Published:
Contractor CV Torn Apart By CV Expert
By Matt Craven, Founder of The CV & Interview Advisors
Over here at The CV & Interview Advisors we see a lot of Contractor CVs - in fact we’ve written close to 5000 over the last few years. Helping Independent Contractors / Interim Managers to win work makes up about half of the business that our sizeable team looks after.
We also offer free CV appraisals (you can request one here), which usually involves a 15-20 minute 1-2-1 call to talk through the good, the bad and the ugly. Recently we were asked to provide some written feedback for two people; one was a pretty good CV (better than most CVs that we see) and the other was pretty weak.
I thought it would be useful to share the feedback with the Only Contract Jobs and Only Contract News community so that you can evaluate your own CV against the feedback that we provided.
This is the feedback we gave on a weak CV - we will cover the stronger CV next week.
Feedback on a weak CV from a Contractor who is a Test manager
- The CV lacks visual appeal and in general, is quite brief and lacking in detail. The Career History should be bullet pointed with each bullet point being about 2 lines long.
- The CV is very task focused and lacks evidence of driving positive outcomes.
- Adding some achievements would strengthen the CV. Think about how you can show the reader that you are good at your job! Taking your best achievements and adding them as case studies on page one is a powerful strategy; we recommend writing three 6-line case studies using the STAR framework (Situation, Task, Actions and Result).
- Some of the CV is written in the first person / using pronouns i.e. using ‘I’ and ‘my’. A non-pronoun style of writing is more appropriate for Contractors. In addition, the CV uses passive voice rather than a more active style of writing e.g. ‘management of’ should be ‘managed’.
- The CV doesn’t use headings which means the algorithms that exist within recruitment software will be inadequately signposted to each block of information. Applicant Tracking System optimisation and signposting are crucial to making sure your CV passes through the ATS and is read by a human.
- The Career History lacks context. It would be advisable to start with a description of the employer (if it’s not obvious), a summary of the role, information about your team (how many and job titles) and your key deliverables. Then you should have some bullet points covering your key duties and responsibilities, followed by some bullet points that describe your key projects and achievements from that role.
- Social proofing is a key strategy to optimise a CV; this simply means adding a couple of well written and credible Recommendations at the end of the CV. You have lots to choose from on LinkedIn so just transfer a couple of really good ones to your CV.
- The CV could be strengthened by mentioning the types of testing that you are proficient with, the types of technologies you have tested and perhaps the code base / programming languages.
My key advice for a great CV is as follows:
✔️ Provide an obvious go-to-market description i.e. what are you. Be specific and not ambiguous i.e. don’t write Experienced IT Professional so you appeal to several roles; you’ll appeal to none.
✔️ Include a value proposition and four FAB statements. These should explain how you can add value to a client and present both your skills and the benefits your skills bring about (hence FAB for Features & Benefits statements).
✔️ Include as many achievements as you can and if you are able to, write three 6-line case studies in the STAR framework on page one.
✔️ Make sure your CV is optimised for ATS’ / recruitment software with obvious headings, plenty of keywords and a postcode.
✔️ Use social proofing, aka Recommendations to provide third party evidence of your talents.
If you would like a free CV or LinkedIn appraisal, you can request one here:
https://cvandinterviewadvisors.co.uk/ofcfreeapp
