20 Reasons why your CV (CV Tips) will be rejected: Part 2

With myriad elements going towards helping make a great CV.  With this in mind we have used our recruitment clout to put together 20 CV tips.

In the first part, we spoke about the first 5 reasons your CV could be rejected by recruiters.  This included a candidate using a ridiculous email address, poor spelling and grammar, the use of a candidate picture or URL link to their CV, inaccurate job dates and poor formatting.

Part 2 of 4 and a further 5 CV tips are contained below:

CV Tips: 6. War & Peace

There are differing opinions on how long a CV should be; some say 2, some say no longer than 3 pages.  Most companies who are recruiting will only be interested in the last 5 to 10 years of your career, no longer than that, and obviously the most recent couple of positions will probably be the reason that you have got the interview in the first place.

So, don’t waffle!  Try and keep your CV to 3 pages maximum.  If you have over 10 years’ experience at work, keep your work history after this just listed by company and position.

Equally, don’t be afraid to shout about your achievements.  A CV that looks light on information will be as readily discarded as the one which reads like an autobiographical epic!

CV Tips: 7.Too Much Personal Information

Just like the pointless process of attaching a picture to your CV, including too much personal info that is unrelated to the job is a waste of space and could be harming your chances of getting a job.

You’re not pitching for a date, so does a recruiter need to know your age, height, weight, religious or political affiliations, marital status or sexual orientation?

CV Tips: 8. Misleading Information

More and more businesses are now carrying out extensive background checks prior to taking somebody on board.  Nearly everybody embellishes their achievements in jobs on their CV, but stretching the truth could land you in hot water.  We have seen many candidates trip themselves up, with the most common misleading information being put on CVs being:

• The inaccuracy of dates to try and cover up job hopping or unexplained gaps in employment
• Inflated education achievements, including purchasing online degrees which are worthless
• Inflated salaries
• Exaggerated job titles
• Exaggerated career accomplishments
• Blatant lies in regards to roles and duties

CV Tips: 9. Fonts

We get so many CVs where people go a bit ‘artistic’ and use 5 different fonts in all the colours of the rainbow.  The golden CV rule is to keep to one single easy to read font like Calibri, Ariel or the newspaper font of choice, Times New Roman and to keep the font black.  Avoid those hard to read fonts like Blackadder ITC or ugly fonts like Comic Sans.  And try and keep the font size to at least 10, as if you have to reduce the size to 8, it probably indicates that your CV is too busy.

Again, a great CV tips is that it is always worth printing out a copy and showing to people for their opinion and then taking that feedback on board.

CV Tips: 10. Long Paragraphs

Put yourself in the shoes of the recruiter.  They want a nice punchy CV that quickly gives them all the info they need, they don’t want to plough through long paragraphs, nor will they probably have the patience to do so.

Your CV needs to be easy for the reader to scan and it should quickly get to the important meaty bits regarding your job history, skills and accomplishments.

Try and ensure that your paragraphs are relatively short and bulleted.  Use plenty of white space, which will make your CV easier to digest.

Thanks for reading Part 2.  You can find parts 3&4 below which includes tips on ensuring your CV is bespoke, the importance of a covering letter and how to tackle the employment gap on your CV.