Ideal CV

[malvolio]

how about bullet pointing everything?

How about bullet pointing the bits relevant to the job in hand?

Big difference between permie and contractor CVs - the former is all about how much you bring to the company long term, the latter is all about how much you know about the job to be done and everything else is of minor interest. That's why we customise them for each gig (or have a set of variants pre-prepared if you work in two or three broad areas). The hirer is only interested in getting one job done.

The 3-month thing is nonsense as well. If I go in to fix a problem with a Service Desk process or define a strategy for a major hardware migration, I'd look pretty silly if I had to go back and do it again. OTOH if I were a coder working on agile reporting for trading floors (to take the other extreme!), continuing renewals would prove I knew my job.

[chasingtheaurora]

Ideal CV.

One line.

Ex Prime Minister of UK.

Or second line

"...and convicted war criminal"

[chasingtheaurora]

My CV is basically

Company
Dates
Task / Role (similar to title in a permies CV)
One sentence summary of task
3 bullets of achievements in role (over and above "delivery on time")

... repeated all the way down

[poser]

ive heard people on this board go on about its not a cv its a business profile etc. fo someone with only a years contracting experience and a few years perm what is the best way to market myself, as an individual or a company?

[monkeyBoy32]

I've generally had a decent response from my cv - recruiters/agencies have commented on how easy it was to read. I keep it to 2 - 3 pages (even with 7 - 8 years experience, it’s possible). But the main thing that helps me is- the first thing on my cv is a grid with my skills and then years experience in that skill.

I have also been on the other end of the recruitment process and been responsible for hiring people.

What used to annoy me was "Joe Bloggs - a hard working, motivated person with a desire to.. blah blah blah.... " I'm not bothered about that. It should be standard that you're hard working.. don’t bother putting it on your cv.

Anyway - after my skills/years grid, I then go into details of my previous employment and explain where and how I've used the technologies I mentioned in the grid at the top. If you know what you're talking about, you can quite economical here and still get your point across.

Basically, I was recruiting for an asp.net developer - if I didn't see "ASP.NET" in the first few lines of the CV, I didn't bother with it....

[TheFaQQer]

Or second line

"...and convicted war criminal"

Works for James T. Kirk