CIO — If you've recently begun to update your résumé, you've probably encountered conflicting opinions on how to write a résumé for a CIO position so as to attract an executive recruiter's attention. For example, you may have heard or read that your résumé needs to tell a story about your work experience, and thus needs to include specific details about your professional accomplishments. Yet you've probably also read that a résumé, by nature, should be brief, and that the goal of your résumé is to give the executive recruiter just enough information to make him want to call you to find out more. Such contradictory advice can curse even the most effective communicators with writer's block when they have to re-write their résumés.

So forget everything you've ever heard or read about writing a CIO résumé. CIO.com is here to demystify the process once and for all. We asked several executive recruiters what they need to see in a CIO résumé to make them say, I need to call this person! Their answers were straightforward and consistent. They look for three main things: a stable, solid career that's progressed over the years, indications of the candidate's leadership ability and a hint of personality.

In this article, CIO.com presents six best practices for writing a CIO résumé that will get executive recruiters to call you. To illustrate these best practices, we share with you three examples of actual CIO résumés that recruiters have deemed outstanding. (We removed names, contact information and company names from these résumés to protect the identities of the CIOs who wrote them.) We include the examples not so that you can copy them verbatim, which would be a mistake since they would not accurately reflect your experience or writing style, but so that you can get a clear picture of what makes for an effective CIO résumé.

CIO — If you've recently begun to update your résumé, you've probably encountered conflicting opinions on how to write a résumé for a CIO position so as to attract an executive recruiter's attention. For example, you may have heard or read that your résumé needs to tell a story about your work experience, and thus needs to include specific details about your professional accomplishments. Yet you've probably also read that a résumé, by nature, should be brief, and that the goal of your résumé is to give the executive recruiter just enough information to make him want to call you to find out more. Such contradictory advice can curse even the most effective communicators with writer's block when they have to re-write their résumés.

So forget everything you've ever heard or read about writing a CIO résumé. CIO.com is here to demystify the process once and for all. We asked several executive recruiters what they need to see in a CIO résumé to make them say, I need to call this person! Their answers were straightforward and consistent. They look for three main things: a stable, solid career that's progressed over the years, indications of the candidate's leadership ability and a hint of personality.

In this article, CIO.com presents six best practices for writing a CIO résumé that will get executive recruiters to call you. To illustrate these best practices, we share with you three examples of actual CIO résumés that recruiters have deemed outstanding. (We removed names, contact information and company names from these résumés to protect the identities of the CIOs who wrote them.) We include the examples not so that you can copy them verbatim, which would be a mistake since they would not accurately reflect your experience or writing style, but so that you can get a clear picture of what makes for an effective CIO résumé.

Best Practices for Writing a CIO Résumé

1. Be brief. The purpose of your résumé is to make a recruiter think, "I need to call this CIO." So you don't need to provide a ton of detail on your résumé, says David Brown, an executive recruiter with Chicago-based search firm Cavoure LP. You just need to give recrcuiters a sense of what you've done in the past, so that they can see if you're a match for any current searches.

At a bare minimum, all executive recruiters really want to see is where you worked, what positions you held, how long you held those positions, what your most relevant accomplishments were in those positions, and your educational background. Based on that information, they'll be able to determine whether your experience may be right for an open position.