Contractors' Questions: Should I remove hyperlinks from my CV?

Contractor’s Question: Contrary to the recommendation here to use hyperlinks within contractor CVs, an agency contact of mine who informally gave my CV the once-over says he finds links in a CV distracting. So should I remove mine?

Expert’s Answer: Yes and no. Let me explain. Hyperlinks tend to turn blue, bold and are underlined so they do therefore draw the reader's eye away from the text that you are hoping they will read! From that perspective, you are correct; they are not a great idea.

The purpose of writing a CV and sending it to a recruiter or potential client is that you want them to read it -- a hyperlink is more or less saying, ‘don’t bother reading this CV that I have sent you, click this link and go somewhere else instead.’

But by all means have a hyperlink to your LinkedIn profile or professional website at the end of your CV -- to reinforce your CV’s profile or the career information you’ve submitted or to offer more detail. If though your links are in the main body of the CV, then you are indeed encouraging the reader to navigate away from the CV which defeats the object of sending it in the first place.

You could argue that people will navigate back to the CV once they have read whatever it was that the link took them to, but it makes for a rather painful and clunky experience for the reader, whether they are a client hiring manager or recruiter.

Remember; your CV should provide the information the decision-maker needs without them having to rely on additional channels. Positively, LinkedIn does provide contractors scope to provide further information, simply because it is a web-based portal. The portal neatly embeds hyperlinks in each ‘position’ that navigates to the ‘projects’ section where you can present detailed case studies on specific projects or achievements.

The expert was Matt Craven, founder of The CV & Interview Advisors.

ContractorUK has partnered with the UK's leading authority on contractor CVs to provide a FREE review of your CV and LinkedIn profile. Contact The CV & Interview Advisors and one of their team will get back to you to discuss if your CV and LinkedIn profile matches up with industry best practice.