Top 12 Records Manager Skills to Put on Your Resume

In today’s data-heavy workplaces, a Records Manager sits at the crossroads of governance, risk, and day-to-day retrieval. Get the core skills right and everything hums—accuracy up, audits calmer, retention solid, access fast. The list below pins down 12 capabilities worth showing on a resume and, more importantly, worth mastering so information stays trustworthy, secure, and findable when the clock is ticking.

Records Manager Skills

1. SharePoint
2. Documentum
3. ECM (Enterprise Content Management)
4. RM (Records Management)
5. SQL
6. Python
7. GDPR Compliance
8. ISO 15489
9. ARMA Guidelines
10. EDRMS (Electronic Document and Records Management System)
11. AIIM Principles
12. Microsoft 365

1. SharePoint

SharePoint is a collaborative platform tightly connected with Microsoft 365. For records work, it’s a versatile space to structure content, enforce retention, standardize metadata, and surface the right document without hand-wringing or hunting through inboxes.

Why It's Important

It centralizes records, applies guardrails, and supports lifecycle controls. That means better compliance, cleaner access, and traceable change—without endless copies scattered across drives.

How to Improve SharePoint Skills

Focus on structure, guardrails, and habit-building.

1. Design the information architecture: Map sites, libraries, and content types to business processes. Use site columns and content types to keep consistency front and center.

2. Enforce retention: Configure retention labels and policies so disposition isn’t a guessing game.

3. Tighten security: Group-based permissions, least-privilege access, and periodic reviews. Avoid item-level permission sprawl.

4. Audit routinely: Spot stale content, orphaned sites, overexposed data, and gaps in labeling.

5. Train the front line: Short, role-based training beats one big seminar. Show how to save correctly, tag properly, and request access safely.

6. Lean on metadata: Mandatory fields where it matters. Standardized vocabularies. Better search, less friction.

7. Extend when needed: Where native tools stop, integrate approved add-ons for advanced records controls.

Dial in these pieces and SharePoint becomes a predictable, compliant home for records rather than a sprawling maze.

How to Display SharePoint Skills on Your Resume

2. Documentum

OpenText Documentum is an enterprise content platform for high-governance environments. It scales for complex taxonomies, rigorous retention, and deep audit trails—exactly where regulated teams live.

Why It's Important

It anchors controlled storage, precise metadata, and compliant workflows. When regulators ask, Documentum helps you answer with evidence, not guesswork.

How to Improve Documentum Skills

1. Sharpen metadata design: Define required fields, vocabularies, and validation rules. Better tagging, faster retrieval.

2. Automate the dull parts: Build or refine workflows for routing, approvals, and disposition. Fewer manual steps, fewer mistakes.

3. Enforce retention: Map legal and business requirements to policies and freeze rules. Test disposal before you run it at scale.

4. Tune the D2 client (where used): Configure the UI for roles and tasks. Reduce clicks; improve adoption.

5. Audit, then iterate: Review permissions, logs, exceptions. Close gaps and retire stale structures.

6. Invest in training: Targeted job aids and short refreshers keep behaviors aligned with policy.

A well-governed Documentum build reduces risk and keeps complex lifecycles under control.

How to Display Documentum Skills on Your Resume

3. ECM (Enterprise Content Management)

ECM brings together capture, classification, storage, security, retention, and delivery across the organization. It’s the playbook and the machinery for managing information through its lifecycle.

Why It's Important

Without a coherent ECM approach, content sprawls and risks multiply. With it, you gain consistency, defensible deletion, and fast, reliable access.

How to Improve ECM (Enterprise Content Management) Skills

1. Assess the current state: Inventory systems, pain points, risk hotspots, and user needs. Surface duplicate repositories and shadow processes.

2. Set measurable goals: Retrieval time, policy coverage, disposition throughput, reduction of redundant storage—make targets explicit.

3. Build a classification scheme: Align to business functions. Keep it stable, not sprawling. Document the rules.

4. Design for humans: Interfaces and processes that match how teams work. Fewer clicks, clearer prompts.

5. Use automation wisely: Trigger classification, routing, and retention where patterns are predictable. Keep exceptions visible.

6. Govern what matters: Define ownership, approve changes, and audit. Policy without oversight erodes fast.

7. Monitor and improve: Track KPIs, collect feedback, adjust taxonomies and policies with care.

How to Display ECM (Enterprise Content Management) Skills on Your Resume

4. RM (Records Management)

Records Management governs creation, capture, maintenance, access, and final disposition of records—paper and digital—so evidence stays trustworthy and usable.

Why It's Important

It underpins compliance, enables discovery, and preserves corporate memory. When processes change or people move on, records keep the story intact.

How to Improve RM (Records Management) Skills

1. Run a gap analysis: Compare current practices to policy and recognized standards. Note quick wins and structural fixes.

2. Refresh policy and schedules: Ensure coverage of all record types, including chat, collaborative content, and cloud repositories.

3. Strengthen classification: Make the file plan reflect business activities, not org charts. Test with real users.

4. Modernize the toolkit: Electronic Records Management features—labels, holds, immutable storage—should be active, not aspirational.

5. Embed privacy and security: Access controls, encryption at rest/in transit, and incident response procedures belong in the program.

6. Educate continuously: Short, scenario-based training beats annual checkbox exercises.

7. Audit and recalibrate: Measure retention coverage, deletion success, and exception rates. Adjust schedules and controls accordingly.

How to Display RM (Records Management) Skills on Your Resume

5. SQL

SQL is the language of relational data. For records teams, it’s the key to extracting, validating, and reconciling information tucked inside transactional systems.

Why It's Important

Accurate queries cut through noise. You can audit faster, prove counts, and expose data quality issues before they snowball.

How to Improve SQL Skills

1. Nail the fundamentals: SELECT, WHERE, GROUP BY, JOIN, INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE. Repetition builds speed.

2. Write expressive joins: Inner, left, and anti-joins for real-world questions. Practice with messy sample data.

3. Read execution plans: Learn indexing basics, sargable predicates, and when to refactor subqueries.

4. Model better: Understand normalization, keys, and constraints—good design makes good queries easy.

5. Practice on real tasks: Recreate reports, validate counts, and time your queries. Platforms like coding challenge sites help.

6. Document patterns: Keep snippets for common audits, exception reports, and retention checks.

How to Display SQL Skills on Your Resume

6. Python

Python glues systems together. It automates imports, scrubs metadata, checks retention, and crunches volumes of content without breaking a sweat.

Why It's Important

Automation reduces manual toil and human error. Analytics reveal patterns—duplication, aging content, anomalies—so you can act decisively.

How to Improve Python Skills

1. Lock in the basics: Data types, functions, file I/O, error handling. Build small utilities you’ll actually use.

2. Work with data: Use libraries like pandas for tabular work, date parsing, and joins across exports.

3. Talk to databases: Learn connectors and ORMs so scripts can query and write safely.

4. Automate flows: Batch rename files, apply metadata, trigger retention checks, move content based on rules.

5. Parse text: For logs and unstructured content, practice regex and basic NLP techniques where appropriate.

6. Ship small tools: Command-line scripts with clear arguments and logging. Reusable, dependable.

7. Version control: Keep code in a repo, use branches, and review changes. Future you will thank present you.

How to Display Python Skills on Your Resume

7. GDPR Compliance

GDPR requires lawful, transparent handling of personal data with strong rights for individuals. Records programs must weave privacy by design into everyday practices.

Why It's Important

Noncompliance hurts—fines, reputational damage, remediation costs. Compliance builds trust and proves control over personal data throughout its lifecycle.

How to Improve GDPR Compliance Skills

1. Map personal data: Know sources, purposes, systems, processors, and retention for each category.

2. Clarify notices: Plain-language privacy notices that explain purposes, bases, and rights.

3. Run DPIAs when risk is high: Document risks and mitigations for sensitive or large-scale processing.

4. Minimize: Collect only what’s needed. Keep it accurate. Limit access tightly.

5. Secure the stack: Access controls, encryption, logging, and regular testing aligned to risk.

6. Enable rights: Processes for access, rectification, erasure, portability, and objections within deadlines.

7. Vet vendors: Due diligence, DPAs, and ongoing oversight of processors’ controls.

8. Train constantly: Quick refreshers, scenario drills, and reminders where mistakes commonly happen.

How to Display GDPR Compliance Skills on Your Resume

8. ISO 15489

ISO 15489 sets out concepts and principles for records management. It explains what “good” looks like—creation, capture, metadata, retention, and accountability, all stitched together.

Why It's Important

It provides a common language and a reliable framework. Teams align, auditors understand, and programs can be measured and improved.

How to Improve ISO 15489 Skills

1. Study the standard: Focus on ISO 15489-1:2016 concepts and principles, and consult supporting technical guidance where applicable.

2. Assess against it: Identify where your policies, systems, and processes diverge. Prioritize by risk and effort.

3. Build an action plan: SMART objectives, owners, timelines, and checkpoints.

4. Raise awareness: Translate principles into practical do’s and don’ts for each role.

5. Implement deliberately: Update policies, taxonomies, and system controls. Pilot before full rollouts.

6. Audit and adjust: Periodic reviews, corrective actions, and documented improvements.

7. Keep it living: Revisit as business, regulations, and technology change.

How to Display ISO 15489 Skills on Your Resume

9. ARMA Guidelines

ARMA International publishes recognized practices for records and information governance. Think policy foundations, retention discipline, and risk-aware operations.

Why It's Important

These guidelines anchor programs to well-tested methods. They help prove due diligence and keep governance practical in the real world.

How to Improve ARMA Guidelines Skills

1. Stay current: Refresh policies and procedures to reflect legal changes, new formats, and evolving work patterns.

2. Join forces with IT and Legal: Governance only works when the right stakeholders own their part.

3. Embed security: Align with frameworks like ISO 27001. Define controls, test them, and monitor continuously.

4. Train by role: Tailor expectations for creators, approvers, admins, and leaders. Measure adoption.

5. Prove compliance: Audit trails, defensible disposition, and documented exceptions. Evidentiary, not anecdotal.

6. Plan for sustainability: Reduce paper where possible, optimize storage, and consider environmental impact of retention choices.

7. Measure outcomes: Track KPIs like policy coverage, timely disposition, and access accuracy.

How to Display ARMA Guidelines Skills on Your Resume

10. EDRMS (Electronic Document and Records Management System)

An EDRMS centralizes electronic documents and records, applying structure, security, and lifecycle controls from creation to final disposition.

Why It's Important

One source of truth. Strong permissions. Reliable retention. When teams collaborate, the system keeps records authentic and retrievable.

How to Improve EDRMS (Electronic Document and Records Management System) Skills

1. Audit the landscape: Identify duplicate stores, broken metadata, permission sprawl, and ungoverned spaces.

2. Elevate training: Role-specific walkthroughs, short videos, and job aids beat dense manuals.

3. Fix metadata: Standardize naming, mandatory fields, and controlled vocabularies. Better signals, better search.

4. Integrate with core apps: CRM, ERP, ticketing—connect systems so records flow without side-loading.

5. Review routinely: Scheduled health checks, deprovision stale areas, and retire what’s redundant.

6. Harden security: Role-based access, encryption, logging, and periodic access recertification, aligned with recognized cybersecurity frameworks.

7. Promote compliance culture: Recognize good practices, make it visible when teams do it right.

8. Apply automation and AI thoughtfully: Aid classification, suggest metadata, flag anomalies—always with human oversight.

9. Gather feedback: Close the loop quickly on pain points. Small fixes compound.

10. Track KPIs: Adoption, search success, retention execution, and exception rates tell the story.

How to Display EDRMS (Electronic Document and Records Management System) Skills on Your Resume

11. AIIM Principles

AIIM promotes practical guidance for modern information management—governance, automation, privacy, and the realities of cloud and collaboration.

Why It's Important

A clear framework helps teams choose sensible controls, balance risk with productivity, and communicate priorities across the business.

How to Improve AIIM Principles Skills

1. Modernize processes: Digitize intake, streamline approvals, and cut handoffs where possible.

2. Strengthen governance: Define owners, decision rights, and escalation paths. No ambiguity about who does what.

3. Leverage automation: Reduce manual tagging and routing when patterns are stable. Keep transparency on decisions.

4. Privacy-first mindset: Minimize personal data, document purposes, and implement controls from the outset.

5. Use the cloud wisely: Configure retention, legal hold, and DLP features. Don’t rely on defaults.

6. Invest in people: Training, communities of practice, and champions accelerate adoption.

7. Iterate: Pilot, measure, adjust. Then scale.

How to Display AIIM Principles Skills on Your Resume

12. Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 bundles collaboration, storage, security, and compliance controls. Think SharePoint, Teams, Exchange, Purview (Compliance), and Power Automate working in concert.

Why It's Important

It’s where work happens. With the right configuration, it’s also where records are captured, governed, and disposed of—without dragging productivity to a halt.

How to Improve Microsoft 365 Skills

1. Structure SharePoint: Libraries, metadata, and content types aligned to business functions. Retention labels from day one.

2. Apply retention and holds: Use Microsoft 365 compliance features to define, scope, test, and monitor policies.

3. Automate with Power Automate: Approvals, routing, notifications, and archive moves—reduce manual steps.

4. Unify Teams and SharePoint: Standardize team templates, enforce naming, and govern external access.

5. Educate continuously: Short refreshers on saving to the right place, labeling content, and collaborating securely.

How to Display Microsoft 365 Skills on Your Resume