When I was working on the ‘other side of the fence’, as the head of software development for a software company, one of my tasks was the recruitment and selection of contractors and freelancers.  Over the years, I have lost count of the number of contractors I have used.

During the selection process, I used to see dozens and dozens of CVs for each role, and I was shocked by how bad some CVs were.   The freelancer or contractor may have had the skills, they may have had the attitude, but their CV went straight into the rejected CV storage device (the bin) because they were using a CV with a style as if they were looking for a perminant job.

So here my top tips for producing a Killer contractor or freelancers CV for securing that killer contract:

1. Multiple CVs. If you have multiple skills and possible multiple jobs that you can be doing, you need a CV that highlights the skill set for each different position. Myself, I have one CV for Business Analyst roles, one for software development, and one for Business Intelligence (data warehouse) roles. The only difference between them is the order that my skills are listed (most relevant for each part at the top, the introduction (see step 2) and the experience highlighted for each type of job. Don’t go overboard – you don’t need more than 2 or 3 versions of your CV.
2. An introduction. At the top of your CV include a paragraph describing yourself, your skills, experience, work style and goals. Make this paragraph in the 3rd person such as “Fred Blogs offers over 16 years of IT experience, with skills ranging from SQL Server to juggling…” etc. The point is that it acts as an introduction to anybody reading the CV, and most agencies generate one if it’s not already there for prospective employers to read. But if you do it, it makes your CV easier to use for the agency (therefore more likely to be passed on) and you get to select the words used.
3. A summary of your experience. Now, when you first created your CV after leaving education, I bet you listed all the schools you attended, all your exam results etc such as “Maths O’Level B, English O’Level A, etc”. Well, unless this is your very 1st CV, employers are more concerned on your experience. Therefore your qualifications should be as short as possible (such as “8 o’levels (English, Maths, etc)”) and then create two other lists, one showing technical knowledge and level (SQL Server: Expert, Oracle:Expert, ASP.NET:Expert,  Javascript:Intermediate,  HTML:Novice) etc, and then another summary list of types of system/work you have worked on (so mine says “Systems worked On: Electronic Document Management, Health Systems, etc, etc, etc)
4. Detailed Experience – the bulk of your CV. For each previous job or contract (most recent first), show the company name, dates you worked for them, position held, and then a summary of the work/duties
5. References. Now, here I really recommend using LinkedIn.  If you have joined LinkedIn and have recommendations, you can cut and past the reference text from the Linkedin references and place the text with the name of the person, and date comments left at the end of your CV. For completeness, I also include the URL of my linkedin profile, so that if they want to see more detail on me, they can follow the link and read more references.
6. Don’t include the social stuff. Whenpeople are recruiting permanent staff, one of the things they look for is signs that you will fit in with the team on a social level.  For contractors and freelancers, all they care about is that you can do the job, your availability and your rate.  Therefore for your contracting and freelancing CV, you really don’t need sections detailing your marital status, if you drive,  your hobbies and interests etc – no one really cares.

Once you have these sections, triple check your CV for spelling and grammar, and make sure it does not go over 4 pages. If it does, remove some of the older jobs or summarise some of the text. The image on the top right is the front page of my CV, and shows the block of introduction text, my name, address, contact details, qualifications, experience summary, skills list – all on the first page.