

Ready to innovate, drive revenue, and rock the C-Suite? Get to the front of the front-end with a F100-ready CTO resume that guarantees a ROI.
Ever feel like you've outgrown your current company? You've improved everything you could, and now you're itching to dive into a new, exciting business.
But with so many companies recruiting their CTOs internally, it can feel like your opportunities are severely limited—and the competition unbeatable.
If your job search is returning nothing but errors, and no amount of added functionality yields positive results, it’s time for a radical step:
Reinventing your resume.
Luckily, there’s a reliable user manual for writing a job-winning CTO resume—and you’re about to discover everything you need to know to succeed.
This guide will show you:
Want to save time and have your resume ready in 5 minutes? Try our resume builder. It’s fast and easy to use. Plus, you’ll get ready-made content to add with one click. See 20+ resume templates and create your resume here.
CTO resume made with our builder—See more resume templates here.
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Rita Dayton
Chief Technology Officer
816-860-3954
ritardayton@gmail.com
linkedin.com/in/ritadayton
twitter.com/ritadayton
Summary
Energetic CTO with 10+ years of experience and proven leadership skills. Increased customer satisfaction by 45% and sales by 24% for HHC Software. At Techware, increased the efficiency of the manual testing process by 27% and expanded the customer base by 350%. Eager to drive ROI and technological innovation for KLPR Enterprises.
Experience
Chief Technology Officer
HHC Software
February 2018–May 2021
Key Qualifications & Responsibilities
Key Achievement:
Chief Technology Officer
Techware
September 2014–January 2018
Key Achievement:
Education
MBA Strategic Management, Chapman University
2011–2013
BSc in Computer Science, California State University
2004–2008
Skills
Certifications
PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)
Project Management Institute, 2018
Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP)
International Information System Security Certification Consortium, 2016
Memberships
Member of the Global CTO Forum
Look out, Silicon Valley!
That candidate has just accomplished the strategic goal of landing her dream CTO job. Now, it’s your turn.
Here’s how to write a job-winning CTO resume:
The first order of business is creating a solid framework for your project with a professional resume layout. No matter how many features you include, your resume won’t get you anywhere if it looks like it came out of an IBM 650.
So, here’s how to format your CTO resume for maximum impact:
Alright—
Time to create a content roadmap.
Here are the essential elements of a resume, in the correct order:
If you want to include your social media, add your LinkedIn address to the header. Before providing your Twitter handle, consider whether it’s worth it—
You don’t need to have Elon Musk following you, but make sure your page is interesting enough to work in your favor.
Looking to make your resume even more user-friendly? Read more: Best Resume Formats: Samples and Guide
Now—
Although the resume summary is the first section the recruiter will see, we’re going to write it last.
Why?
Well, if you were creating a new piece of software, you probably wouldn’t start with the UI. First, we need to lay some groundwork. It’ll be much easier to write a compelling summary if you’ve already defined your skills and accomplishments.
So, let’s give your work experience and upgrade and get those achievements to the front-end!
The work experience section forms the bulk of your resume and involves the longest time horizon. To unlock its full operating power, you need to zero in on your key professional accomplishments and show off your KPIs.
List your employment history, with your latest (or current) job title first. No need to go all the way back to that server room maintenance job you had in high school—focus on recent positions pertinent to the ad.
For each entry:
Looks good on paper. Now, let’s see it in action:
RIGHT |
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Chief Technology Officer HHC Software February 2018–May 2021 Key Qualifications & Responsibilities
Key Achievement:
|
...can you hear that?
That’s Adobe asking Rita where she’s been hiding all those years!
This candidate makes excellent use of action verbs and numbers to define and quantify achievements, presenting the reader with immediate value.
Now, for comparison, a bad resume example:
WRONG |
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HHCS, 2018–2021 Chief Technology Officer
|
If the first example is CSS3, then the second one is HTML 1.0.
Notice anything peculiar?
It’s the same candidate! The difference lies not in her experience, but in the way it is presented.
When making a resume in our builder, drag & drop bullet points, skills, and auto-fill the boring stuff. Spell check? Check. Start building a professional resume template here for free.
When you’re done, Zety’s resume builder will score your resume and tell you exactly how to make it better.
No matter how many years of experience you have, your college education should still make an appearance on your resume. The BoD expects to see it, and its lack will raise uncomfortable questions as quickly as a $4m hole in the annual budget.
On an executive-level resume, it’s enough to list your degree(s), complete with the name of the college and years of study.
Like so:
RIGHT |
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MBA Strategic Management, Chapman University 2011–2013
BSc in Computer Science, California State University 2004–2008
|
If you want, you can add a couple of bullet points with notable accomplishments from your college years, such as publications or standout extracurriculars. It’s not necessary to include your GPA on a resume, but you can definitely mention it if it was over 3.5.
Read more: Listing Education on a Resume: Tips and Examples
Here’s what Werner Vogels, Mike Krieger, and Mark Russinovich have in common:
The right set of skills for the role of CTO.
(And seven-figure paychecks, but let’s focus on the skills for now.)
Employers will be looking for these skills on your resume, too—as will the ATS software that most companies use to streamline the hiring process.
So, here’s how to create an industry-disrupting skills section:
Here’s a list to get you started:
Hard Skills for a CTO Resume
Soft Skills for a CTO Resume
Technical Skills and Software Skills for a CTO Resume
When you’re done, your CTO resume skills section might look something like this:
RIGHT |
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Skills
|
Are your best skills extracted and embedded? Excellent—
Then we’re ready to target our last resume milestone.
Need more inspiration? The Best Skills to Put on a Resume: 99+ Examples
Think of these as non-essential features. Your resume will work just fine without them, but they do give you an edge over the competition.
So, here’s what you could include in the last sections of your resume:
Here’s the finished product, ready for launch:
RIGHT |
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Certifications
PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) Project Management Institute, 2018
Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) International Information System Security Certification Consortium, 2016
Memberships
Member of the Global CTO Forum
|
Is there a place for personal hobbies and projects on your CTO resume? Find out: Complete Guide to Hobbies and Interests on a Resume
Remember how we were saving the best for last? Well, it’s time for our final deliverable—
Here’s how to write a CTO resume summary:
To make that last task easier, you can use the following formula:
Let’s run the script and see what happens:
RIGHT |
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Energetic CTO with 10+ years of experience and proven leadership skills. Increased customer satisfaction by 45% and sales by 24% for HHC Software. At Techware, increased the efficiency of the manual testing process by 27% and expanded the customer base by 350%. Eager to drive ROI and technological innovation for KLPR Enterprises. |
Measurable achievements? Check. Tailored to the ad? Check. Making an irresistible offer? Check.
All systems are go!
Whereas here, the core drive is stalling:
WRONG |
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Proven CTO with 10+ years of experience seeing to take on a challenging role in a new environment. Background in software engineering, excellent track record of improving SaaS products and increasing business efficiency, highly developed leadership skills. Talent for spotting and improving underperforming areas. |
Does not compute.
This person is getting ITL before she even arrived.
The underperforming areas here are quite easy to spot, frankly—
The candidate doesn’t care about this particular job. Neither does she bother to back up her claims to greatness with measurable results.
Read more: How to Write the Perfect Resume Introduction: Tips and Examples
Congrats!
What a way to move the needle on your resume!
Somewhere, the glass walls of your future office are already being polished in anticipation of your arrival.
There’s just one small caveat—
Your application is not quite finished, and you can’t expect top performance from an incomplete system. To ensure full compliance, attach an equally impressive cover letter to your resume.
Though they may feel as old-school as a mechanical keyboard, cover letters are still necessary.
So, here’s how to write a great CTO cover letter:
No need to produce a full 20-page report: for most jobs, the ideal cover letter length is up to one page.
Read more: Executive Level Cover Letter: Example and Guide
Plus, a great cover letter that matches your resume will give you an advantage over other candidates. You can write it in our cover letter builder here. Here's what it may look like:
See more cover letter templates and start writing.
Here’s a quick recap of how to write a CTO resume step by step:
That’s it!
Thanks for reading! Now, we’d love to hear from you:
Drop us a line in the comments, let’s chat!
Use our 2, 5, and 30-minute resume writing tips to quickly improve your resume. Actionable examples included. Read more!
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Not sure what your resume should look like to impress recruiters and land you that dream interview? You’ve come to the right place to find out. See for yourself.