IT Contractors: How to Create a Relevant Resume

Being a contractor or consultant means that you’re often applying for new positions. So it’s absolutely critical to have a great resume on hand at all times. In order to write a resume that will get you hired, it’s necessary to understand the fundamental difference between applying for a full-time position and applying for contract work.

The classic resume for a full-time position is arranged in reverse chronological order, with the most recent employer listed first. This isn’t the best approach for IT contractors. First, an IT professional’s sheer quantity of projects and clients can make a chronological resume overly long, and most hiring managers won’t read beyond the second page. Second, when hiring IT contractors, employers are chiefly interested in the most relevant experience, not necessarily the most recent experience.

A better way to organize an IT resume is to list past projects in descending order of relevance. For instance, in an application for a job as a C# developer, the first project listed should be one that involved C# coding, even if it was completed five years ago. Even if the hiring manager doesn’t flip beyond the first page, this style of resume guarantees that the most important qualifications for the job get fair consideration. Furthermore, a relevance-based resume makes the hiring manager’s job easier, which improves the odds of a successful interview.

Next, list the project duration in months, weeks or hours. This is a very important step, as most hiring managers filter their candidates by adding up the amount of relevant experience in terms of time. Third, list the technologies used in order of their relevance to the project. Finally, give a succinct description of the project, including the level of complication, milestones and responsibilities. Proprietary details should be left out, of course.

Even with this relevance-based organization, many contractors find that their resumes grow exceedingly long. To keep that length down and avoid looking like a job-hopper, consider organizing projects under umbrella headings. Organizing all coding or consulting work into one unified section, for instance, gives the impression of longevity and stability to a potential employer.

Project-based organization makes applying for multiple jobs easy. Just keep a master list of every project, organized chronologically by default, and copy and paste projects into specific resumes for each application in order of relevance. Keeping the master list updated is as easy as adding a new entry for each completed project.

Owing to the nature of contract work, organizing a resume by relevance is the best method for IT contractors. Such a resume is customized for every application, brings the most important qualifications to the fore and makes the recruiter’s job substantially easier. In short, a relevance-based resume maximizes a contractor’s chances of securing a new contract.