The contractor CV that actually lands interviews (in 40 seconds or less)

We read roughly 2,400 contractor CVs a quarter across our European desks. Most are technically fine. Most get filtered out anyway. The ones that land share a small, boringly consistent set of traits — and none of them are about typography.

One: outcomes, not responsibilities. "Owned Snowflake migration from Redshift, 340 pipelines, delivered six weeks early, €180k annual run-cost saving" beats "Responsible for Snowflake migration" every single time. Numbers beat adjectives. Always.

Two: engagement shape stated clearly and upfront. Contract vs permanent. Rate range if you're comfortable. Notice period. Remote/hybrid preference. And — the one people forget — extension history. A contractor who's been re-extended three times at one client tells a stronger story than one who's job-hopped every six months.

Three: technical stack sorted by depth, not alphabetically. If you're a Databricks-first engineer, lead with Databricks. Every hiring manager scans the top-left of page one for their exact stack. Bury it and you're out before the coffee's cool.

Four: bin the personal statement. In 2026, nobody reads them. Replace it with a one-line role summary and three bullet outcomes. That's the top of your page. Everything else is supporting evidence.

Five: one page for engineers under eight years' experience, two pages maximum for Staff and above. Three-page CVs get skimmed to page one and rejected. This isn't a taste judgement — it's arithmetic. Forty seconds doesn't cover three pages.