Oooh, me, me, me Miss. <hand up, nearly bouncing off the ceiling> I partner in a firm these days (20 years) and in the past I was a permie and then a contracto

Oooh, me, me, me Miss. <hand up, nearly bouncing off the ceiling> I partner in a firm these days (20 years) and in the past I was a permie and then a contractor (UK). 'résumé (henceforth "CV")' - I've seen a few and written one or two. I'm an IT sysadmin (time served) with an Engineering degree. My firm is an IT firm - not a cool one and rather small. There is a trade off between prose and detail. You need to get across your persona and your skills. Skills are more important in general, but some particular detail may score highly. A decent layout and formatting may score too (I used to teach DTP) - don't bother with handwritten unless your cursive is prettier than mine and instantly legible. When I'm faced with a waffle of CVs then I sort them into piles, most of which is a bin. It's tough, really tough and I do know what it is like on the other side too, so I do take pity occasionally, when I spot something that piques my interest on a CV that is probably doomed. So, my advice is (for IT): * Two sides max (duplex, so one sheet printed on both sides). Front side has pertinent detail and back side has extra stuff. You need to be brief. Even a pdf has "pages", but P1 should present you effectively. * Keep the schooling (pre college) bit very concise. Bear in mind that's confirmatory stuff and not so important but we are used to seeing your life in roughly timeline order so don't be too cute! * Describe your skills. Now this is hard to get right. I suggest you dump modern names of systems but not versions unless it is important. * Previous employment. Keep it very concise. I don't really care who they are but I might be interested in particular technologies. Now I've written the above, it's a bit more complicated than that ... ish. When you are on one side of a desk and some bloke who might pay you is on the other side, just remember that a contract is two sided. Make sure that when you agree to a contract (employment for example) that you are as happy to do so as the other side. Data format for CVs? RLY?