As a contractor, one of the most important jobs you have to do is selling your own services. In many industries (finance professionals, software developers, consultants and many freelance roles for example) the most powerful tool at your disposal is your CV, with word of mouth from satisfied employers acting as a close second. Even for creatives and influencers, who will be able to show portfolios (and IT contractors with their Github profiles), the CV is an important part of your initial presentation.
So how do you keep the attention of the people you need to reach?
Never Make Your CV Harder to Read
Messing with designs, colours, fonts and borders can just make your CV less accessible to some HR professionals. Sad to say, a negative first impression is often used as an easy way to reduce the stack of candidates that your recruiter or hiring manager has to work through, so don’t just tell yourself ‘they can change the font back if it’s a problem’ – chances are, they won’t put in the time.
Your CV should be designed to tell potential employers what you’ve done, what you know, and give them a sense of what you can do for them. Unfortunately it’s not the right time to put your personality forward too heavily – the role of the CV is to showcase your professional capacity.
Keep Your CV Compact
As your career extends, especially as a contractor you may have a great variety to your working history, having worked for many different companies on key projects. Each of these are worth shouting about, and any of them might be the thing which tells the person reviewing your CV to put you through to the next stage.
At the same time, if it’s too long they won’t read it – and even if they do, you’ll be mentally marked down for not being concise.
You need to grab their attention in under 30 seconds of scanning. We recommend tailoring your CV to each opportunity – make sure you mention all the impressive names you’ve worked for, but drill down into bullet-pointed key words on what you do only on the most relevant projects. That gives you the best of both worlds.
Qualifications are Key
When you first start out, your academic education dominates your CV. The further you progress into working life, the less you need most of it; your achievements in work and your professional qualifications will become more important and more relevant. Make sure your qualifications and any professional memberships you have that are relevant are clear up front.
Use Your Network
It’s a rare industry where competition between contractors is so fierce that they don’t help each other. If you think your CV may be holding you back, ask a fellow contractor who you’ve seen be successful to look it over; they’ll help you out.
Once you have your new role in place, we’ll be here to help you manage the financial side. Just get in touch and we’ll be happy to talk.
