#30: How contractors should write their CVs
It's transformative.
Well this isn’t a connection I thought I’d make (otherwise I’d have made it already).
But after asking one of my new LinkedIn followers this week why he followed me, he said it was the picture I posted of me standing outside a meeting room called “Optimus Prime” that caught his eye.
I know, right?
They had a Bumblebee, Jazz, Ultra Magnus (I think) - as a kid of the 80s (now in his 40s) I was pretty much blown away at just how cool this was.
When Amazon opens up new buildings, the new management team and employees get to choose the theming for the building - usually with some kind of local connection.
My nearest site, BHX2 (so called because the nearest international airport is Birmingham) had local connections to someone who built a satellite. Or that it was near the National Space Centre in Leicester. Or it was near the old factory where Star Wars toys were made in the 70s. I forget. But the site logo was a rocket and all the meeting rooms were named after satellites or space missions.
I digress.
It got me thinking, how the hell can I weave Transformers into A Sterne Word?
It turns out that it was quite easy. Let’s take one type of career support client.
Almost every week I find myself working with a consultant—either as an independent contractor (through a limited company) or within a management consultancy or software firm/systems integrator.
Their jobs are almost always to design or lead business transformations of some kind. (I’ve found Operations and Commercial leaders do this too, but more on them in another post.) They take a business that’s doing a bit shit, and make it a lean mean productivity and profitability machine.
They digitise manual or repetitive processes that add no value in their own right, taking huge cost sums out of the business, bringing about incredible culture changes, pulling together disparate, siloed bits of organisation and making clunky operations run faster, more smoothly and efficiently. All whilst extracting valuable data about how they can service customers more effectively and, well, make more money.
The thing is, people who do this go from job to job like an Autobot jumping from building to building. Client project to client project either as a paid up employee or as a third party consultant.
This leads to 8-page CVs.
How?
Simples. With each gig they do (which could be 3 months, 6 months, 24 months, whatever) they add it on to their CV. If they remember.
And, if they’re in a fractional role (that is, doing different jobs for different clients on a part time or concurrent basis - like when a business doesn’t need a full time Chief Marketing Officer - there’s scope for quite a long, confusing document.
So they end up with a CV that would be better thrown through a window to a recruiter than attached to an email, often because there’s loads of repetitive content from running many similar projects.
Question is, how do you deal with all that? And make it readable and compelling and not as boring as the third hour of a Michael Bay film?
Well let’s take the career contractor who works for themselves, usually on a nice day rate.
These are the steps I take:
1 - Mark yourself out as a consultant.
Add a job at the top that says “Consultant” and the name of the limited company.
This step immediately positions you as a contractor, not an employee. Good for IR35. State that this company provides independent interim and fractional leadership of x, y, and z type projects. This is you setting your stall out.
2 - Demonstrate your specialism.
State “typical deliverables include:” (amend as appropriate) Then list 4-6 bullet points of the main things you do. That could be
Leading complex digital change programmes from discovery and scoping to design and vendor selection, and over seeing delivery and benefits realisation
Engaging C-suite stakeholders to deeply understand organisational objectives, and leadership teams to uncover and deep dive barriers, blockers and current state.
Developing view of as-is and to-be desired states, process maps, IT estates and…
I could go on. But essentially your process and the work you most often do.
3 - List your engagements. They’re not jobs, are they?
Now, this is where the magic happens.
State “Example engagements include:”
…because instead of listing EVERY client you’ve worked with, in minute detail, along with all the from-to dates (mmm/yy) like you would if you were an employee, you can do this:
You’ve already stated that you do all that discovery stuff, planning, design, stakeholder engagement, change management etc etc so you don’t have to repeat it.
What you can provide are specifics, the technologies deployed, the outliers in the project that made it difficult. The numbers, the gains, the further problems you solved.
4 - Be selective about what you send off
Now you have a “Master CV” with umpteen projects, programmes, and engagements on it. Continuity of employment is not so relevant here as you’re a service provider, not an employee.
Before sending it off for a job, go through it and curate the content based on what you know or expect to be most relevant to the employer.
Remove the gig where you designed that app, if it’s not going to be relevant.
Include the one where you did that transformation at HSBC, if it’s at another bank.
You get the idea.
Make sure though that you include very recent and very relevant examples, as if the first one is from 5 years ago, your application won’t see the light of day again.
5 - Transformers - Roll out!
You’re ready to go.
You now have both a master doc and a relevant, tailored CV that clearly positions you as a contractor, not as an employee.
Great Phil, but what if I want to apply for a perm job too?
OK….
Keep a version with the actual dates in it. Don’t put your consulting firm at the top. List out your jobs as you would do normally (you can keep the remit/deliverables type layout).
Then go back through your CV and thin it out the further you go back. Think of the volume of content like a funnel shape, with much less at the bottom that at the top.
Don’t go over 3 pages. 2-2.5 if you can.
Still curate it for the job.
Or, hit this button and ask me to do it:
Want me to address another specific industry or role type? Hit me up and I’ll write about it.
Some of my* 35 year old collection of fractional contractors and consultants. One day they’re one thing, the next day they’re something else.
Anyway, I’m off to polish my yellow Camaro.
Phil
* actually some of these belong to my bro. He came in to my office at the moment I was typing this line, keeping it short for brevity’s sake. But now he’s made me add this addendum to make it 100% clear that they are not all mine, but in fact some are shared and some are in actual fact 100% his.
Happy, Ant?
In the socials…
Here’s one about using your CV effectively when you’re looking for a promotion.
Here’s one about the importance of small talk in the interview process.
And here’s another about the 5 biggest mistakes you’re making in your CV. (Tip - I’m running a FREE workshop today, 3pm, on this subject…)
I support senior people make the career steps that fulfil their personal and career goals.
I help remove doubt, rebuild confidence, and give them the tools they need to take ownership of their careers.
If that sounds like something you would benefit from, book a discovery call with me.