CV length

[b0redom]

Hi All,
I've had 3 contracts (10 months, 6 months, 9 months), and am rehashing my CV ready to look for the next one. Prior to that, I have 4 permie jobs.

How do you guys go about writing your CVs? From an earlier thread I've seen that a lot of you change every 6 or so months. Do you just put contract length and title for all but that last 3 say?

Cheers....

Tom

[DBA_bloke]

A bit of meat per gig is essential.

You want bullet points of problems, what you did to fix 'em, and the net benefit to the business.

e.g.
Crap Firm Ltd
Dec 2006 - Present Day:
On first day, discovered that poorly-configured tablespaces and inadequate database monitoring had led to dangerously low disk capacity, which threatened to halt business activity.

Ran own scripts to generate a report to show top ten contributing tablespaces. After consultation with management and end Users, purged defunct Recycle Bin objects, resized datafiles, and introduced a "traffic lights" monitoring service.

This resulted in a 25% increase in disk capacity, and, owing to reduced database size, prevented unnecessary purchasing of extra disks, thus saving both money and time.

You get the general idea.

[b0redom]

Sure, but how many jobs do you list before reverting to:

Crapcorp: 1904-1905
Position: Teaboy

Dullcorp: 1903-1904
Position: Whipping boy

etc.

Do you provide details for all your contracts so far?

[Sockpuppet]

I've got 9 on mine.

Last 2 (both contracts) get 1/4 page each the other 7 get 3-4 lines and thats all they need.

CV is 2 pages.

[NotAllThere]

Two page CV. Most detail for the most recent contracts, gradually declining to Role and length, as they disappear into the mists of time. Details adjusted according to the role being applied for.

[Lockhouse]

25 year "career" in IT, 4 page CV. Skills summary on first page, last 3/4 contracts in detail, one liners for everything else. Sometimes I leave off the last page.

[FiveTimes]

So do you put down your Ltd company and the client ? as a place of work ?

What about renewals ? Would you lump these into one job ? Or would it look cack if you put each renewal down ?

[Lockhouse]

So do you put down your Ltd company and the client ? as a place of work ?

What about renewals ? Would you lump these into one job ? Or would it look cack if you put each renewal down ?

Just the client. Lump all renewals together.

[NotAllThere]

It might be worth mentioning renewals. It shows they chose to keep you.

[rootsnall]

Mainly through laziness I just keep adding new jobs into the front of my CV and haven't chopped down the older stuff for years. Its now 7 pages I think but doesn't seem to cause any problems, clients or agents can just disregard the later pages if they want. It's easy for them to skim through the older client names and there is detail if required. They want to know what you've done and I think some meat is required.