"Ideal" Contractor CV

[JohannM]

Always kept my CV to 2 pages, but starting to wonder whether I should increase it to 3?

I guess it depends on the amount of contracts you have worked. If you can fit everything in 2 pages, why do it in 3?

[bobspud]

It amuses me now days how some people leave their age off their CV. So you have to literally count back from their education years. All a bit pointless. If people dont want to employ someone of a particular age (and this could be younger or older) , they arent going to just because you left it off.

Sorry Education? WTF? Seriously? do you think for some moment anyone gives a **** about what you did more than 3 years ago?
Age/Education/Location have been missing from my cv since 1992 Anyone stupid enough to ask a guy that just ran a 20 million datamigration project if he bothered to go to skool is going to get laughed at...

And on the point of wanting someone thats old young gay fat. Actually they don't have a choice. Its quite fun to sit and watch a ******* idiot squirm for half and hour because they can't find a question you can't answer and its blatantly obvious they don't want you in their gang cos your not a twenty year old hipster ****wit.

I am all for lying about your name, age, colour, creed, sexuality, partner preference to get past some idiots illegal CV sift...

[tractor]

....

Sorry Education? WTF? Seriously? do you think for some moment anyone gives a **** about what you did more than 3 years ago?
Age/Education/Location have been missing from my cv since 1992 Anyone stupid enough to ask a guy that just ran a 20 million datamigration project if he bothered to go to skool is going to get laughed at...

And on the point of wanting someone thats old young gay fat. Actually they don't have a choice. Its quite fun to sit and watch a ******* idiot squirm for half and hour because they can't find a question you can't answer and its blatantly obvious they don't want you in their gang cos your not a twenty year old hipster ****wit.

I am all for lying about your name, age, colour, creed, sexuality, partner preference to get past some idiots illegal CV sift...

And this is a large part of the problem. Firstly, you have to get past the barrista level cv sifter who does not have a clue about technology but who will undoubtedly pick holes in irrelevancies which more often than not results in a rejection. Then if you miraculously get to speak to the client account dude, he wants you to 'go through' your cv and it's almost always as if he hasn't even seen it yet. Then if you are really lucky, he tells you he's third tier supplier and you are going to have to go through the mill another 4 times lol.

The worst ones are those that call themselves 'senior account manager' then proceed to call you 'mate' all the way through the conversation and talk in the best Essex Pikey tones, promising you this is a red-hot, nuclear fission grade opportunity and you are a 110% fit and you never hear from them again.

[BolshieBastard]

Hi All,

I know there are a lot of companies specializing in tailoring your CV for contracting, but I always did it myself and apart from short patches I have always got giggs. So its not like the how to write a CV, but I wanted to get some opinions of you experienced lot on how your CV "looks" like. More an open discussion than anything else.

Like in the past I have tried the "shorter" version, whereby I would detail the last 4 roles and the rest just a small point summary, however I have found that the longer version normally has more success. By longer I mean point details on the technologies I have used in the role, and also how I have "helped" the client I was working for. However this version now is about 8 pages considering I have been contracting for the last 8 years.

Would love your opinion on this.

I used to get paranoid when my cv was being overlooked for roles (in fact, I still do to an extent).

But 4 out of the last 5 interviews I've had all provided better than very good feedback on my cv's presentation. This is despite sending my cv off via jobswerve and linkedin contacts to agents for at least 40 jobs and getting sweet fa response from them in return. The same cv with minor changes was also sent to about another 10 agents who submitted it to clients (guess they could have just said that but let's assume they did forward it) but no interview was forthcoming despite one agent pushing the client very hard and actually supplying a reference!

So, out of about 50 cv submissions only 5 lead to interviews. One of the roles I declined before they told me yay or nay as the client had a rigid start \ finish times which didnt suit me. All the other 4 resulted in job offers.

What I deduce from this is, it doesnt matter what your cv is like if the person on the other end is just looking for the cheapest rate, your cv doesnt return a high word match count, the agency account manager is a d1ck or it's a Tuesday afternoon.

If your cv has worked in the past, stay with it and make subtle changes here and there to suit.

Plenty of people will say it should be no more than 2 pages, no more than 3 pages blah, blah, blah. But, my contracting career stretches 15 years. I concentrate on the last 3 jobs Beyond that, roles are given as one liners with the first page being my profile, skills and achievements.

Just remember, you wont satisfy everyone all the time.

[SeekingIT]

Wondering??

Once I received a 16 (yes, 16) page CV.

I didn't bin it, I framed it.

Did Bod get the gig???

[BolshieBastard]

Try not to take it to heart somewhere in his post there is sound advice I personally hate bad grammar and if I spot it in a C.V. I read it does count against the individual. Your C.V. is a representation of you before you meet the client you want it to stand out as much as possible for the right reasons. Getting someone else to check it is always a good thing as after a while you tend to suffer from word blindness and cannot pick up your own mistakes

Jesus, you bin people's cv for poor grammar yet posted the above? No paragraphs? And please read your first sentence for punctuation (or rather lack of it)!

[adubya]

Jesus, you bin people's cv for poor grammar yet posted the above? No paragraphs? And please read your first sentence for punctuation (or rather lack of it)!

I think his post was a piss take No self respecting grammar nazi would post that tulipe.

[hyperD]

Did Bod get the gig???

Is the Bod Catholic?

[BolshieBastard]

I think his post was a piss take No self respecting grammar nazi would post that tulipe.

I hope it was otherwise it is no wonder people get overlooked.

[oscarose]

The beast has grown to 7 pages

Time to trim down to 4 pages for a 2 page duplex print. Especially some very old jobs can be cut right down.