CV sadvice on CUK

[dang65]

I keep knocking stuff off the end of my CV as I add new stuff at the top, keeping it at two pages (i.e. sides of one piece of paper). I took my education off years ago and nearly fell off my chair when an interviewer actually asked about it recently. I don't know how old he thought I was, but school was a long time ago.

Seems a bit sad sometimes when you have to dump a job off the end, if it was a good one, but as people have said, it's only the last five years or so that anyone ever wants to discuss in interviews, if that.

It keep you appearing young as well, if your work history only goes back ten years.

[Spacecadet]

I keep knocking stuff off the end of my CV as I add new stuff at the top, keeping it at two pages (i.e. sides of one piece of paper). I took my education off years ago and nearly fell off my chair when an interviewer actually asked about it recently. I don't know how old he thought I was, but school was a long time ago.

Seems a bit sad sometimes when you have to dump a job off the end, if it was a good one, but as people have said, it's only the last five years or so that anyone ever wants to discuss in interviews, if that.

It keep you appearing young as well, if your work history only goes back ten years.

I just keep shrinking old jobs down untill they are only a couple of lines.

[Bunk]

I keep mine to 2 pages as well, but I'm pretty sure this comes from the days when you would print a CV, and you wanted it to fit on both sides of an A4 sheet. However, I can't remember the last time I actually used a printed copy of my CV. Sure, I take a couple of printouts to interviews just in case, but I've never needed them so they usually just get binned afterwards.

[Tarquin Farquhar]

Oh, come on, what is wrong with the 2 page thing. You simply state that further job/assignment history is available on demand, as with references.

On my current contract I'm sitting beside somebody with a principal skill that on my CV is in the "available on request" area. His contract started months before mine. I wasn't considered for it, because that skill isn't on my CV. So I waited a couple of months on the bench because of that.

It will be on the next CV, even if it does extend it to another page.

[OrangeHopper]

I keep mine to 2 pages as well, but I'm pretty sure this comes from the days when you would print a CV, and you wanted it to fit on both sides of an A4 sheet. However, I can't remember the last time I actually used a printed copy of my CV. Sure, I take a couple of printouts to interviews just in case, but I've never needed them so they usually just get binned afterwards.

The last interview I attended both interviewers had a printed copy of my CV in front of them and they never turned it over to look at the second page once.

[OrangeHopper]

On my current contract I'm sitting beside somebody with a principal skill that on my CV is in the "available on request" area. His contract started months before mine. I wasn't considered for it, because that skill isn't on my CV. So I waited a couple of months on the bench because of that.

It will be on the next CV, even if it does extend it to another page.

It may be that my ability to keep my CV to two pages is because I generally have very long assignments, the last two covered seven years. Therefore two pages covers nigh on 15 years and I'm not sure my clients want to know that I used to be able to do FORTRAN IV or Macro 11.

[threaded]

Nearly all agents find your CV through a simple word search of their database.

So put all relevant words down, i.e. don't just write Java and J2EE, but also JDK, Application Server and whichever it was, i.e. WebLogic, JBoss etc. and whose, i.e. BEA, IBM, Apache.

HTH

[Sysman]

I just keep shrinking old jobs down untill they are only a couple of lines.

I overdid that one in a hurry, and I'd dropped off a previous job.

It read as though my first job (permie, 5 years) was straight in as a manager.

Oops.

[Jeebo72]

Just got a cv through for a job I'm hiring for ... 9 pages!!! ... read the first 2 then gave up ;-)

[OrangeHopper]

Was it in 10pt?