On your CV (at the top) do you put a summary of tech skills with actual usage time

[NickFitz]

On a related note, at my last permie job I was asked to produce a list of every programming language I'd ever "used" - even if it was just half an afternoon mucking about with it - as they fondly imagined it might impress prospective clients.

I turned in a list that almost filled two A4 sheets

Good job they didn't actually land any PDP-11/34a Assembly Language jobs…

[NorthWestPerm2Contr]

Usage time is a bit of a waste of time!
To my mind that smacks of a bit of "Graduate" contractor, trying to prove he's used a skill.

I generally only place something in my skills summary if I am proefficient at something, that way I know I can pass an interview test on it! :-)

+1

Whenever somebody puts time next to it, then it suggests they might not actually be that good at it (I have used it for 5 years - so what? can you do A, B, C).

I always put skills in the context of delivery so it shows you are there to actually serve the business and not to bang on about how long you have used a skill for.

[The Spartan]

5 pages is too many IMO. That will be a limiting factor to some extent regardless of how good the content is.

I wouldn't say it's too long, then again I suppose it would depend on your profession as a tester you do need to add depth to evidence your skills if you don't you tend to be chucked in the unsuccessful pile. Experience of different types of testing is very valid too any other testers out there who would like to share their view? I would be very interested in how they approach documenting their skills on their CV

[TestMangler]

I once worked with a permie in General Accident (Perth) who was always banging on about going contracting.

He, for some reason, created a CV using bloody Visio !!!!!

But, to cap it all, he put a line at the bottom of each page which actually read 'This document was created using Visoi'

He's probably still the country's leading 'Visoi' expert