Reply to: CV query

[curtis]

I took my DOB off my CV years ago and my full address.

I only have my contract roles listed I did used to have some permanent roles on it also but when it started going over 3 pages I took them off its now 2.5 pages long. My contracts start from 2008 but only the most recent 4/5 roles have bullet points on what I did there anything after that is just the months I worked there, job title and company name.

My first page just consists of my name where I am based and my contact number, a brief paragraph of what I'm looking for and my main experience and then any training courses and bullet points of main achievements/systems I have done/worked with.

[BigDataPro]

You are not really selling your self as a valuable commodity to the business anymore. That's perm stuff. You are now focused on proving you have the skills and experience to be able to complete the task the client requires at the rate agreed. That puts a whole different slant on the CV. It is no longer the story of your life. It's a sales brochure for a particular gig.

...

The first page is Profile (3/4 lines), skills (pick 4 of the most relevant to the role and then your gigs. Lots of information for each one so I've only got 2 on the first page. All bullet points are most relevant ones the new role is asking for. Each gig past that on page 2 start dropping in number of bullets to the point the roles are irrelvant so become just a one liner. Only degree or professional qualifications at the bottom, nothing else. No schools, GCSE, A levels. No hobbies or references or any of that crap.

...

Awesome. To the point!

[PTP]

Am I right for being honest, or are you right by being dishonest/economical with the truth?

That isn't being dishonest/economical with the truth - especially when applying for contract jobs.

With permie jobs maybe it would be dishonest/economical because the company would want to know more about you fitting it with the team and how long their investment in you might be rewarded.
But with contracts where you are going to be there for at most 2 years, they wouldn't care about your age.

Plus as already said, they could do simple maths from where I've put the year of graduation.

So the rule I use, only put things on your CV that add any value to your application

[SteelyDan]

At the moment I've only got my last 10 years on my CV, because all the jobs I had before that were irrelevant permie jobs.

This bit relates to my original point about possible exposure of age (& possible discrimination), by fully & honestly disclosing work history details, & someone at the agency doing a swift calculation & concluding that you must be in a certain age bracket, & therefore decides not to put you through for interview because of it.

You're doing the reverse by not providing full work history, thereby appearing to be 'younger' than you actually are, because rather than providing a full work history (as I currently am) you are only providing just 10 years, thereby appearing to the agent that you are a relatively young whipper-snapper. So, based on this, he/she decides to put you through to the client, but in reality you could be 10/20+ years older than that.

I'm trying to imagine things from interview pov; client is expecting a young whipper-snapper (based on what he/she's read on your CV), but when you turn up you simply aren't.

Am I right for being honest, or are you right by being dishonest/economical with the truth?

[PTP]

At the moment I've only got my last 10 years on my CV, because all the jobs I had before that were irrelevant permie jobs.

But I'm now getting to the point where I have to think about condensing what I've done in the relevant jobs.


My question is:
4 years of that is at one client (over separate spells) doing similar tasks each time. And 3 years of it is at another client (over separate spells) doing similar tasks each time.
Basically I've gone A->B->A->B

For those of you with repeat business, do you still space things out in order of most recent first? Or do you merge them by client?

I'm not on the bench yet, but when I am, I'm thinking of keeping things in order of most recent first and structuring as:


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2017 - 2019 Client A
Further to the projects done for [Client A] in 2013 - 2015 (see below), this time I focussed on ................{few details}

2015 - 2017 Client B
Further to the projects done for [Client B] in 2012 - 2013 (see below), this time I focussed on ................{few details}

2013 - 2015 Client A
Lots of details

2012 - 2013 Client B
Lots of details

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



How does that sound as an order/structure? Or will the recruiter/agency be too lazy to look further down the page for the extra detail?

[simes]

You say this but I just had to tell my cousin last week to take off his DOB AND Address!!!

But then he is just out of uni looking for graduate schemes! Naivety on his part

Worry not sir.

Much of what he has to say is just loud mouthed, sweeping generalisations in attempts to endlessly prove all his non-points. An illustration of when ignorance clashingly collides with arrogance.

He's also decided in his limited sense that I, and anything I have to say, is to be ridiculed.

Ignore him. I do.

[MonkeysUncle]

To add to this.
My timeline of previous work is on the second page.
As a PM I have structured my CV to have Profile, skills/qualifications and a list of the my last few successful projects on the first page.

Second page is then a timeline of where I have worked with dates and a line as to what project was carried out there.

Seems to be working for me so far.

[MonkeysUncle]

Nor has anyone. It's just Simes' usual pointless posting.

You say this but I just had to tell my cousin last week to take off his DOB AND Address!!!

But then he is just out of uni looking for graduate schemes! Naivety on his part

[northernladuk]

Anything I did over 10 years ago and in permie land is a role title, company and dates. Nothing more. I keep adding that until I run out of space and then ignore the rest. I've got a good 10 years of roles missing of mine as it's a waste of time putting it on.

I think I'll either a) ditch some of the older one liner roles which have no relevance today, or b) just remove the associated dates, & test the waters.

Great response, appreciated.

I've wanted to keep the one liners in as I've been working in some for of Service Management for 20 odd years and even though they are very old they are service related so thought it looked better. The stuff I did when I was an electrical engineer have gone. If the titles of the roles I have on were not related to my contracting career I'd have dropped those off as well. If you get what I am saying.

You are welcome.

[SteelyDan]

You are not really selling your self as a valuable commodity to the business anymore. That's perm stuff. You are now focused on proving you have the skills and experience to be able to complete the task the client requires at the rate agreed. That puts a whole different slant on the CV. It is no longer the story of your life. It's a sales brochure for a particular gig.

Also think of the change in audience here. A permie recruitment manager may have the time to read the whole CV and has to determine you are asset to the organisation. An agent has about 60 seconds to make sure you are the best for his role. That alone should give a guide on where to start.

An agent is going to apply a google triangle approach to your CV spending a good 60 seconds max on it. Your main focus is to sell yourself in the first 1/2 page. If it's not blatantly obvious you are the man for the job at this point you are done. If you can do that the 2nd page onwards is more or less totally irrelevant. It can help to prove you've been doing the same stuff for a long time which will help if the other person he's looking at has only been doing it 2 years but you still need to get the attention from the agent first.

Personally I set a limit of 2 pages and fit what I can in on that, not keep adding stuff regardless of size. They simply won't read more than 2 pages. Anything over 4 and they'll probably pass it round the office and take the piss. Not good for your prospects.

Anything I did over 10 years ago and in permie land is a role title, company and dates. Nothing more. I keep adding that until I run out of space and then ignore the rest. I've got a good 10 years of roles missing of mine as it's a waste of time putting it on.

The first page is Profile (3/4 lines), skills (pick 4 of the most relevant to the role and then your gigs. Lots of information for each one so I've only got 2 on the first page. All bullet points are most relevant ones the new role is asking for. Each gig past that on page 2 start dropping in number of bullets to the point the roles are irrelvant so become just a one liner. Only degree or professional qualifications at the bottom, nothing else. No schools, GCSE, A levels. No hobbies or references or any of that crap.

There is a seminar coming up linked at the top which might be useful just as a double check for you.

EDIT : If you want to PM me I'll be happy to cast an eye over it. You need to get as much feed back on it, take the ideas and chose which to apply. I'm still tweaking mine 10 years in to contracting.

Anything I did over 10 years ago and in permie land is a role title, company and dates. Nothing more. I keep adding that until I run out of space and then ignore the rest. I've got a good 10 years of roles missing of mine as it's a waste of time putting it on.

I think I'll either a) ditch some of the older one liner roles which have no relevance today, or b) just remove the associated dates, & test the waters.

Great response, appreciated.

[northernladuk]

A tough one as;

1. You are no longer expected to add your date of birth to a CV, but;
2. If you include schooling, then a quick mathematical bit of magic will determine that.
3. A common-ish (to be argued) belief is to demonstrate in detail the last 10 years of work, and;
4. For the purposes of a complete timeline, a common-ish (again, to be argued) belief is to line itemise other roles / companies, which again, will demonstrate age.

You could of course leave out the DoB and Not include a complete timeline.

Or, rejig the whole CV to make it Experience based, and/or Industry based, and leave out entirely the timeline. I must admit to not having test driven this one so have never experienced feedback on this format.

What a complete waste of internet space....

[northernladuk]

No, I've never included DoB or schooling..ever

Nor has anyone. It's just Simes' usual pointless posting.

[northernladuk]

I can't find the previous thread on this.

How many years work history do you include on your CV?

To my mind, a CV (course of life) should reflect your whole working life, but as a contractor should I be including perm stuff dating back to the 80's?

Previous work stuff is no longer relevant to what I've done for the past 20 yrs, but thought it was the right thing to be doing...you know, honest & full disclosure of working history and all that...am I over exposing? Or should I just be covering contract related stuff and ditch the irrelevant historic work details (which are set out as bulleted line entries)?

Problem is, I think I'm getting knocked back for roles owing to the 'age' thing...but of course don't want to just show 20 years of work only as they'd probably be expecting a '30-something' turning up at interview.

Anyone able to offer some constructive advice? Thanks.

You are not really selling your self as a valuable commodity to the business anymore. That's perm stuff. You are now focused on proving you have the skills and experience to be able to complete the task the client requires at the rate agreed. That puts a whole different slant on the CV. It is no longer the story of your life. It's a sales brochure for a particular gig.

Also think of the change in audience here. A permie recruitment manager may have the time to read the whole CV and has to determine you are asset to the organisation. An agent has about 60 seconds to make sure you are the best for his role. That alone should give a guide on where to start.

An agent is going to apply a google triangle approach to your CV spending a good 60 seconds max on it. Your main focus is to sell yourself in the first 1/2 page. If it's not blatantly obvious you are the man for the job at this point you are done. If you can do that the 2nd page onwards is more or less totally irrelevant. It can help to prove you've been doing the same stuff for a long time which will help if the other person he's looking at has only been doing it 2 years but you still need to get the attention from the agent first.

Personally I set a limit of 2 pages and fit what I can in on that, not keep adding stuff regardless of size. They simply won't read more than 2 pages. Anything over 4 and they'll probably pass it round the office and take the piss. Not good for your prospects.

Anything I did over 10 years ago and in permie land is a role title, company and dates. Nothing more. I keep adding that until I run out of space and then ignore the rest. I've got a good 10 years of roles missing of mine as it's a waste of time putting it on.

The first page is Profile (3/4 lines), skills (pick 4 of the most relevant to the role and then your gigs. Lots of information for each one so I've only got 2 on the first page. All bullet points are most relevant ones the new role is asking for. Each gig past that on page 2 start dropping in number of bullets to the point the roles are irrelvant so become just a one liner. Only degree or professional qualifications at the bottom, nothing else. No schools, GCSE, A levels. No hobbies or references or any of that crap.

There is a seminar coming up linked at the top which might be useful just as a double check for you.

EDIT : If you want to PM me I'll be happy to cast an eye over it. You need to get as much feed back on it, take the ideas and chose which to apply. I'm still tweaking mine 10 years in to contracting.

[SteelyDan]

A tough one as;

1. You are no longer expected to add your date of birth to a CV, but;
2. If you include schooling, then a quick mathematical bit of magic will determine that.
3. A common-ish (to be argued) belief is to demonstrate in detail the last 10 years of work, and;
4. For the purposes of a complete timeline, a common-ish (again, to be argued) belief is to line itemise other roles / companies, which again, will demonstrate age.

You could of course leave out the DoB and Not include a complete timeline.

Or, rejig the whole CV to make it Experience based, and/or Industry based, and leave out entirely the timeline. I must admit to not having test driven this one so have never experienced feedback on this format.

No, I've never included DoB or schooling..ever

[simes]

A tough one as;

1. You are no longer expected to add your date of birth to a CV, but;
2. If you include schooling, then a quick mathematical bit of magic will determine that.
3. A common-ish (to be argued) belief is to demonstrate in detail the last 10 years of work, and;
4. For the purposes of a complete timeline, a common-ish (again, to be argued) belief is to line itemise other roles / companies, which again, will demonstrate age.

You could of course leave out the DoB and Not include a complete timeline.

Or, rejig the whole CV to make it Experience based, and/or Industry based, and leave out entirely the timeline. I must admit to not having test driven this one so have never experienced feedback on this format.