Originally posted by Damon
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Finding new contracts on the open market
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It's your CV
You've done the right thing getting peer review for your CV, but I still find myself writing that you should change it.
As an IT contractor, the thing that gets you interviews is your CV and for whatever reason it isn't and given this is the only variable you can change. The market is beyond your control, so largely it being "good" or "bad" doesn't change what you should do.
I would advise producing more different (but true) versions of your CV, one may stick.
I suspect one bug may be buzzwords, either you don't have enough or that yours have become less fashionable. It may be that you need to self study to get them or to at least use modern terms for terms that have become outmoded.
Conversely you may have too many buzzwords, often clients and recruiters want "a bloke wot does SQL Sever 2008" and everything that isn't MSSQL dilutes your impact. One set of CVs should be to present you as a pure-X where X is each of the things you are good at.
I'd also advise you throwing your CV away.
Start making a list of every damned thing you can do together with how good you are at it. Then look at job ads to see how you can make a case from this lst for doing each of these jobs.
One side effect should be that you spot gaps that you can fill in, ie "I'm everything they want except...".
Treating your CV as buggy code is the way forward, this block of code doesn't return the right results, why ?
You've got deep experience in this style of thinking, use it.
It may be that you're hitting ageism or "over qualification", so it may be time to compress away experience from before this century.
...or it may not, as I say multiple versions, some longer, some shorter will help.My 12 year old is walking 26 miles for Cardiac Risk in the Young, you can sponsor him hereComment
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