Born again contractor

[SantaClaus]

Once you get to the interview with the client, you should cut down your tulip to a low level.

Perfectly right Mr Yin.

[Bill]

just one thing to mention about the layout. When I uploaded it, it took out all the nice formatting, so it is more content that is my worry at the moment.
Thanks to all who have commented so far. Looks like i've got some inventing to do........

[XLMonkey]

Any chance someone can comment on mine as well please?

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddwh2cfp_2hpm6vwfr

My phone has gone pretty quiet lately, am getting a bit worried that I'm no longer wanted.

Looks lovely. Try www.datingdirect.com. That'll get your phone ringing.

[Bill]

updated the cv and removed the objective. The format is also closer to what I am using, but the table is still not quite right.

[pmeswani]

Looks lovely. Try www.datingdirect.com. That'll get your phone ringing.

What was your mobile number again? I'll sign you up straight away.

[XLMonkey]

I am putting myself at the mercy of all. I have managed to get my cv online, it can be seen on http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfbjrb6v_04jqs8jft

thoughts:

1. we can seen now why you aren't getting any interviews....
2. pmswami's CV is a pretty good template to start from. You might want to borrow the format.
3. Specific thoughts
- your objective is irrelevant. Remove it.
- your educational history is, after 10 years, nearly irrelevant. Consolidate it to a single sentence (e.g. BSc & HND Computer Sciences, 4 A Levels)
- the formatting is pretty awful, though that might just be because of the way you imported it onto the web page.
- your profile is OK as far as it goes, but does not cite any specific industry sectors. if you look at pmswami's profile then you'll notice that it has a nice list of "skills I've got", "sectors I've worked in". That's really useful for getting picked up on the agent's initial CV search. You need to add specific industry sectors into the profile.
- your list of technical and non-technical skills is OK (apart from the formatting). However, as with the other posts, you need to include a much more specific set of keywords/buzzwords. so, you might have "Infrastructure Technology (LAN/WAN design, TCP/IP ,VoIP implementation): 4 years"
- Lose your generic technical skills altogether. Unless you are going for project co-ordinator roles, you don't need to say that you know how to use MS Office as a core skill. It should be just one item in a list under, e.g. "Project Management (Planning, MS Project, PRINCE2, MS Office): 8 years".
- now for the most important bit - Professional Experience:

You have provided a sum total of 4 bullets and 72 words to describe all of the assignments/work that you have done for the last 4 years. You kidding me?

No-one will pick you for an interview because they will have only the sketchiest of ideas about what you've been doing with your time.

You need to take the last 4 years of your life, divided into blocks of 6 months and write at least 72 words for each six month period. Each block should include what you did, what skills you used, and (wherever possible) a measure of your success.

Then, for the previous 4 years, do the same but in blocks of c. 1 year.

The one liners you have about the earlier roles are fine.

Hope this helps. (I'm not actually trying to ruin your life - I'm trying to help you get an interview)

[spud]

Interesting thread, as I'm also stuck in the rut at the moment as I thought I'd bag a contract easily once I left my last long role.

Although I'm getting interviews, it's not at the test manager level, only test analyst...

Will take people's advice and give a nice skills summary for agents that can't be bothered to read. One agent this morning emailed me a job spec with someone else's cv attached - seems they can't type either!

[DS23]

i'm sure it affects us all. once your cv is "sorted" how often do you read it? hardly ever is my guess. you should open it and read i as if it belongs to someone else. i'd be surprised if the majority don't find spelling, punctuation and grammar errors.

[TheBigYinJames]

i'm sure it affects us all. once your cv is "sorted" how often do you read it? hardly ever is my guess. you should open it and read i as if it belongs to someone else. i'd be surprised if the majority don't find spelling, punctuation and grammar errors.

Open Office is free FFS, and it comes with a very good UK English dictionary.

As I go along between contracts, I add another 'job' block in the Work Experience section, and every couple of years I tend to give the CV an overhaul, making the more historical job blocks slimmer, trimming old skills I don't use any more, etc.

[SueEllen]

Out of interest why have you two who have links to your CV put "References Available On Request"?

I was told by my CV reviewers including 2 recruitment consultants not to bother putting it down. If someone wants references they will ask for them.

Also with my CV format it means it takes up extra space that I use for buzzwords and white space.

Oh and Bill you don't need to put things like a TUPE transfer on your CV. No one cares. In fact it actually makes your CV look worse whether you are permie or a contractor as for one thing it makes people think you can't do interviews. You don't need to lie but you don't need to tell the truth so it puts you at disadvantage.

Plus you have missed out details like how many staff where under you, what they were training on and the size of the budgets you were responsible for. While you need buzzwords to get around a agent you need detail on your CV for a client hirer.

Also because you need to have buzzwords don't be afraid of having a 3 page CV and make sure you change some of your buzzwords to match the agent's advert. If you are lucky they will tell you to put the buzzwords in or add detail, but most of them will just won't even consider you if you don't have them in already.

Finally when you have done an update of your CV post your revision.