Ask Experienced Devs

Disclosure: I interview people (developers, mostly but all IT sorts) and examine resumes regularly...

Certifications? No. If you have a lot of them I think to myself, "they made it a hobby." I would not view them negatively but they're not important unless this person is brand spankin new to the profession (e.g. young person or someone who's switching careers). Then it shows that they have a bare minimum of knowledge in whatever the certification is for.

The experience portion of the resume is just something to talk about. As in, "it says here you worked on AI stuff... That must've been interesting. Tell me about that." But ultimately it too is relatively unimportant (to me).

Honestly, unless you had a really super interesting job I already know how it went, haha. I used to be a consultant and have worked closely with all kinds of IT people at all kinds of companies in all kinds of industries. A wide variety of activities in any given occupation will be viewed more positively than someone who worked on the exact same thing for 7 years straight but that's also very, very minor and doesn't really matter!

You know what does matter? The interview. I can tell within about ten minutes of asking someone highly technical questions if they'll be able to do the job. Then it's just a little bit of follow-up to make sure I can give them tasks and they'll go and work on them without regular pestering. That's all I need!

I don't even need to look at the resume at this point. Not really! Like I said, it's just something to talk about. All that matters is that they have a minimum set of skills and the right attitude when I intentionally ask them impossible questions that no one would know off the top of their head (hint: "I have no idea. I'd have to look that up." is the correct response).

IT changes so often it has become impossible to just know everything you need to do your job. As a result it has become important to know what you don't know and be prepared to research stuff. Nothing is simple anymore.

I don't care what school you went to or even if you went to school, LOL! All I care about is that you have a bare minimum threshold of skills and you have the right attitude (and can communicate well). If you didn't get the job despite having the right skills and attitude it's probably because some other person knew a bit more than you and you're just unlucky 🤷