Introduction
The impact your CV makes on a prospective employer or agent determines whether you get asked for an interview.
It is important to realise that the employer will choose to interview the candidate who has the best CV for the job, not necessarily the candidate who is best suited for the job.
Typically a contractor's CV will get scanned for 20 seconds before a decision is made to contact you or invite you for interview.
This article introduces all the aspects of writing high impact targeted contractor CVs.
Writing a high impact contractor CV
A CV is a marketing document about you – the product. The reader of your CV needs to get the impression that you are perfect for the position.
The reader wants to see that:
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This person has the skills I require.
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This person has experience of using the skills I require.
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This person understands my requirements.
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This person has provided benefit to previous clients using those skills.
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Wow, this guy is perfect!!
In order to maximise the ‘Wow’ factor the CV needs to create a high impact by being targeted directly for the role. We call this Writing a killer CV.
One of the common CV mistakes made is writing a CV as a life story from birth, through education and employment. This approach is not targeted and invites the reader to pick through a ‘sweetie jar’ to see if there is anything they like. This is often why a generalised CV does not work. The attractive attributes about you are mixed up with others that are irrelevant to the position.
To create the best impression possible (‘Wow, this person is perfect!’) you need to understand how to structure your CV for high impact.
After writing your first high impact targeted CV for a particular position you will then need to know how to target your CV for each subsequent application.
To convince the reader that you have practised the skills before you will need to know how to write an achievement on your CV. This is one of the hardest aspects of contractor CV writing and often overlooked.
After reading some of the theory for CV creation there are also some real life examples which discuss existing CVs, apply the techniques, and provide the enhanced versions:
CVs Deconstructed: Applying The Killer CV Technique - Case Study 1
CVs Deconstructed: Applying The Killer CV Technique - Case Study 2
CVs Deconstructed: Applying The Killer CV Technique - Case Study 3
Published: Friday, December 29, 2006
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