This guide is for IT Managers and IT Directors, from first-time team leads to heads of IT. You'll learn which keywords to include, how to write a summary for your level, and how to turn duty-style bullets into results a hiring manager can measure.
Keyword match
IT Manager, Infrastructure Team
7/10must-have skills
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Jordan Reyes
Columbus, OH · jordan.reyes@email.com · linkedin.com/in/jordanreyes
Summary
IT Manager over infrastructure, service desk and vendors for a 640-user, 4-site distributor. Shifted core workloads to Azure and tightened endpoint control without adding budget for 2 years.
1Skills
IT Operations · ITIL Service Management · Microsoft 365 · Entra ID · Intune · Vendor & Contract Management · IT Budgeting · Disaster Recovery · Network Security · ServiceNow
2Experience
IT Manager Halvorsen Supply Co., Columbus, OH · Mar 2021 – Present
Team of 7 (3 sysadmins, 3 service desk, 1 network engineer) · 640 users · 4 sites · $2.3M budget3
Certifications
ITIL 4 Foundation (PeopleCert) · PMP (Project Management Institute), exam scheduled May 2027
5The summary opens with scope (functions, users, sites), so a hiring manager can size the job in one line.
Summary examplesManagement terms plus named platforms satisfy the ATS and a reader checking whether you know their stack.
Keywords and skillsA scope line answers the first questions most IT hiring managers ask: how many people, users and dollars.
Common mistakesThe bullet leads with a concrete change and ends with a percentage the finance team would recognize.
Bullet pointsAn in-progress certification with a date shows momentum without claiming something you don't hold yet.
CertificationsUsers supported, sites, direct reports and budget tell a reader whether you ran IT for 60 people or 6,000.
Uptime, mean time to resolve, SLA attainment, patch compliance and restore-test results show you managed the environment rather than just worked in it.
Weighing costs against benefits, justifying funding to executives and negotiating with vendors are core parts of the role. Show budgets you owned, contracts you renegotiated and spend you removed.
Even without a security title, you're usually accountable for MFA, backups, disaster recovery and audit findings. Name the control, the audit or test, and the outcome.
A systems administrator fixes the server; an IT Manager decides which servers to keep, who maintains them and what it costs. IT Directors set the roadmap, manage managers and present to executives.
If you're applying for IT Director roles, add:
Soft skills
Don't list "communication" or "leadership." Show them: "presented quarterly risk review to the CFO," "promoted 2 technicians to sysadmin roles."
Service desk lead moving into IT management after 6 years in support and systems administration at a 350-user professional services firm. Supervised 4 technicians, cut average ticket resolution time from 19 hours to 7, and ran the firm's Microsoft 365 and Intune rollout. ITIL 4 Foundation certified and working toward PMP.
Why it works: It names the transition plainly and backs the supervisory claim with a metric.
IT Manager with 9 years in IT and 4 leading teams, responsible for infrastructure, end-user support and security operations for a 1,150-employee healthcare network across 11 clinics. Held EHR availability above 99.9% through two major upgrades and closed all 14 findings from the most recent HIPAA risk assessment. Leads a 9-person team on a $3.4M annual budget.
Why it works: Scope, reliability, compliance and budget in three sentences, in a healthcare hiring manager's language.
IT Director who has built and run technology organizations of up to 42 staff under 3 managers, most recently at a 6-plant industrial manufacturer. Led an ERP replacement, an IT/OT network segmentation program and a vendor consolidation that cut run costs 18% over two years. Reports to the CFO and presents the IT roadmap and risk posture to the board each quarter.
Why it works: It shows managing managers, enterprise-wide programs and executive reporting: what separates a director from a senior manager.
Use the metrics IT leaders are judged on: availability, resolution time, SLA attainment, patch compliance, audit findings, failover results, budget variance and cost removed.
WeakResponsible for help desk team.
StrongSupervised 5 service desk technicians supporting 480 users; raised first-contact resolution from 54% to 72% by building a 64-article knowledge base and a tiered escalation path.
What changed: Team size, users, a before-and-after metric and the method.
WeakManaged the ticketing system.
StrongMoved the service desk from a shared inbox to Jira Service Management with SLA timers and request categories; SLA attainment reached 93% in the first full quarter.
What changed: A named platform and a measurable service level.
WeakHandled vendor relationships.
StrongRenegotiated 23 software and telecom contracts at renewal, removing 316 unused licenses and cutting annual spend by $214K.
What changed: "Handled" became counts of contracts and licenses plus a dollar figure.
WeakImproved network reliability.
StrongReplaced end-of-support switching and Wi-Fi at 5 sites over 9 months with no business-hours outages; network-related tickets fell 38% the following quarter.
What changed: Delivery without disruption, plus the user impact.
WeakResponsible for IT security.
StrongRolled out MFA and conditional access to 1,240 accounts and brought 96% of endpoints under EDR, clearing 2 repeat findings from the external IT audit.
What changed: Controls, coverage and an audit outcome replace a vague claim.
WeakDid disaster recovery planning.
StrongRebuilt the DR plan around tiered RTO/RPO targets and ran the company's first full failover test, restoring ERP in 3 hours 20 minutes against a 4-hour target.
What changed: A tested result against a target proves the plan works.
WeakOversaw the IT budget.
StrongOwned a $7.8M operating and capital budget for 2,900 users; finished 3 consecutive fiscal years within 2% of plan while funding a laptop refresh and a cloud migration.
What changed: Budget size, users and variance to plan: how a CFO judges an IT Director.
WeakLed IT through a merger.
StrongIntegrated IT for 2 acquired companies (610 users) in 7 months, unifying identity, email and ERP access by day 90 and retiring $336K in duplicate systems.
What changed: Timeline, milestones and cost removed make it a director-level result.
A bachelor's degree in computer science, information technology or a related field is the typical entry point, and some employers require or prefer a graduate degree in computer science, IT or business administration. Certification is typically optional, though some employers prefer it, especially for roles overseeing IT security.
If a posting names a certification, mention it in your summary and list it in a Certifications section below Experience. Education goes last.
How to list one in progress
Give the full name, the issuing body and a date: PMP, Project Management Institute — exam scheduled May 2027. If you've passed the CISSP exam but don't yet have the experience, list "Associate of ISC2," not CISSP.
Pages of configuration detail make you look like the person who does the work, not the one who runs it.
FixKeep one tools line in Skills and give bullets to decisions, outcomes and the team.
"Managed IT" could mean a 3-person office or a 4,000-user enterprise.
FixAdd a scope line under every IT Manager title with direct reports, users, sites and budget.
"Closed 4,000+ tickets" says you were busy, not that service improved.
FixReport resolution time or SLA attainment and what you changed to move it.
"Ensured security and compliance" doesn't tell anyone what you actually did.
FixName the control, the audit and the result, such as findings closed or coverage reached.
Interviewers will ask which it was.
FixSay it plainly ("Managed MSP delivering 24/7 monitoring under a 99.9% SLA"). Vendor management is a real skill; just don't present it as people management.
Two pages is normal for mid-level and senior IT Managers in the US; one page suits a first-time manager. Summarize roles older than about 15 years in a short "Earlier experience" line.
Usually not; certification is typically optional for IT management roles. ITIL tends to appear in operations-heavy postings and PMP in project-heavy ones, so earn the one your target postings name.
List the management work directly: people you trained or supervised, vendors you managed, budgets you influenced and projects you led. A bullet like "Led a 3-person team through a 400-user Microsoft 365 migration" proves leadership regardless of title.
Show what you owned: contract scope, service levels you set and enforced, and the work you kept in-house. A bullet like "Managed an MSP handling tier-1 support and patching for 420 users; rewrote the SLA at renewal and cut repeat escalations 31% in two quarters" shows judgment, not just oversight.
Shift bullets from running systems to shaping the function: roadmaps, multi-year budgets, managing managers and executive reporting. Add the seniority keywords above and cut low-level technical detail.
Paste a job ad and get a fit score, the keywords you're missing and the one thing to fix first.
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