Is your tech job CV for 2026 looking a bit, well, 1998?

How tech job candidates can effectively use traditional CV sections without appearing old-fashioned or showcasing outdated IT skills.

There’s a habit that many IT contractors and full-time technology job-seekers have, which on the face of it seems a reasonable one.

It’s a habit that many an internet article would encourage this year.

It’s something that your LLM of choice may even suggest is a ‘no-brainer’ for 2026!

It’s even probably something your Nan did ‘back in the day.

Matching your CV to the job spec, then hitting ‘send,’ is soooo 1998

So, what is this bad habit?

Well, it’s falling into the trap of thinking that if your CV lists the same skills as the job advert, you’ve succeeded. Box-ticked, application ready to fire off!

In short, and I heard an IT job candidate proudly declare this only the other day:

I matched my CV to the job advert - job’s a good un.

The problem is that in 2026, everyone else has done exactly the same thing, writes Matt Craven, founder and personal branding expert at The CV & Interview Advisors.

Everyone’s a match

In 2026, I’d wager that almost every CV that a technology recruiter opens will look like a decent fit.

Sometimes it’ll be because ChatGPT has helpfully embellished the candidate’s experience. Sometimes it’ll be because another AI program has just aligned the requested skills with the nearest-match keywords on the candidate’s CV. And sometimes, of course, it’ll be because the job-seeker’s experience is genuine and correlates to the job advert’s “key requirements.”

Regardless of which technique is in play on a tech job CV application in 2026, the bottom line for recruiters is the same.

These hiring decision-makers are faced - no overloaded - with piles of applications where everyone appears qualified and experienced enough to do the job.

How a FTSE-listed tech employer is struggling to hire in a sea of samey candidates

Here’s the proof. A senior “Talent Acquisition Lead” who we work with, who sifts through IT job applications for his large FTSE100 employer, told us recently:

We’ve just received more than 200 CVs for a single role, and almost all the CVs were a good match.

Such a good match, he added to me when I quizzed him for this article for Free-Work, that as an employer, they “had absolutely no idea who to interview.”

The key takeaway for techies, in a world where all candidates are a match

By matching your CV to the job and using AI, you are more likely to drown in a sea of sameness than you are to stand out.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m not advocating NOT matching your tech CV for 2026 to the IT job advert or posting. Rather, I’m suggesting you do that and add on much more.

Three pillars to success

Internally, here at the CV and Interview Advisors, we talk about skills, experience, and ability. We refer to these as the ‘Holy Trinity.’

This trio is also known as the ‘Three Pillars’ of success in job applications.

Most CVs do a perfectly adequate job of covering the first two, but the third is where things start to dwindle.

What is ability?

Ability is the undeniable proof that you can do the job well. And not just because you’ve been involved in a similar project before, but because when you did the task, you did it well, evidenced by you delivering these ‘x-y-z’ results.

That ‘proof’ only comes from the ‘x-y-z’ evidence, and evidence is what most CVs lack.

It’s not just about doing the job; it’s about doing it well with irrefutable proof you did it well.

Achievement vs. Task

A common misunderstanding among IT job-hopefuls who approach us for CV advice is the idea that achievements are simply important-sounding tasks.

For example:

Delivered a major ERP transformation programme across 20 countries.

It sounds impressive, but it leaves the reader of this statement on a CV or application outright guessing what actually changed as a result.

A stronger version would tell you what happened because of it:

Delivered an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) transformation across 20 countries, on time and under budget, generating £10million in cost savings and enabling a 2,000-headcount reduction through improved operational efficiency.

It’s the same project. The same achievement, even, but now with a very different and more compelling signal to the employer.

One statement just describes activity, whereas the other demonstrates ability.

That’s a big difference. And I recommend that tech job seekers in 2026 cast a steely eye over their CV and next IT job application to check that the latter, not the former, is out in force.

If not, go back to the drawing board.

CV content issue: ‘We’ versus ‘I’

On a tech CV or IT job application, candidates using “We” usually aren’t doing so to be evasive or vague. It’s more often an attempt by the author to be polite, measured, and conscious that most work is done as part of a wider team.

With “We,” there’s modesty in play, but maybe a bit of imposter syndrome too, and definitely a tendency to put “I” behind “We,” even though it’s their CV as an individual.

If you’ve got “We” on your tech CV for 2026, the difficulty you’ll face when applying for an IT job is that there isn’t a team vacancy.

There’s one role, one contract, one hiring decision.

And the organisation considering taking you on for temporary or permanent employment, is trying to understand your ownership and delivery capability as an individual.

When CVs and interviews are dominated by “We”, the ownership/delivery assessment becomes blurry for the reader. The ownership is especially unclear, and the effect is that the impact of what you’re stating in the “We”-sentence gets diminished.

Duties & Responsibilities

Be aware - the need for “I” to trump “We” on your tech CV for 2026 doesn’t mean turning your Curriculum Vitae into a total brag sheet!

Context is important, especially on a CV for tech jobs in the UK, where three pages in length is entirely normal for mid-level IT professionals and above.

For full-time tech job candidates in particular, “Duties and Responsibilities” can be used to help the reader understand the environment you were operating in.

But all tech job-hopefuls in 2026 (contract especially) must prioritise outcomes, and on your CV, outcomes need to be visible.

Let’s get to the perfect place to house outcomes on your CV.

Where to put an impressive achievement on a tech CV in 2026?

If you’ve achieved an outcome or achievement that you feel is genuinely standout, it can sit in your “Profile” section (the paragraph at your CV’s very top).

But take care in the IT skills ‘space’ to reserve such an inclusion for something extremely impressive; perhaps something that might be widely recognised, such as:

Leading tech support for NHS England’s national patient records digitisation programme.

Where outcomes on a CV should go

One CV section that hasn’t changed since 1998 is “Career History/Experience.”

The trick in 2026 is how to use it, so your usage of this age-old section doesn’t scream that your CV is outdated, and that your modes are old-fashioned.

First, then, with “Career History/Experience,” insert each of your past roles.

The last three roles, if you’re a full-time job-seeker, will usually suffice.

Next, add in your responsibilities, but then, crucially, create a clearly labelled section for “Key Projects” (ideal for IT freelancers) or “Achievements” (ideal for IT full-timers).

This is where the all-important ‘outcomes’ should go on your CV — not tasks, but rather where tangible, measurable, quantifiable results belong.

No tech job CV is complete without ‘Career Highlights’

Something absent from most CVs back in 1998 was “Career Highlights.” 

Highly recommended by us for 2026, a “Career Highlights” section is designed to grab the reader’s attention, and so it works best on page one of a CV.

To build Career Highlights, choose three, always the same length in terms of wording, ‘greatest moments’ from your tech career (N.B. If there’s room, five lines per ‘highlight’ works well to achieve identical length).

Use ‘STAR’ to write mini-case studies on your CV

Write each ‘highlight’ as a ‘mini-case study’ using the methodology ‘STAR’ (Situation, Task, Action, Result).

Using ‘STAR’ gives the reader enough context to make sense of each career ‘highlight’.

And this methodology provides enough evidence to be credible, too.

To be optimally prepared as a tech job-seeker in 2026, you’d ideally build a ‘bank’ of these career highlights. You can then pull out just the three ‘highlights’ most relevant to the role you’re applying for in week one, and a different trio, perhaps, in week two.

Where to use AI in a tech job CV?

AI is a productivity tool.

It’s very good at pattern-matching and rewriting, but often poor at judgment (at the time of writing — Jan. 2026).

Without real evidence to work from, AI simply ‘repackages’ the same CV.

Unfortunately for humans who want to take credit for their AI-generated CVs, the content of such documents often contains language that has come to raise AI ‘red flags’ with recruiters and client-side hiring managers. In fact, the language is so clunky and obviously churned out by a robot that, in some cases, even AI detection tools are no longer necessary!

Bottom line? Another identikit CV is not what you or your prospects as a would-be tech worker need in 2026.

Closing arguments

Business theorist, teacher and economist W Edwards Deming famously said:

“In God we trust. Everyone else must bring data.”

Well, as a tech freelancer or full-timer, you absolutely must bring data, because in recruitment, what gets evidenced gets interviewed.

Remember, if your CV simply mirrors the job advert, you’ll blend in with everyone else who’s selected ‘matching mode’ too.

Conversely, if your tech job CV shows what you owned and what changed as a result, you give the recruiter something much more compelling.

That’s the difference in 2026.

Tech CV help is at hand

If your CV has an unenviable touch of 1998 about it, or if you just want help implementing the specific sections outlined above, join our Free-Work webinar on Monday, January 19th 2026.

This free session by us, the CV & Interview Advisors, will reveal:

• How to reverse-engineer tech job descriptions;

• How to hyper-tailor IT job applications;

• How to build a CV for technology industry vacancies that work with recruiter psychology and beat ATS.

Don’t hang about to sign up. One previous webinar attendee called the framework “GENIUS”.

Or maybe January 19th is too late for you, because the closing date of an IT job application you’re eyeing is beforehand?

Well, if you’d like me to sense check your CV or LinkedIn profile, Free-Work users can request a free, confidential 1-2-1 CV appraisal. It’s a great way to make sure your personal brand is working for you rather than against you in 2026. And don’t worry, when you get it back, there won’t be a bit of 1998 in sight!

Free-Workers, please click here to request the CV appraisal.