Let’s talk CV’s and salary

I recently helped my team interview a candidate with an 8 page CV. My first response was, “who’s got time to read 8 pages?”. Now they still interviewed well but it was a poor first impression.

I like having a 1 page CV that’s very focused. Even though I’ve worked in tech for 10 years, there’s only very specific roles I’m looking out for and my CV is tailored for them.

Using Canva for design

I used canva to create this 1 page CV. Here’s a PDF version. They have a ton of beautiful designs you can experiment with. In fact I’ve experimented with several designs over the years.

I’ve only included roles that relate to mobile test engineering and finance. I’ve included my current contract and the tech I’m working on. I am hoping to moving to the mobile team here in a few months once we deliver a micro service digital transformation back end system.

There are many roles I haven’t included but if you want to know what they are, you can always explore my LinkedIn profile.

Having a profile on Seek

I have this CV uploaded on seek.com.au, as well as a profile that is a gold standard in terms of filled in details. From this alone, I get approached by a recruiter at least once a month. I often get an email notification when a recruiter downloads my CV and I often get a phone call from said recruiter 5 minutes later.

Now I’m not currently looking but I’m now enjoying contract work. In 6 to 9 months time I may be looking to expand my skills on a new project. Having a warm lead every month within my salary expectations is nice. It means I know my skills are in high demand and the CV is working.

Included salary expectations

I’ve included my salary expectations as an experiment. The last thing I want to do is waste a recruiters time. Unfortunately there are tons of testing based contracting gigs out there that are under paid compared to equivalent software engineering/developer roles.

I once had a recruiter call me for a test manager role, their budget for the role was 600 per day (including super), that wasn’t paying much more than my full time bank job if I was to take into account the lack of benefits as a contractor.

Managing my own business

I’m currently on $850 per day (including super). I’m really proud of how well my business is going and it was surprising the difference going from a full time position to contracting. I was previously on a 120K annual salary plus super. As a contractor I’m projecting around a 170K salary plus super for this financial year (assuming 44 billable weeks in a year).

That’s a 40% pay increase for a similar role. Now I have to manage my own super, sick leave, holidays, taxes and pay role but I think that’s worth it. What am I doing with all of this new found wealth? I’m paying down debt, saving for a home and working towards financial freedom.

I don’t need to keep my salary secret, I’ve blogged about how it’s grown over time here. I hope it inspires you to appreciate your own worth and value.