A little advice on my CV?

[malvolio]

As always, there's some musings about this on the blog...

http://www.lpwcs.com/wordpress/2009/...t-for-purpose/

[malvolio]

Quick answer - Don't tell me what you know, tell me what you've done.

Basically I want to see a quick summary of who you are as a supplier of expertise, what are your key skills relevant to the job in hand, what are your key career achievements and what is your history; last three gigs in detail, summaries of the rest.

If you have professional qualifications then mention them, but they only really impress agencies, not hirers.

[Worzel]

It may seem lame but I think it's expected to have a "profile" section right at the top which should say very clearly on the first sentence exactly what it is that you do. That was the best advice one hiring manager gave me many years ago. Agents seem to like it too as they get too many responses as it is so will skim read everything.

In this market if they don't see what they want on page 1 they'll never bother reading page 2.

[d000hg]

Firstly, is there any reason to anonymise my skills/expereince?

1. So, I think the first section KEY SKILLS is kind of pointless, very vague... but then I don't know what they're looking for.
2. MAIN AREAS OF EXPERIENCE I think needs to be near the top as a summary of what I have done without being unreadable.
3. What about the acronymn-fest? I think it's needed, but where should it go?
4. I like the breakdown of contracts, a sentence or two then bullet-points of tech, etc.
5. I have my name and contact details only in the page header... does anyone care? Should I put a nice little section 'about' me or 'mission statement' like I see so often and think is lame?

Thoughts?

[d000hg]

I never really tried that hard with it, and it seems to get picked up by searches, and I know agents mangle it anyway. But I've come to update it and it just looks boring and ugly, and (to me) like the important stuff isn't at the top. I'd feel happier giving out something I at least like.

Let me give you a flavour of it:
[Page 1]

CV for d000hg - contact d000hg@d000hg.com or +44 1234 56 78

KEY SKILLS
• Application architecture
• Software development
• Database design
• Strong mathematical & scientific background
• Excellent communication skills
• Experience working remotely

MAIN AREAS OF EXPERIENCE

• UML application design & architecture (3 years)
• C++ Development (7 years)
• Java Development (4 years)
• Flex2, Flex3 & AS3 development (3 years)
• J2EE/.net web development (2 years)
• Client-server systems (4.5 years)
• Gensym G2 development (3.5 years)

LANGUAGES & TECHNOLOGIES

• C++ - Win32, MFC, (D)COM, DirectX, STL, Boost
• Java - J2EE, Servlets, JSP, JSTL, JSF, EJB
• C#.net - WWF, WCF, ASP.net
• Flex/Actionscript
• JavaScript, AJAX
• HTML, XML, CSS
• PL/SQL, T-SQL, SQL
• Gensym G2 (an expert system)
• Ant, JUnit, FlexUnit, ASDoc etc

CONTRACT WORK

Most Recent Project
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. In quis sapien eu justo scelerisque cursus sed id orci. Etiam est justo, malesuada vitae facilisis id, fermentum in turpis. Quisque luctus ultricies diam at elementum. Etiam elementum diam id tellus elementum eget rutrum leo facilisis.

• blah blah Java
• blah C++ blah
• blah blah SQL

[Page 2]

CV for d000hg - contact d000hg@d000hg.com or +44 1234 56 78

Another Project
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. In quis sapien eu justo scelerisque cursus sed id orci. Etiam est justo, malesuada vitae facilisis id, fermentum in turpis. Quisque luctus ultricies diam at elementum. Etiam elementum diam id tellus elementum eget rutrum leo facilisis.

• blah blah Java
• blah C++ blah
• blah blah SQL

Another Project
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. In quis sapien eu justo scelerisque cursus sed id orci. Etiam est justo, malesuada vitae facilisis id, fermentum in turpis. Quisque luctus ultricies diam at elementum. Etiam elementum diam id tellus elementum eget rutrum leo facilisis.

• blah blah Java
• blah C++ blah
• blah blah SQL

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[Page 3]

CV for d000hg - contact d000hg@d000hg.com or +44 1234 56 78

PREVIOUS EMPLOYMENT

Another Project
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. In quis sapien eu justo scelerisque cursus sed id orci. Etiam est justo, malesuada vitae facilisis id, fermentum in turpis. Quisque luctus ultricies diam at elementum. Etiam elementum diam id tellus elementum eget rutrum leo facilisis.

• blah blah Java
• blah C++ blah
• blah blah SQL

Another Project
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. In quis sapien eu justo scelerisque cursus sed id orci. Etiam est justo, malesuada vitae facilisis id, fermentum in turpis. Quisque luctus ultricies diam at elementum. Etiam elementum diam id tellus elementum eget rutrum leo facilisis.

• blah blah Java
• blah C++ blah
• blah blah SQL

EDUCATION
Degree: blah blah blah

A-levels: blah blah blah