There’s a lot of conflicting CV advice to be found on the internet, but the same mistakes come up time and time again writes Matt Craven of DCS.
Having been in the recruitment and career development industry for nearly 20 years, I’ve seen all sorts of CVs from the good to the bad to the downright ugly, but I have a very clear view of the top mistakes that hold job seekers (and contractors) back when applying for jobs.
1) Mindset
The first point really sets the scene and it’s all about the value that job seekers place on their CV. I would suggest that your CV and arguably your LinkedIn profile, are your most important tools for securing a job and therefore growing your career. It doesn’t matter how good you are at your job, if your CV isn’t communicating your abilities, your application will fall flat.
I would also estimate that for every person that secures a job, there were 6 better candidates that never even got an interview, all because their CV didn’t sell them effectively.
I’m showing my age here, but it’s a bit like the old VHS and Betamax war; Betamax was arguably a better technology for home video, but VHS became the market leader due to a better business and marketing strategy. It just goes to show how marketing often trumps capability.
If you place huge importance on your CV, it’s likely that you will interviews, for better jobs, at a higher salary; if you place little emphasis on your CV and merely see it as a historic list of where you have worked, you’ll more than likely lag behind those that have embraced the fact that their CV should be a business case that explains why a company should hire them.
2) Care & Attention
This really follows on from the mindset point; too many job seekers apply a somewhat unthorough approach to their CV. In fact, recent research by Adzuna found that less than 6% of CVs are free from basic errors. That’s right, 9 out of 10 CVs contain spelling and grammar mistakes!
If you work in certain areas of IT such as Software Development, it would be fair to say that attention to detail is key to succeeding in your profession. It would therefore be fair to assume that a job seeker who doesn’t check their CV for spelling errors, doesn’t check their code for errors, and is therefore lacking in attention to detail.
This is clearly a fatal error, but something that is very easy to fix.
3) Ambiguity
The more senior you get, the more likely it is that you will have more than one string to your bow. For example, my company has recently worked with a client who is both a Project Manager and a Business Analyst; another is both a Business Analyst and Product Owner.
This can lead job seekers to conjure up rather woolly and ambiguous descriptions of themselves.
Even people with one clear target role in mind can fall foul of referring to themselves as “An experienced IT professional”, which frankly could cover hundreds of different roles.
My point here is to be specific and if you have more than one target, create more than one CV.
This usually applies to the Profile / Summary section of your CV i.e. that first paragraph where you explain what you are and how you can add value to an organisation.
4) Achievements
Here at The CV & Interview Advisors, we offer job seekers and contractors a free CV and LinkedIn appraisal (get one here: https://cvandinterviewadvisors.co.uk/jobseeker/30) and our first question after reading a CV is usually “how can I tell that you are good at your job?”. Most people sit and ponder for a few seconds before replying with “oh yeah, you can’t can you?!”.
Quite why CVs are often devoid of achievements baffles me; demonstrating that you can deliver business benefits and make a difference is one of the most crucial aspects of securing a job or selling yourself in the contract market.
For the avoidance of doubt, an achievement should be an outcome rather than a task (they might incorporate both to give a little context) and they should provide tangible and statistical evidence of success.
5) Optimisation
I was invited as a Guest Speaker for one of the global accountancy associations the other week and to demonstrate the technology advances that are prevalent in business, they had an AI robot called Pippa. It was great, but it slightly reminded me of The Terminator films where the machines had taken over the world. Now I wouldn’t quite go that far, but there is certainly a large non-human element to recruitment now, and as a result, your CV must appeal to both humans and machines.
Logos, graphics, PDFs, fancy side bars, cryptic headings and wacky layouts may look nice to the naked eye, but they are all likely to bamboozle the algorithm within the recruitment software (if it can read your CV at all) - as a consequence, no human will ever read it.
It is important to create a nice looking CV but within the confines of Microsoft Word and with minimal graphics. After that, the headings, structure, layout and keyword density become key to getting results.
About the Author
Matt Craven is the DCS, who are experts in career development and work with over 20 membership organisations, including leading institutes and associations. They provide a one-stop-shop to all the aforementioned topics and services through a variety of free and paid-for initiatives. They also provide a white-labelled proposition for membership organisations seeking a commercial opportunity.
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