Hi Guys Won't bore you to death but a few questions for those of you contracting:1) Background: 2 years in retail banking (call centre, branch), before 3 years on an IT services grad programme, more recently 1 year for a big 4 firm, 10 months in industry before redundancy, 6 months in industry on a contract, now 9 months for a software vendor. Jobs across Business Consulting, Analysis and less so in PM and PMO. How would this CV translate for contracting? I'm considering rates of c£400 p/d in London, no industry bias. 2) Would it be viable to dress up my last 3 roles as contracts? One was albeit fixed term, the rest were perm but I seem redundancy prone! 3) I have a separate property business in it's infancy could I use this Ltd co for my contracting proceeds or would you recommend keeping my accounts separate?I've already arranged coffees with my friends who are contractors to understand more about approaches to CV etc. An old boss of mine is also my mentor so am not just a keyboard warrior looking for advice while sat on my backside. Have also looked through the plethora of threads on contracting here as a starter. All advice and of course banter appreciated :)

[i]Would it be viable to dress up my last 3 roles as contracts? One was albeit fixed term, the rest were perm[/i]A perm role is not a contract, so no.

[quote]1) Background: 2 years in retail banking (call centre, branch), before 3 years on an IT services grad programme, more recently 1 year for a big 4 firm, 10 months in industry before redundancy, 6 months in industry on a contract, now 9 months for a software vendor. Jobs across Business Consulting, Analysis and less so in PM and PMO. How would this CV translate for contracting? I'm considering rates of c£400 p/d in London, no industry bias. [/quote]So you have 2 years in a call centre, 3 years being spoon fed, lasted 1 year in a credible services firm before moving into industry for less than a year, then bits and pieces here and there. Jobs across ambiguous, lurk around and try to be useful type positions...what exactly will someone be paying you a day rate for??you don't need a contract, you need a restart from scratch in your career.

Thanks Mars - maybe you should ask for the detail before making a considered judgement.Considering the fact I've been made redundant 3 times in the last 2 years, I'd call it an extremely bad run of luck based on the fact a COO reorganised an IT function, a global firm decided to purchase another huge entity shelving a massive programme of work they had already spent millions on, and a software vendor won a large project changing their organisation to a point where they no longer need a consultant.

I did consider the detail - it was you who called it a CV, so what else am I supposed to think? You wrote the OP. I'm not being negative I'm calling you out on how you pitched your CV! What's the point of an open forum like this is we cant help each other with some honesty?And I stand by my point - you need to start from scratch. And I don't mean start on a grad scheme somewhere I mean you need to start over again. You have created a bitty, strangulated career path, to make this work now you need to bring that all together somehow and draw a line under it. Contracting isn't the way to go to do this, get embedded into a new role - redundancy can be painful, but there is a proposition here somewhere about steady hands and navigating change etc. Wrap it up in a value add and restart somewhere new. You'll still be an experienced hire, but no point trying to find a contracting sell from this - stability and a fresh start would be good medicine.

Thanks for the advice - CV was the wrong word to use! I've got an interview with a boutique on Monday and hopefully it goes well, I'd certainly like the opportunity to stay somewhere longer than a year.

Good stuff - let us know how you get on.The services sector has been growing ahead of trend, and that includes the consulting sector, so hopefully the shadow of redundancy should be behind you.Main thing is be positive in the interviews!