How Does a Specialist IT Recruiter Really Read Your CV Beyond “AWS Experience”?

Posted on: November 5, 2026
By Cathal McAliskey
CV Assistance, IT Jobs and Recruitment Insights

What Does a Specialist IT Recruiter Look for in Your CV?

A specialist IT recruiter looks beyond technology keywords to understand what you actually built, the decisions you owned, the scale you worked at and the impact you made. Your CV needs to show not just that you have used AWS, Java or Kubernetes, but how you used those skills to solve a real problem.

I read lots of technical CVs. Some list every framework imaginable. Others look polished but leave me guessing what the person actually did. Both can miss the mark.

When I’m assessing someone for an Irish software, DevOps or cloud role, I’m asking: can I confidently explain why this person suits the hiring team?

Here’s what makes that easier.

Why Isn’t “AWS Experience” Enough Anymore?

Imagine a Dublin fintech company needs a senior cloud engineer. The role mentions AWS, Terraform, CI/CD and Kubernetes. You list all four. Great — I’ll look closer.

But “AWS experience” can mean very different things. Did you deploy into an existing environment, maintain someone else’s infrastructure or lead decisions around security, resilience and cost?

Those are different levels of responsibility.

Saying you “worked with microservices” tells me less than which services you owned and why the team chose that architecture. Keywords help me find your CV. Context helps me understand your value.

How Do I Read a Technical CV?

I’m looking for a clear, credible picture of your experience. Usually, I focus on:

• Relevant experience: Have you worked with the core technologies recently, and in what capacity?
• Project detail: Was this a startup product, a large enterprise platform, a regulated environment or an internal system?
• Ownership: Did you contribute to delivery, lead a workstream, design the solution or support it in production?
• Results: What improved — reliability, performance, delivery time, customer experience or cost?
• Practical fit: Does your location, preferred working arrangement, and permanent or contract preference suit the role?

Practical fit matters in Ireland. A Cork-based candidate might suit a remote-first team but not a role requiring five days each week in Dublin.

How Can You Show Technical Depth Rather Than Just Exposure?

Replace lists of responsibilities with evidence of decisions and outcomes.

Compare these two illustrative CV statements:

Before: “Experience with AWS, Docker, Terraform and CI/CD pipelines.”

After: “Owned the Terraform configuration and CI/CD process for a customer-facing AWS application, introducing automated deployment checks and a documented rollback process.”

Only the second statement helps me understand your work.

An accurate result makes it stronger: more reliable deployments, faster onboarding or lower costs. You don’t need a percentage for every bullet. An honest explanation beats an invented metric.

For senior candidates, I also look for their judgement. Why keep a monolith instead of adopting microservices? What happened when a migration ran into problems? That’s where seniority becomes visible.

Why Do Business Impact and Soft Skills Matter on a Technical CV?

Irish employers need people who can work with product teams, respond to incidents and challenge expectations — not only write code.

So, I look for communication, collaboration and accountability.

Don’t just claim you’re an “excellent communicator”. Did you mentor junior developers, explain a security risk to a non-technical stakeholder or coordinate a release with QA and product?

When two candidates have similar tech stacks, these examples can make the difference.

What Can Make a Strong CV Harder to Shortlist?

These patterns make suitable candidates harder to assess:

• A technology shopping list: Twenty cloud services with no indication of hands-on depth.
• Vague achievements: “Responsible for digital transformation” without describing the project or your contribution.
• Unclear ownership: Every bullet begins with “we”, so it’s difficult to see your individual role/contributions.
• Outdated emphasis: Several paragraphs on a role from eight years ago, but only two lines about your current work.
• AI-polished language: Impressive phrases that don’t replicate what you could explain naturally in an interview.

As I explain in my blog on using ChatGPT to write your CV, AI can improve wording, but the experience must remain yours. We’ll ask follow-up questions.

How Should You Tailor Your CV for an IT Role in Ireland?

Tailoring means making relevant evidence easy to find, not rewriting your career history.

For cloud platform roles, lead with infrastructure ownership, automation and innovation. For senior backend roles, emphasise architecture, APIs and cross-team delivery. Here is some advice before you send your CV:

• Put a short, specific summary at the top that reflects the roles you’re targeting.
• Show your core stack but connect important tools to projects in your experience section.
• Use clear job titles, employers and dates so your progression makes sense.
• Include two or three strong outcomes for each recent, relevant role.
• Be accurate about certifications and what you personally delivered.

You don’t need every requirement. Explain transferable experience without adding keywords you can’t stand over.

What Happens After Your CV Gets You the Interview?

Your CV starts a conversation. If you redesigned a cloud platform, expect to explain your choices and trade-offs.

In an earlier blog, What Are Tech Employers Really Screening for in Senior Software Interviews?, I discuss how employers assess judgement, ownership, communication and commercial awareness — beyond your tech stack. The strongest CVs provide those interview examples.

FAQs: How Recruiters Review IT CVs