The length of a contractor's CV?

[bobhope]

2 pages max. When / if you've been on the other side of the recruitment process and receive a hundred CVs, you want to quickly filter them and anything longer than 2 pages doesn't get looked at.

I've been on the receiving end of a couple of War & Peace CVs - dozens of pages long with certificates, testaments, etc.

Good for a quick laugh, before dropping in the bin.

[SandyDown]

I do that too. When I turn up at interview they are expecting someone in their 30s.

heh - I can only imagine MF's CV, soooo many contracts they'd expect someone in his 60's

[DS23]

3 pages exactly.

i hate deleting the older stuff - they are like my children... sob.

[SandyDown]

btw: a good trick to having a good CV done is to register with a high class agency (hahaha) and usually they ask you to look at it and approve it before they send it anywhere .. so you can re use this professionally done CV (I know it sounds hysterical but it can happen) for other applications

[DS23]

a high class agency? isn't that an oxymoron?

[wendigo100]

btw: a good trick to having a good CV done is to register with a high class agency (hahaha) and usually they ask you to look at it and approve it before they send it anywhere .. so you can re use this professionally done CV (I know it sounds hysterical but it can happen) for other applications

They sometimes do sh1te CVs. How do you know which you've got?

[SandyDown]

They sometimes do sh1te CVs. How do you know which you've got?

Cuz God gave me jsut a few brain cells that I can actually tell if the agency have written a good CV when they send it to review, you can always ask and insist that they show you the copy of the CV they are sending to the client - do it nicely and most would agree. And as RebecaLoo advised a long time ago if you go to an interview ask the client to see the copy of the CV the agent has sent you (again do that nicely) and you'll know if its sh1te or not

[To BI or not to BI?]

Mine is two pages, making sure that it includes a general description and list of skills at the top, with careful formatting and bullet points to highlight the "interesting" bit. If the CV grows too big to include everything in two pages, I would suggest to have an "appendix" with details of previous jobs/gigs, or even a note saying "more details available on request".

My loosely related question now is:

Do you mention the actual names of the places you have been working or do you just write something like "Global Telecommunication Company"?

[DS23]

i name and shame and also provide details as to client and end client as necessary. goddam dutch tax office used my cv (given to them by agent) as a bible for determining my employment status. grrr. so i changed the details to make it clear that i was not working for the client but at the client.

[Paddy]

My CV is interactive, it requires the lasted Flash plug-in to be downloaded. The downside is that the CV is two gigabytes. I only get contracts where the customers have good bandwidth.