Representing 2 gigs at the same time on your CV

[ShandyDrinker]

I'm coming back to confess that I had to give up this on whole thing. I was getting absolutely zero hits on my CV (Compared to last year when I was getting sick of the phone going - though many were agents chancing it).

Fortunately I've been able to consolidate some gigs into overarching "roles" (I.e., when doing multiple projects for one IT company). I've had to fudge things around a little bit and I wound up leaving some out for clarity (I.e., instead of Project A (Corp 1), Project B (Corp 2), Project C (Corp 3) I've just left out Project B and put Project A, Project B under one heading.

I asked an agent straight up earlier how the CV looked and they said the first they checked was for length of contract and continuity, so there you go. Can't beat em, I guess - agents don't understand anything other than the average IR35 dodging 9-5 contractor and I'm not going to be a martyr. If they need to believe that's how I worked up til now well fine.

^^ This.

Sadly I think this is precisely what most agencies/clients are looking for now as much as ever. Permitractors rule.

[northernladuk]

Great feedback. I can see how agents won't like the no dates but surprised it hit such a brick wall. Hope it gets better now.

[vwdan]

Yes, me too. Sometimes just put 6 month contract blah blah blah, 9 month contract, etc. Depending on the contract if there's a DBS, etc. they will want to know dates to check for gaps (to be sure you haven't been inside...)

I'm coming back to confess that I had to give up this on whole thing. I was getting absolutely zero hits on my CV (Compared to last year when I was getting sick of the phone going - though many were agents chancing it).

Fortunately I've been able to consolidate some gigs into overarching "roles" (I.e., when doing multiple projects for one IT company). I've had to fudge things around a little bit and I wound up leaving some out for clarity (I.e., instead of Project A (Corp 1), Project B (Corp 2), Project C (Corp 3) I've just left out Project B and put Project A, Project B under one heading.

I asked an agent straight up earlier how the CV looked and they said the first they checked was for length of contract and continuity, so there you go. Can't beat em, I guess - agents don't understand anything other than the average IR35 dodging 9-5 contractor and I'm not going to be a martyr. If they need to believe that's how I worked up til now well fine.

[ruasonid]

I'm currently running with no dates on my projects because of this. I did a stint where I wound up overlapping 3 projects and it confuses the **** out of agents. I genuinely had a long, boring conversation with one trying to get through that no, I wasn't literally working on them at the exact same time but they were all active at once.

The joy of not conducting yourself like a permietractor apparently. I got my last role with no dates, but we'll see how it goes this time.

Yes, me too. Sometimes just put 6 month contract blah blah blah, 9 month contract, etc. Depending on the contract if there's a DBS, etc. they will want to know dates to check for gaps (to be sure you haven't been inside...)

[vwdan]

I'm currently running with no dates on my projects because of this. I did a stint where I wound up overlapping 3 projects and it confuses the **** out of agents. I genuinely had a long, boring conversation with one trying to get through that no, I wasn't literally working on them at the exact same time but they were all active at once.

The joy of not conducting yourself like a permietractor apparently. I got my last role with no dates, but we'll see how it goes this time.

[ruasonid]

I found this confuses agents so tend to choose the most relevant contract if I'm running more than one.

[SueEllen]

Clients and agents make up their own prejudices about you without you saying anything anyway so I wouldn't worry.

[jmo21]

Just put the gig on that finished last first and add them both on as normal.

Some clients/agents don't notice others do and get confused. If they get confused and ask questions you explain how you did both at the same time.

I wonder if this has any potential to make a agent/client think you are either lying, have poor attention to detail, or spread yourself too thin, WITHOUT giving you the chance to explain yourself?

As it happens, I do small pieces of fixed price work for a couple of old clients, and have just never bothered putting them on my CV (initially because I didn't want the very first agency to ever find out about the work after the initial contract), and have continued with that as I just didn't want to confuse people.

[SueEllen]

Just put the gig on that finished last first and add them both on as normal.

Some clients/agents don't notice others do and get confused. If they get confused and ask questions you explain how you did both at the same time.

[b0redom]

Hi All,
I'm engaged full time on a contract, but also do fixed price deliverables for a 2nd company. The skillset for both is similar, but whereas I work at a high level on the full time contract designing stuff, I work at a much lower level on the other, actually implementing it.

I've developed a whole new raft of devops skills doing the fixed price stuff, Ansible, Azure etc.... whereas the fulltime gig is more big UNIX, vmware, infrastructure etc, so the skills compliment each other.

Does anyone else do this? How do you represent the 2nd gig on your CV?