When an award-winning IT professional's résumé was just a running list of the jobs he'd held, the challenge was how to make his most impressive skills stand out In a world full of noise, competition and short attention spans, your résumé has to say a lot, in many cases, at a glance. It’s the marketing tool for your personal brand and the first impression that hiring managers, recruiters and HR reps get of you. Suffice to say, getting it right is paramount to successfully compete against the horde of IT professionals out there. Misspellings, unexplained employment gaps or a simple list of past positions and responsibilities are all potential red flags that can make the decision-makers push your résumé into the negative pile or make it go unnoticed completely. Enter Arnold Stern Meet Arnold Stern (not his real name). Stern has a long and successful career as an IT professional, an innovator and a problem-solver. He’s won awards, worked for Fortune 500 companies, pharmaceutical companies and, most recently, was recruited into government IT as a problem solver to untangle some particularly complex issues. Stern was feeling the itch to again find a new challenge in the private sector and decided it was time to update his résumé. To continue reading, register here to become an Insider . You’ll get free access to premium content from CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, and Network World. See more Insider content or sign in. IT Jobs