Top 12 Incident Manager Skills to Put on Your Resume
In the fast-paced world of IT, Incident Managers keep the lights on when systems wobble. Strong, visible skills on a resume signal that you can steady chaos, reduce downtime, and guide teams through gnarly outages with clarity and calm.
Incident Manager Skills
- ITIL Framework
- ServiceNow
- Jira
- Risk Assessment
- SLA Management
- Root Cause Analysis
- Cybersecurity Principles
- Incident Response
- Communication Protocols
- Project Management
- Change Management
- Continuous Improvement
1. ITIL Framework
The ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) framework is a set of practices for IT service management that aligns services to business needs. For Incident Managers, ITIL provides structure for triage, escalation, and restoration so disruptions are contained and services bounce back fast.
Why It's Important
ITIL brings consistency and shared language to incident handling, shrinking impact, improving reliability, and making outcomes measurable and repeatable.
How to Improve ITIL Framework Skills
Blend with Agile and DevOps: Tie incident workflows to delivery pipelines. Faster feedback, fewer surprises.
Automate routine work: Categorization, assignment, notifications, and status updates should run themselves where possible.
Invest in training: Keep the team fluent in ITIL concepts and your org’s playbooks. Share knowledge relentlessly.
Run feedback loops: Capture stakeholder input after incidents and major events. Fold it back into process tweaks.
Apply AI/ML thoughtfully: Predict incident hotspots, spot duplicates, and surface probable resolvers to trim time-to-fix.
Tighten communications: Clear channels, crisp updates, and templates for major incidents. Fewer gaps, less noise.
Review continuously: Audit process health, adjust SLAs/OLAs, and prune steps that no longer add value.
How to Display ITIL Framework Skills on Your Resume
2. ServiceNow
ServiceNow is a cloud platform for IT service management. For Incident Managers, it centralizes logging, routing, automation, and reporting so issues move quickly and nothing slips through.
Why It's Important
It standardizes workflows, reduces manual toil, and gives real-time visibility into queues, SLAs, and trends.
How to Improve ServiceNow Skills
Automate triage: Use rules and predictive intelligence to set priority, category, and assignment.
Launch a sharp self-service portal: Simple forms, great search, strong knowledge base—ticket volume drops when users can help themselves.
Refine categorization and CMDB: Clean data powers smart routing and impact assessment.
Streamline workflows: Map escalations, approvals, and handoffs. Cut redundant steps.
Integrate toolchains: Connect chat, alerting, monitoring, CI/CD, and incident response tools for end-to-end flow.
Train teams: Short, targeted training for resolvers and requesters. Empower super-users.
Collect feedback: Post-resolution surveys and team retros to guide iterative improvements.
How to Display ServiceNow Skills on Your Resume
3. Jira
Jira is a project and issue tracking platform used for incident intake, prioritization, and collaboration. It helps teams visualize work, measure throughput, and keep stakeholders in the loop.
Why It's Important
One place to track, discuss, and resolve incidents reduces confusion and accelerates decisions.
How to Improve Jira Skills
Customize dashboards: Surface MTTA, MTTR, SLA risk, open majors, and aging work at a glance.
Use automation: Auto-assign, escalate on breach risk, transition states, and ping the right channels.
Integrate comms: Connect with Slack or Teams so updates reach responders instantly.
Define SLAs: Track response and resolution targets by priority. Flag risks early.
Strengthen reporting: Trend categories, root causes, and reopen rates. Let the data steer fixes.
Standardize intake: Templates and required fields cut back-and-forth and speed triage.
Coach the team: Short refreshers and quick guides keep usage consistent and fast.
How to Display Jira Skills on Your Resume
4. Risk Assessment
Risk assessment identifies, analyzes, and evaluates potential events that could disrupt operations. It informs prioritization, preparedness, and mitigation before and during incidents.
Why It's Important
Seeing the risk landscape clearly helps allocate resources, set sane SLAs, and lower the blast radius when something breaks.
How to Improve Risk Assessment Skills
Map risks: Use historical incidents, threat modeling, and stakeholder workshops to build a living risk register.
Score consistently: Likelihood × impact. Apply a risk matrix and stick to it.
Set thresholds: Define risk criteria so prioritization is objective, not gut feel.
Plan treatments: Avoid, reduce, transfer, or accept—document the choice and owner for each material risk.
Monitor and review: Reassess regularly and after major changes. Tie into change and problem management.
Communicate: Keep leadership and responders aligned on top risks and mitigations.
Use frameworks: Draw from ISO 31000 and similar guidance to anchor process rigor.
How to Display Risk Assessment Skills on Your Resume
5. SLA Management
SLA Management means defining, tracking, and meeting agreed service levels. For incidents, that’s response and resolution targets, communication cadence, and clear escalation paths.
Why It's Important
It builds trust, limits downtime, and makes performance transparent to customers and leadership.
How to Improve SLA Management Skills
Set clear, realistic SLAs: Align with business impact and operational capacity. Avoid vanity targets.
Automate timers and alerts: Trigger escalations before breaches. Act on risk, not regret.
Prioritize smartly: Tie priority to user impact, affected services, and time sensitivity.
Review performance often: Trend breaches, identify bottlenecks, recalibrate where needed.
Communicate clearly: Status updates, ETAs, and customer-facing notes should be concise and frequent.
Drive continuous improvement: Feed SLA insights into staffing, runbooks, and training.
Educate teams: Make SLAs and OLAs visible and understood across resolver groups.
How to Display SLA Management Skills on Your Resume
6. Root Cause Analysis
Root Cause Analysis (RCA) is a structured approach to uncover the underlying reasons incidents occur so fixes prevent recurrence, not just today’s fire.
Why It's Important
It improves system reliability, trims repeat tickets, and turns pain into process and engineering improvements.
How to Improve Root Cause Analysis Skills
Frame the problem: Precise incident statements reduce bias and scope creep.
Use proven methods: 5 Whys, fishbone (Ishikawa) diagrams, and FMEA keep analysis disciplined.
Collect evidence: Logs, timelines, metrics, user reports, and change history—facts first, opinions later.
Bring the right people: Cross-functional participants reveal system interactions you’d otherwise miss.
Go systemic: Don’t stop at the proximate cause. Identify process gaps, missing safeguards, and design flaws.
Assign corrective actions: Owners, due dates, measurable outcomes. Track to completion.
Verify effectiveness: Follow up with metrics and, if needed, a follow-on review.
How to Display Root Cause Analysis Skills on Your Resume
7. Cybersecurity Principles
Cybersecurity principles are the guardrails for protecting systems and data: confidentiality, integrity, and availability; least privilege; defense-in-depth; continuous monitoring; and rapid response.
Why It's Important
Incidents often carry a security thread. Strong fundamentals reduce the chance of a breach and speed containment when one lands.
How to Improve Cybersecurity Principles Skills
Anchor on frameworks: Use established guidance like the NIST Cybersecurity Framework to structure controls and maturity.
Quantify risk: Apply methods such as FAIR to make prioritization financial and defensible.
Harden identity: Enforce MFA, least privilege, and just-in-time access. Review entitlements routinely.
Strengthen detection: Deploy SIEM/EDR, tune alerts, and map detections to attacker tactics (e.g., MITRE ATT&CK).
Adopt Zero Trust: Verify explicitly, limit blast radius, and segment aggressively.
Patch relentlessly: Automate patching and vulnerability remediation windows.
Exercise muscle memory: Phishing simulations, tabletop exercises, and red/blue drills keep teams sharp.
Share intel: Participate in industry ISACs and internal threat briefings to stay ahead of trends.
Test controls: Regular penetration testing and control validation close hidden gaps.
Learn from incidents: Security postmortems with clear lessons and policy updates lock in progress.
How to Display Cybersecurity Principles Skills on Your Resume
8. Incident Response
Incident Response is the structured approach to detecting, containing, eradicating, and recovering from disruptive events—security or otherwise—while keeping stakeholders informed.
Why It's Important
Fast containment, thoughtful recovery, minimal damage. That’s the game, and a good response plan makes it repeatable.
How to Improve Incident Response Skills
Build a clear plan: Roles, runbooks, comms templates, and decision gates. Make it easy to follow under pressure.
Train and drill: Regular simulations, on-call exercises, and tabletop walk-throughs reveal gaps before reality does.
Detect early: Tune monitoring and alerts around real attacker and failure patterns. Reduce noise; amplify signal.
Codify communications: Predefined channels, stakeholder maps, and status cadence for internal and external audiences.
Debrief every time: After-action reviews with clear findings and tracked follow-ups.
Stay current: Keep up with threat trends, major CVEs, and sector advisories. Refresh runbooks accordingly.
Augment when needed: Line up external responders or MSSPs for surge capacity and deep expertise.
How to Display Incident Response Skills on Your Resume
9. Communication Protocols
Communication protocols define who says what, when, and how during an incident. They keep information flowing cleanly across responders, leaders, customers, and partners.
Why It's Important
Clarity beats chaos. Strong protocols accelerate decisions and cut rumor spirals.
How to Improve Communication Protocols Skills
Standardize tools: Agree on primary channels for real-time chat, video bridges, and status pages.
Create a comms plan: Contact trees, stakeholder matrices, and message templates for each severity level.
Train regularly: Run communication drills and verify on-call readiness and backup coverage.
Use incident systems: Centralize war rooms, timelines, and status updates in your incident platform.
Adopt common language: Shared definitions for severity, impact, and status reduce misinterpretation.
Continuously refine: Post-incident reviews should include a comms section—what landed, what lagged, what to change.
How to Display Communication Protocols Skills on Your Resume
10. Project Management
Project Management is the discipline of planning, executing, and closing work to hit goals on time and on budget. In incident land, that means coordinating recovery efforts and follow-on fixes without derailing other priorities.
Why It's Important
It tames complexity, aligns teams, and turns big, messy remediation into tractable milestones.
How to Improve Project Management Skills
Set sharp objectives: Use SMART goals to define outcomes, not just tasks.
Plan visibly: Gantt charts and Kanban boards make dependencies and flow obvious.
Adopt Agile where it fits: Scrum or Kanban can speed remediation work and keep priorities fresh.
Communicate often: Short updates, clear owners, single source of truth for status.
Use the right tools: Track work in systems your teams already live in (e.g., Jira, Asana).
Review cadence: Regular check-ins to remove blockers and rebalance workload.
Manage risk: Identify, log, and treat delivery risks early using established PM practices.
Upskill continuously: Short courses and internal coaching keep methods current.
Invite feedback: Stakeholder input improves prioritization and adoption.
Leverage post-incident analysis: Feed lessons into projects so fixes stick.
How to Display Project Management Skills on Your Resume
11. Change Management
Change Management is the structured handling of modifications to services and infrastructure so updates land safely with minimal disruption.
Why It's Important
Many incidents stem from change. Strong governance lowers risk while keeping the business moving.
How to Improve Change Management Skills
Document the process: Clear types (standard, normal, emergency), approvals, and gates. No guesswork.
Assess risk: Use consistent risk scoring and impact analysis tied to the CMDB.
Communicate early: Stakeholder notifications, blackout windows, and maintenance calendars reduce surprises.
Train implementers: Change submitters and reviewers need the same playbook and expectations.
Validate and verify: Pre-implementation checks and post-implementation reviews catch drift and issues.
Automate where safe: Templates, approvals, and standard changes can flow with minimal human friction.
Continuously improve: Track change failure rate and mean time to restore. Adjust policies based on evidence.
How to Display Change Management Skills on Your Resume
12. Continuous Improvement
Continuous Improvement is the habit of iterating on processes, tools, and skills based on data and lessons from incidents. Small, steady upgrades compound.
Why It's Important
It lowers repeat issues, tightens response times, and nudges reliability upward month after month.
How to Improve Continuous Improvement Skills
Set measurable goals: MTTR, incident volume by category, change failure rate—pick the levers that matter.
Use robust tooling: Track incidents, changes, problems, and knowledge in systems that support reporting and automation.
Promote open feedback: Blameless culture, candid retros, and accessible suggestion channels.
Run effective postmortems: Timelines, root causes, and action items with owners and due dates.
Invest in learning: Short courses, lunch-and-learns, and internal demos keep skills fresh.
Let data lead: Build dashboards, review trends, and experiment with targeted improvements.
Adapt quickly: When something works, standardize it. When it doesn’t, prune it.
How to Display Continuous Improvement Skills on Your Resume
