RE: So who is the expert?

It is frustrating isn't it! All that effort on creating a unique cover letter and rarely getting any acknowledgement of it actually being recieved. Online applications are the worst, 3 hours copy and pasting your CV onto a website, for it to crash right at the end and you have to start over!

(About 10 years ago I was unemployed for almost 3 years, I feel your pain man.)

And yes if you ask 10 CV specialists on how to write the perfect CV, you will get 10 different answers.

For what it is worth, my CV is currently concise and to the point. The Formatting is clean and professional with bullet points, and I make sure it fits on 2 pages. The important information goes on the front page. For example when I left school, I had little work experience so my education went on the first page. 20 years later my experience is the most important, so that is on the first page and the education stuff is buried at the back.

I'm not saying to copy mine, just an example of how I approach it.

I wish you luck with with your new CV when its finished :-)