Noob advice

[LLC]

Hi,

A noob to the forum, but a long lapsed contractor from pre IR35 days looking for advice on CV and job applications as I need to get back to work as a contractor.

Last year I relocated with my young family. The year was spent settling the young family into the new environment/school; to keep myself busy I also completed a couple of small web sites. Prior to this I was a permie at an Investment Bank as a developer for 5+ years. My previous jobs included contracting for a couple of banks and a few small mainly web projects but these were interspersed between long stints of travel/ski seasons.
So my questions are:

• On my CV how should I represent the small projects which were done offsite and through my old company and more recently my partners company.

• How should I represent the planned 'career' breaks; should I fill them with reasons for the breaks or just leave them as blanks

• When applying for jobs through the job boards/agencies should I only apply for a jobs which are a direct skill set match or apply for ones where I have a number of the skills (probably a silly question)

Also which is sort of related to the above I notice that a high percentage of developer jobs advertised now require to the candidate to have worked in an agile environment and have TDD experience. Currently this isn't something I can lay claim to but would like to gain this experience. Is it worth applying for these jobs and is there any way I can bridge this gap to be viewed as a potential candidate?

[The Agents View]

Being a contractor is about being able to deliver the skills needed to make things happen with minimum fuss. If you want to train/get experience, then contracting is not for you....or at least that's the theory.

With regards your CV, be completely honest. That doesn't mean spout about your late night apres ski sessions - but be economical with the truth where you need to be.

For the recent web site stuff, simply state that you offered your services out to the SME market, through the use of a consultancy business - list some of the projects - and you're done. It's not lying - it's just a different way of wording "I dossed around for a few months, and did the odd bit of cash in hand work for mates"

It depends what your skill set is as to what jobs you should apply for. If you do decide you want to try to fight yourself into a contract, I'd suggest only applying when you have the main skill, and if it says "need not apply if you don't have XYZ skills" - there's absolutely no point in applying, if you don't have them....no matter how good you are at the patter.

HTH in some way.

TAV

P.S. Try to ignore the morons on here who think that agents are the spawn of the devil - 90% of them would be out of work without us, and the remaining 10% would be being paid about 25% of what they are paid these days. Agents are your friends - especially in a market overflowing with risk aversion and austerity.

[cojak]

Agents are not your friends - they are conduits to contracts.

Treat them as you would any business contract, politely but with an eye to legal necessities and keep your wits about you. Some of them will bully you or rip you off if they can. Not all, but some.

'Friends'... sheesh...

[captainham]

P.S. Try to ignore the morons on here who think that agents are the spawn of the devil - 90% of them would be out of work without us, and the remaining 10% would be being paid about 25% of what they are paid these days. Agents are your friends - especially in a market overflowing with risk aversion and austerity.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, that's totally made my day. Thanks, TAV, I needed a good Friday morning chuckle. Can I be your fwiend pwease


I'm not saying all agent's are bad, of course not....but significantly more than half would happily sell their own grandmother to secure a deal.

EDIT: to provide some sort of balance, a fair amount of contractors I come across are useless droppings, too, before you get all uppity!

[Scoobos]

- 90% of them would have more work without us, the clients would get better value for money, and the remaining 10% would be being paid about 25% of what they are paid these days. Agents are NOT your friends, they are people who make money out of other peoples efforts with very little day to day input to your project AT ALL - We should tolerate this even less in a market overflowing with risk aversion and austerity.

Spotted a few typos there, thought I'd help out

[The Agents View]

Spotted a few typos there, thought I'd help out

and here, a stunning example of the "droppings" that captainham was previously mentioning.

[captainham]

and here, a stunning example of the "droppings" that captainham was previously mentioning.

And I thought we were fwiends, yet here you drag me down with my own words

I'm cancelling our dinner date, how could you do this to me.

[The Agents View]

Good! It's about time contractors started paying for their dinner, instead of sponging it off of me all the time!

[captainham]

Good! It's about time contractors started paying for their dinner, instead of sponging it off of me all the time!

For the second time day, HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I am so-oooooooooo not gonna go down this road my little agent fwiend, this could deteroriate rapidly!