Interested in learning how to write a Scrum manager resume? Well, you’re in the right place.
Scrum master jobs have a bright future and will become one of the most in-demand positions in the next couple of years.
How do I know that?
According to a study by the World Economic Forum, 33% of high-demand roles in product development will be Scrum related by 2022. Not only this, but also the demand for Certified Scrum Masters and Scrum professionals will increase by 37.9% in this decade. There are over 721,700 Scrum certifications globally, which is growing yearly.
Scrum is an agile framework that develops complex projects. An Agile framework uses short development cycles that result in the continuous improvement of a product or service. There are many Agile frameworks, and Scrum is a popular option among them.
Although companies have just started to adopt the Agile methodology, the Agile Scrum master job is available in all companies around the globe. So, to join an organization as a Scrum master, you must first learn how to write a good Scrum master resume.
It is important to mention that Scrum masters are often considered project managers who lead within agile processes. They use a wide range of skills depending on the situation. This is why it is hard to tell what a Scrum master does daily.
If you are a Scrum professional or interested in becoming one, this article is for you. We will discuss the Scrum master resume template, its sections, the right approach to writing an agile Scrum master resume, and helpful tips to stand out as a candidate.
So, let’s first start with the Scrum master resume format.
How to Write a Scrum Master Resume
Writing a good resume is hard, but writing a Scrum master resume with the agile framework is even more challenging. Whether you are an experienced Scrum master, changing careers, or a beginner, creating a resume without Scrum master resume templates is challenging.
The first step of writing your Scrum master resume is researching the position. You can start by collecting data from previous experiences. This can include the names, dates, and locations of places you have worked.
It can also include some tangible information about what you did. If your employment history is less than a couple of years, include success stories from school or community organizations.
After this, write a quick first draft. The goal should not be perfection. Edit all the mistakes in the last steps. The top third of your first page is prime real estate. Fill it wisely with a statement showing your passion for the scrum master role and the problems you can solve.
Bear in mind that more prominent organizations have many hiring needs, and AI helps these organizations filter stacks of resumes. They do so by looking for specific keywords and phrases.
In contrast, smaller organizations have more hands-on HR and hiring managers evaluations. Instead of keywords, these organizations seek candidates who have a work attitude and are eager to add value to the company.
Once you complete the first and second steps, the third and final step will be to edit it and make it the best possible version. Review it for brevity and clarity.
Make sure to list your name and contact info clearly at the top because any mistake in that could lead you to serious trouble. Revise the top third carefully and send it to the recruiting company.
What is the Best Scrum Master Resume Format?
Your resume’s first impression counts. If it is disorganized and difficult to read, it will not do you any favors. So, make sure the format and structure of your Scrum master resume are simple and help ease readability. Below we will see the format of an agile Scrum master resume, so your resume shines through.
When writing your resume, break up the content into the following sections, as it will make your resume easy to digest for recruiters and hiring managers.
Contact Details
Always list your contact details at the top of your resume. Make sure you save space by keeping it short. This can include your full name, role, location, telephone number, and email address.
Professional Profile
It is an introductory paragraph that goes after your contact details. It intends to grab recruiters’ attention and summarize your offering as a professional. The ideal length of this paragraph is 4-6 lines that summarize yourself. You can write about your skills, experience, industries, and tools in it.
Work Experience or Career History
Start from your current role and track back to your first career opportunity. List all your relevant work experience with your company name, role title, date, and responsibilities. Start with a 2-3 line summary that shows the impact you created for the company and other details of your recent roles. End it with some key achievements while using facts and figures to really impress employers.
Education
After your work experience, create a short summary of your education and qualifications. Use a simple list format, including dates and governing bodies like your institute and degree. But, make sure you only include the relevant and important certifications and degrees.
Interests and Hobbies
This is an optional section to document any hobbies that may demonstrate your soft and transferable skills.
What Sections Should You Put on Your Scrum Master Resume?
There are mainly four sections of a Scrum master resume. These include your personal information, work experience, education and certifications, and skills.
Below is a breakdown of what you need to include in these four sections for your senior Scrum master resume.
Personal Information: This section is the first quarter of a resume and tells the hiring manager about who you are, where you live, and what is your contact details.
Work Experience: This is the most important quarter of your resume as it tells the recruiter if you will make a good fit for the company or not.
Education and Certifications: To apply for a job, you must be eligible for it first. This section shows whether you have the required degree and certificates to be considered or not.
Skills: Today’s companies value practical knowledge more than theory. Considering this, a portion of skills is mandatory for your Scrum master resume.
Remember that the main purpose of a resume profile is to introduce yourself to a hiring authority. It summarizes your key selling points and showcases why you will make a good hire for the company.
So, write a well-rounded agile Scrum master resume of what you do, what skills you possess, what relevant experience you have, and what your education is. The following is a resume example of a junior-level Scrum master.
Junior Scrum Master Resume Experience Examples
If you don’t have any work experience, you can talk about the projects you have worked on. Try to show projects that may demonstrate your skills and abilities as a Scrum master. It can be school projects and volunteer projects.
Writing these on a junior-level Scrum master resume will make it clear to the hiring manager that you are comfortable taking the initiative and working in uncertainty.
Senior Scrum Master Experience Resume Examples
When applying for a senior role, show ownership over projects you have worked on. You can use action verbs like ‘led,’ ‘improved,’ and ‘organized’ throughout your senior Scrum master resume.
Whenever possible, tie your work experience to quantifiable metrics and tangible outcomes. As a senior Scrum master, you must know the importance of defining concrete goals and measuring success against those goals.
In your resume, demonstrate goal setting and discuss your previous projects that highlight your skill set quickly.
Listing Scrum Master Resume Skills
The role of the Scrum master is full of responsibilities. For this, he needs a specific skill set that can be truly effective. These essential qualities further divided into soft and hard skills.
Hard skills are the necessary technical training that scrum masters should complete before they start the job. These essential skills include strong Scrum and agile training, organizational skills like keeping Scrum team members on schedule, ensuring timely delivery, and having technical familiarity.
Soft skills, on the other hand, are non-technical skills that define the characteristics of Scrum masters. As per the research compiled by Stanford Research Center, hard skills are essential but are only responsible for the 15% success of a project. The remaining 85% depends solely on soft skill development.
These non-tech skills include teaching and coaching abilities, conflict facilitation, and servant leadership. It is essential to put the entire team’s needs before oneself and help others perform to the best of their abilities. Scrum masters can achieve these skills by being an active part of the team and accomplishing tasks.
It is much better to demonstrate mastery of a few skills than include those you know only a little. The rule of thumb here is: if you are comfortable being interviewed about certain skills, include it in your skills section. Bear in mind that you will be able to explore your expertise and specific skills a bit more in your Scrum master resume.
Additionally, an agile Scrum master’s skills section must emphasize hard technical skills. An automated filter will use the resume skills section to find out your recaps based on these keywords. Remember, filters only scan for technical skills and not for soft skills. So, make sure you craft your scrum master resume skills section well.
Listing Scrum Master Resume Education
There are no formal education requirements for a Scrum master. Most earn a bachelor’s degree to be competitive applicants in the field. A degree in Engineering or Business Administration is also helpful. However, it is worth noting here that you can major in any field and become a Scrum master, given the fact that you have the right certifications.
Candidates with a technology background have priority as they can easily digest experiences, skills, and certifications. So, HR recruiters enjoy seeing candidates who have formal IT education.
When writing your Scrum master resume, it is best to write only one formal degree with your institute name and date. The degree can be in Science, Computer Science or even Arts.
Below is a sample of a senior Scrum master resume to show how you can write your education on your high-level Scrum master resume.
Listing Scrum Master Resume Certification
While applying for a Scrum master role, include specific certifications or experience according to the job description. For instance, if you’re applying for the role of a CSM Scrum master, you’ll need to have a CSM certification and list your job title as CSM Scrum master on your resume.
If you have multiple certificates and don’t know which one to choose, use the one that has taught you the most. This is important because if the recruiter asks a question regarding your certification, you have a better chance to answer it correctly.
Use a reverse-chronological order if you write your credentials in the year you have taken them. This way, the recruiter will see which certificates are your latest.
The following is a list of the most common certifications that certified scrum masters have:
- CSM
- CEC
- CST
- CSD
- Certified PMP
- Certified Six Sigma Green Belt Professional
Certifications are essential to get your resume noticed. If you do not have any certifications, be sure to get them before applying. Today, many online options are available if you want to get certificates quickly. But getting certified is mandatory.
The following exemplifies how you present your Scrum master manager resume certifications.
Listing Scrum Master Resumes Achievements
Although the achievement section is optional, if added, it can increase your chances of being selected as a Scrum master. However, ensure all your achievements are relevant to your hard and soft skills mentioned in the resume.
The achievement section must not be a long laundry list. It can be about your excellence in the academic field or your experience where you helped your team solve a problem. Additionally, it can be about your vision and implementing a methodology that delivers results rapidly and reliably.
Below is a prime example of how you should list your achievements in an Agile Scrum master resume.
Listing Scrum Master Resumes Interests
The interest and hobbies section is entirely optional. So, use your judgment to determine if it is worth including in your resume. If your hobbies and interests can make a significant difference and appear more suitable for the job, they are worth adding.
If you are a recent graduate with limited or no experience, hobbies and interests can greatly benefit you. Your personality and values need to align with the job description and responsibilities of a Scrum master, as hiring managers will see you as a more beneficial asset to mold for the future.
This is because employers can train you how they want to perform the responsibilities, but they can never nurture your inner personality and interests.
The interests are related to the industry. At the same time, hobbies include sports where you play as a team or volunteer, displaying your valuable transferable skills.
Here is an example of how you can write your hobbies and interests in a Scrum master resume sample.
Scrum Manager Resume Example
The winning resume of a Scrum master must be visually pleasing and packed with targeted content. While it needs to enlist your experience, achievements, and relevant skills, it also needs to be as brief, straightforward, and easy to read as possible.
Researching the role and reviewing the Scrum master job description before applying is wise. This way, you can better prepare and match yourself to the job’s requirements.
Below are Scrum master resume samples for job seekers. Read it thoroughly before starting your resume.
Valerie Ayhan
Scrum Master
Personal Info
Phone: 337-301-2849
E-mail: [email protected]
linkedin.com/in/valeeriezayhan
Summary
Certified Scrum Master with 5+ years of experience. Looking to cut costs and raise efficiency at Sherwood Tech. At Kotman Technology, managed 3 Scrum teams, raising revenue by $1.5M per year and increasing ROI by 35%. Beat delivery times by 18%. Cut supply costs 20%.
Certifications
- PSM I
- PMP
Experience
Kotman Technology Inc.
Scrum Master
2017–2019
- Managed 3 Scrum teams. Collaborated with cross-functional teams and increased ROI by 35% in 1.5 years, increasing revenue by $1.5M per year.
- Trained 4 Scrum Masters in Agile best practices.
- Scrum Master for 12 products. Beat delivery targets by 18%.
- Worked with vendors to cut inventory costs by 20%.
Arendt Digital
Scrum Master
2015–2017
- Led a 7-person team through 10 projects with budgets over $200,000.
- Initiated an automation program that saved $500,000.
- Drove a new Lean idea system that implemented 300+ employee ideas per year.
- Increased team velocity by 20%, slashing rework through Poka Yoke.
Additional Scrum Experience
Various
2012–2016
- Agile team software developer since 2013.
- Guided 2 cross-functional teams in the development of 3 products.
- Assisted with logistics creation for 3 self-organizing development teams.
- Led 10 retrospective meetings that identified 5 recurring impediments.
Education
BS Computer Science ASU
2008–2012
- Pursued a passion for Agile coursework.
- Initiated a senior software project with a Scrum team of 5 developers.
- Used Agile methodology to build a budgeting app.
Publications
- Article on employee morale published in Agile for All
- Spoke on making risks visible on Agile in a podcast
Conferences
- Agile 2019 — Spoke on a panel about active user involvement.
- Deliver: Agile 2017
Additional Activities
- Founder and leader of a hiking group with 10+ members.
- Volunteer to foster 5 dogs per month to increase adaptability.
Hard Skills: Agile planning, meeting facilitation, leadership, Agile coaching, technical skills.
Soft Skills: interpersonal skills, communication, collaboration, time management
The hiring managers want to see Scrum master resumes that show professionals with the right skills and mindset. They want to ensure the person they are hiring will care for the role as much as their last Scrum master did. So, if you want to get picked for the interview, ensure your Scrum master resume contains what the hiring managers want to see.
To be more precise, hiring managers or recruiters want to see if:
- You were a Scrum master or not
- You have worked with geo-distributed teams
- Your experience working with multi-functional teams
- Whether you have program management experience
That is why you should always highlight your hard skills in bullet points. It will show the scale of your work and what impact you created.
Scrum Master Job Application Experience
A Scrum manager resume must emphasize the impact you created in your previous roles. For this, one section that can genuinely help you is your experience. However, before adding your experience section, ensure it suits the Scrum master job description.
If you have many years of experience, it is essential to manifest an increase in responsibilities over time. Be sure to highlight the quantitative impact of your work in your experience section. Remember that a hiring manager will be reviewing your resume for a very brief period, so be quick to make the case that you will have a tangible impact on their business.
One of the best ways to demonstrate this is by writing a similar experience with which you created an impact for your past company.
If you are among entry-level Scrum masters, prove your experience. You can do it in product backlogging, sprint backlogging, sprint planning, and sprint reviewing. Do it all through a well-designed project demonstrating an effective Scrum process. Show that you have real tangible experience at the entry level and can be a good choice for the higher.
Writing the Scrum master experience section might confuse you when it comes to what to add and leave. However, if you have a target business in mind, aligning the company mission and values with your experience will make it much easier to highlight key aspects.
How Many Pages Should a Scrum Master Resume be?
There are some exceptions, but as a rule of thumb, your Scrum master resume should be at least two pages long. Try to keep your resume short to avoid taking up too much of the hiring manager’s time.
If the Scrum master resume is one or three pages, this is also acceptable, but one or two pages is an ideal length. Make sure to include bullet points wherever possible, as it will make your resume brief and easy to read.
Five Helpful Tips for Scrum Manager Resume
Here are the five helpful tips that can help you write a great Scrum manager resume.
1. Emphasize Agile Mindset
The best way to incorporate an agile mindset in your resume is to converse with someone in an agile coaching role. By this, you will get a good understanding of what it means to have an agile mindset. The place of making a case for embodying an agile mindset is in your professional summary. In summary, write attributes that reflect your embodiment of agile principles.
2. Make Sure Your Scrum Master Resume is up to Date for Each new job
If you are applying for roles related to Scrum, you will need different resumes according to the job roles. When applying, a good rule of thumb is to make changes to your resume every time you send it for a different role.
For instance, if the job is for a senior Scrum master role at a financial technology (fintech) company, you should make changes to your resume according to that job. Candidates who craft their cover letters and resumes according to the job role have better chances of getting a call from human resources (HR).
3. Link to Your Experience Portfolio
You cannot underestimate the benefit of keeping your own website, or even a portfolio hosted online. This website or portfolio is handy in showing your skills and achievements that are otherwise impossible on a resume.
Many Scrum masters ignore this and do not create any website or portfolio, resulting in missed opportunities. On the other hand, those Scrum masters who create these online portfolios stand out from the rest and grab maximum opportunities.
4. List the Relevant Work History
Remember not to include anything in your Scrum manager resume that you will not be able to back up later on. These jobs go to people with a work history related to the role.
Avoid talking about experiences in your resume that you don’t have enough of. It will do you more harm than good. Always talk about the experience when you know a lot about the job. So, always list your experiences and work histories with enough expertise.
5. Always Proofread Before Sending your Resume
Recruiters often complain about the typos and lengthy phrases in a Scrum master resume. It not only disengages the recruiters from the resume but also shows the carelessness of a candidate. Scrum master is an important role with a lot of critical responsibilities.
So, always proofread and look for grammatical and spelling errors before submitting.
Don’ts of Scrum Manager Resume
A few other don’t of your Scrum manager resume include the following:
1. Don’t Include a Headshot
A headshot does not provide any information to the hiring authority. So, there is no reason to include your photo if you apply for this job. If the hiring agency wants your headshot, they will locate it through your LinkedIn profile or from a Google search for your name.
2. Write About Recent Experience, Not Old
If you are a senior scrum master, there is a high possibility that you have accumulated more than 6 to 7 years of experience in your Scrum master journey. However, the reality is that old experience does not guarantee success. What matters most is what you did recently. Make a point of highlighting who you are today, not what you did seven years ago.
3. Don’t Write a Scrum Master Resume Summary or Objective
What purpose does a Scrum master resume summary serve? It frequently occurs with a few lines stated at the top of a resume. Your resume already has enough overview of your work experience, so there is no need for a summary or a Scrum manager resume objective. Add this, and you will create fluff for the hiring manager.
Where Can you Apply With Your Scrum Master Resume?
Your Scrum master resume is the power source for securing high-paying jobs. It works as a tool to grab opportunities listed on job boards and in freelancing marketplaces. Below we have compiled some job boards and freelancing sites where you can apply with your Scrum master resume.
- Upwork
- Glassdoor
- Indeed
- Monster
- Fiverr
Key Takeaways
This detailed guide discussed how to write a Scrum manager resume with examples. Looking at the big picture, below is a quick summary of the whole guide:
- Be relevant and use a reverse timeline whenever possible
- Customize and personalize your Scrum master resume with each job opportunity
- Use the right keywords so that AI filters can select your resume for the review
- Always proofread your resume before you apply
- Talk about your recent achievements and experiences instead of old experience
Writing a Scrum manager resume is both challenging and rewarding. Writing a perfect resume should not be your goal, but starting one should. An ideal resume can take anywhere from an entire day to many weeks. So, start with a rough draft and make it better.
Remember, you cannot rely on a generic resume template for every job. The hiring manager will quickly notice this. In the end, believe in yourself and have complete confidence.