I’m probably a little over anal when it comes to checking CV’s that people have sent across. But I’ve gone through nearly a hundred from our latest job posting and I felt it would be of benefit to a few people to mention some things I’ve noticed on the vast majority of CV’s sent in applications or e-mails.
- Nobody pays attention to their fonts. A CV is potentially 100% text in its standard format, yet hardly anyone strays from the standard set of 5-6 fonts.
- It’s obvious when you use a template. Some may think it’s not, but it is.
- Ever thought of laying it out? Why not use a two or three column table for that list of skills you’re outlining? How about removing some of the babble and spacing it out a little?
- Personality is a dying art. Despite me declaring I wanted to see some personality from applications when they sent in their e-mail I saw very little.
- Nobody catered their CV to the role. Everyone sent in a standard CV. Nobody put in some text about why they’d want the role, or why they would be a good fit for it.
Learn from their mistakes and adapt to them next time you send in a CV for a job you want to apply to. Make it interesting for the person on the other end.
Have any opinions on the subject? Or advice for others? Bad mistakes you’ve made with your own CV? Feel free to leave a comment below, I’d love to hear them.