"Ideal" Contractor CV

[oscarose]

Sorry Education? WTF? Seriously? do you think for some moment anyone gives a **** about what you did more than 3 years ago?

I find your post very patronising indeed. IMO most clients are interesting in your background to some degree - that's what a CV is - a historical account of your history and achievements.

[malvolio]

I find your post very patronising indeed. IMO most clients are interesting in your background to some degree - that's what a CV is - a historical account of your history and achievements.

If they're hiring a contractor for a bog standard role, they want to know what you have acheived and what you can do, nothing else. "Team Fit" and background are only relevant to roles where you have to fit into and work with a peer group.

Interestingly I use the accepted modern non-time-based CV format - brief profile, key skills summary, three or four case studies of what I've done relevant to the role in question and a timeline of my freelance engagements. 90% of the agents I talk to don't understand it and start asking about my last role...

[oscarose]

If they're hiring a contractor for a bog standard role, they want to know what you have acheived and what you can do, nothing else. "Team Fit" and background are only relevant to roles where you have to fit into and work with a peer group.

Interestingly I use the accepted modern non-time-based CV format - brief profile, key skills summary, three or four case studies of what I've done relevant to the role in question and a timeline of my freelance engagements. 90% of the agents I talk to don't understand it and start asking about my last role...

The point is, there is no 'ideal' CV and the 'know it all' posters is this thread don't know it all.

Everyone has a different approach. I send a 1 page 'covering statement' that contains the key relevant points for the role from my experience, together, with my CV (I know this needs trimming down to size). Agents like this approach and probably don't even read the CV but it's available if they or the end client want to drill down into more detail.

This approach works for me and when I'm on the market and apply for a suitable role, it's very rare when I'm not put forward.

[Wils]

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...

If you went to Cambridge or Imperial you will want to put that on your CV even if it was 40 years ago!

Maybe because I am heading to wrong side of 40 I do miss off my age from it these days. But many contracts want local people, so if I was someone who cared about the contractor being local and the location was missing from the CV, I would overlook that CV.

So no hard and fast rules about CVs I would say. Except maybe to put down stuff that goes for you and leave out the stuff that will go against you. And that will probably change from contract to contract.

[NorthWestPerm2Contr]

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?

Really starting to become difficult now. I am on my 6th contract + 2 permie jobs.

[quackhandle]

I have always got giggs.

You as well hey?

In answer to original question: 14 contracts, 3 pages (no permie details) but I wouldn't extend it beyond that.
Truth be told its still in the same format of word 97 CV wizard. Editing it is a bitch!

qh

[SueEllen]

Really starting to become difficult now. I am on my 6th contract + 2 permie jobs.

There is no hard and fast rule that your CV has to be 2 pages if you have lots of experience.

In fact when I've handed over to agents a 2 page CV where the first page contains buzz words it's never been as successful as my 4 page version with the same buzz word first page but an expansion of the role descriptions.

If you are going to expand on each role description don't copy and paste the section from the first page into each role or every other role. I've had the displeasure of receiving CVs like that for roles I've recruited for, and needless to say the candidates that did this didn't get the role.

Also if you make the font you type your CV in small don't be surprised if the agent gives the potential client a version where the font is made bigger so the number of pages your CV fits on to is now 3.

The reason to include education is the fact many people think this is a standard thing that must be on CVs regardless of who the person is.

I miss out the location of previous clients and this hasn't been a problem. Partly due to the fact I'm happy to explain that I've worked in multiple locations for the client.

[JohannM]

I do agree that there is no "fast rule" for a successful CV, since it does not only depends on it as such, but also on the agents, but the general "rule" seems to be a 4-5 page CV with emphasis on the last 4 roles. Again, if it ain't broke.........

Cheers guys for this nice discussion

[Scoobos]

I do think his advice is gold, but attacking me on my grammar on a public forum is a bit too much I guess. But yeah for me its not as easy to write English as you lot.

Cripes...

Seriously, don't ask for "advice" if you don't want it. As this is Business and General and a serious question I gave a serious answer.

[JohannM]

Cripes...

Seriously, don't ask for "advice" if you don't want it. As this is Business and General and a serious question I gave a serious answer.

Next time I'll ask for your permission before posting, you being one of the veterans in here!