Contractor CV, long or short?!

[MikeB]

Hi All,
I've been Contracting for around 18 months and am about to start looking for a new Contract.

I have 2 versions of my CV (which I always tailor to the job I'm applying for), a Permie version which is about 2 pages and a Contractor version which is around 5 pages. The 5 page version has a first page summary which highlights my relevant skills and experience, the other 4 pages are paragraphs on each Project I've been involved in over 10 years as a Contractor and Consultant.

Interested in opinions on whether the 5 page version is getting too long? What do other Contractors have?

Cheers,

Mike

[Spacecadet]

It does sounds a bit too long, might be worthwhile dropping the older stuff or leaving all entries over 5 years old as a 1 line summary. They'll probably only read the latest 2-3 jobs anyway... and as the saying goes, you're only as good as your last job!
Education doesn't need too much detail either, especially when you've got so much experience.

[Back In Business]

2 pages - anything more than that normally gets ignored anyway. Either summarise your previous positions or leave them off.

[reformation]

2 pages - anything more than that normally gets ignored anyway. Either summarise your previous positions or leave them off.

Agreed, alot of clients just dont look at longer CV's and it gives them a chance to act like an arrogant twit and 'bin' your CV, 2 - 4 pages should suffice.

[ChimpMaster]

2 pages sounds a bit skint. You need a bit of space to sell yourself and detail the work you've done. Serious clients will want to read about the work you've done to make sure that you know what ur talking about and to know what to question u about.

Mine is now 5 pages, in similar design to yours. I will be scaling it back to 4 soon, as I also believe 4 should be about right.

Mind you, I have 10 years in IT now!

[oraclesmith]

I've got a 4 pager on Jobsite which seem to work well, but I think that's because there is a simple profiling system in place which helps EB's shortlist. Since I updated my profile I've been getting lots of contact.

If the EB's have to read your CV to shortlist, then the punchier the better. The more CV's they get the less they read each one. Conversely the more specialised the contract the fewer responses and the more likely they are to give your CV a proper read - well maybe 20 seconds rather than 5 seconds !

So it depends on the size of your niche - so to speak !

[marcnicol]

15 Years of IT condensed into 2 pages!

I have been tempted to go to a thrird page. Perhaps on the next rewrite....

[Back In Business]

If you don't have the reader convinced by the end of page 2 and they've got 50 CV's to get through . . .

BTW: It's my 12 year in IT

[Sockpuppet]

I think the 2 page rule went out of the window with e-mail.

TO be fair how many agents do anything more than just word search your cv when it is in the "database" who knows.

Mine is 3 pages.

[lukemg]

Keep mine at 3, no chance of any less, recently relegated older jobs to a couple of lines mentioning jobs and companies to complete the time line.
Hit hard on page one skills summary and back it up with the last couple of jobs.