windows 95 (1.5 years).
One more thing that is helpful is to differentiate between academic and professional experience if you choose to include academic skills on your resume.
Example of a Good Skill Summary
Platforms:
MS Windows NT (3 years), MS Windows 95 (1 year), DOS (3 years), and Unix (1 year professionally and 3 years academically)
Languages:
C++ (3 years), C (2 years professionally and 3 years academically), VC++ (1.5 years), Java (1 year) Visual Basic (1 year), Assembly (1 year)
Tools:
MFC (1.5 years), SDK (1 year), ActiveX /OLE (3 years), and COM/DCOM (1 year)
You may wish to add a skills matrix table listing your technical knowledge against Operating Systems, Methodologies, Programming languages etc.
If you've been working for a long time or have had diverse experiences then it might be better to break up the skills into summaries that appear after each job in the work experience section.
Suppose you've had three jobs since university and each of them was for a five year time period. You could list the skills used for each job after each position description. This would help the employer to see when and where you gained those skills.
This would be a good format, for example, when your most recent job involved highly marketable skills such as Windows, MFC, C++ and the earlier jobs involved less marketable skills such as Pascal, RSX-11, Basic, etc
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