How to get contract jobs?

[Scruff]

whose

Hoist by my own petard....

[Batcher]

Hoist by my own pedant....

FTFY

[Scruff]

FTFY

As long as my pedant is larger than my petard, DILLIGAF?

[Jack Kada]

Hi all

i have read this forum but still struggling

finished permanent job end of august and now looking to get into contracting. have been trying for past month and bit. usually apply for 20-30 jobs a day. but not having any luck. get odd calls but all for perm, non for contracting.

can any contractors give tips on how they found there first contract jobs? I am even happy to do roll out jobs just to build trust with agencies but not having any luck.

Considering Bite who they help get contract jobs but i have to pay commission so in 2 minds with that for now

any advice will be appreciated!

thanks in advance

I found my first role via Jobserve and funnily enough I thought I had applied for a perm role and it was only after interview they asked me to start ASAP but as a contractor.

At the time I was not sure what that actually meant but I took the dive and I think on reflection it has been a positive decision

[BolshieBastard]

Hoisted by my own petard....

Actually.

[blacksta]

Also your contractor CV is all about what you know and what you have delivered; virtually all the career progression stuff , non-technical qualifications, interests, aspirations and other blah that impresses the Human Remains team is irrelevant. Your client will be looking for someone who is immediately productive in their required skills area. It also needs to be tailored to the job in question: if your CV doesn't contain all the keywords in the advert and at least one occurrence of the job title, you go in the reject pile: agents at the level we deal with do not apply intelligence when vetting CVs.

Structure it as a one paragraph elevator pitch, a bulleted list of key achievements relevant to the role then your job history again bringing out the necessary experience in the job; that's all you need and keep it to 2-3 pages if you can.

Yes, it's a pain, but if you want to be a contractor, it's only one of many.

Hello Mal

Please expand on the shaded. Thanks

[VillageContractor]

I'm currently looking now, slightly surprised I've not had more calls. I have a decent linkedin profile, pretty good CV and some good experience. Guess there's a lot of competition out there because I fit the spec for a number of roles.

I have started connecting on LinkedIn with the specialists in each of the bigger firms to get my name about.

[malvolio]

Hello Mal

Please expand on the shaded. Thanks

Para 1 - Who you are, what you do, why people should take you seriously. If you have one minute to tell someone what you do and what you have achieved, what would you tell them? This is to get their attention

Para 2 - Key achievements - What have you actually delivered over your career, even if it's only no testing failures in 20 releases. Agents are looking for people who have already done the job, so this is where you list all the things you have done that demonstrate you have.

Both paragraphs need to be aligned to the job in question. If you can't do that, then you won't get anywhere anyway, so don't bother applying.

(Para 3 - If technical qualifications are relevant to the role, list them here, but only the ones that matter. I don't mention my academic background in Applied Microbiology...)

Then your job history in reverse chronological order: job title, client/employer, from when to when followed by what the job entailed and what you achieved while you were there. Para 2 above is where you emphasise which bits of this history are most relevant. If, like me, you have a longer list, focus on the last five years or so and give one liners for the rest (and mine only has my contract roles, I haven't bothered with historical permie ones but I've been doing this for a while now).

Keep in mind it's not a CV, despite the header at the top. It's a sales pitch, showing why you are the best possible candidate for the job. You need the keywords (all the ones in the original advert) so the mindless agency drone who does the initial sift (often replaced by a word-search application these days) won't bin you out of hand and it needs to be coherent enough to impress the hiring manager at the other end of the food chain.

It's not easy getting it right, but it has to be done.

HTH. Invoice is in the post...

[psychocandy]

Para 1 - Who you are, what you do, why people should take you seriously. If you have one minute to tell someone what you do and what you have achieved, what would you tell them? This is to get their attention

Para 2 - Key achievements - What have you actually delivered over your career, even if it's only no testing failures in 20 releases. Agents are looking for people who have already done the job, so this is where you list all the things you have done that demonstrate you have.

Both paragraphs need to be aligned to the job in question. If you can't do that, then you won't get anywhere anyway, so don't bother applying.

(Para 3 - If technical qualifications are relevant to the role, list them here, but only the ones that matter. I don't mention my academic background in Applied Microbiology...)

Then your job history in reverse chronological order: job title, client/employer, from when to when followed by what the job entailed and what you achieved while you were there. Para 2 above is where you emphasise which bits of this history are most relevant. If, like me, you have a longer list, focus on the last five years or so and give one liners for the rest (and mine only has my contract roles, I haven't bothered with historical permie ones but I've been doing this for a while now).

Keep in mind it's not a CV, despite the header at the top. It's a sales pitch, showing why you are the best possible candidate for the job. You need the keywords (all the ones in the original advert) so the mindless agency drone who does the initial sift (often replaced by a word-search application these days) won't bin you out of hand and it needs to be coherent enough to impress the hiring manager at the other end of the food chain.

It's not easy getting it right, but it has to be done.

HTH. Invoice is in the post...

Certainly a different approach to the traditional CV but malv makes some good points here.

I think my CV could be more like this and am thinking of a revamp. I would agree with a lot of what he says here especially about the keyword thing - at an agency level whether automated or not its all about this.

Also, as he says, its becoming obvious that clients want to see what has been achieved rather than a list of 'I did this, supported this, coded that etc'.

And sticking in stuff like 'north east regional ice dancing finalist 1996' or interested in tiddlywinks does bugger all expect waste space.

[Batcher]

Actually.

Actually... Hoist with your own petard