Four Mistakes to Avoid Making on Your CV
Written by Valentine Fabre
The end of the year and the slowed job market ahead of the festive season is the perfect time to reflect on what may or may not have worked in your job search. A good place to start this reflection is your CV, often your first introduction to potential employers and hiring managers, which requires astute attention and consideration.
Here are a few common mistakes people make on their résumés, and how to avoid them.
Complex Formatting
Fashion universities as well as brands encourage candidates to express their personality and taste in their CVs to stand out from the crowd. Although a creative CV may seem like the way to go, it might actually cost you interview invites. This is because companies often use a software called Applicant Tracking System (ATS) that automates the first selection round.
ATS software is usually quite sensitive to formatting and struggles to process creative CVs — particularly if you design yours using Adobe. To increase the chance of your documents passing that initial screening and being seen by a human member of the team, ensure your résumé is neat, straightforward and can be easily understood by both the machine and the hiring manager, who, on average, will spend eight seconds reviewing each CV.
Not Using Bullet Points
In line with formatting your CV, the way you describe past experiences is essential to ensure that your profile will be understood, and read in full. Although paragraphs are better for conveying a story, ATS systems struggle to decipher them, and hiring managers who are pressed for time will lose interest reading them.
Opt for bullet points to break down your professional history. Include power verbs (‘develop’ instead of ‘made’ or ‘operate’ instead of ‘use’) that communicate your message more confidently, as well as provide quantifiable evidence that your experience has given you the necessary skills for the position.
Here is an example:
General Manager, Louis Vuitton
Oversee day-to-day operations, including administrative duties
Provided support to ensure internal employees growth as well as store productivity which increased by 5%)
Prepare regular reports for upper management while improving operational efficiency
Led recruitment and maintained budgets and optimised expenses
Making your CV Too Long or Too Short
Finding the right length might be tricky, as making it too long or too short can reduce your chances of landing an interview. A good rule of thumb is to ensure the length of your CV correlates to your level of education and experience — do not send through multiple pages if you are a recent graduate, or less than a page if you have been working in the industry for years.
A good CV should be between one and two pages in length and only include relevant information and descriptions. Check with peers, lecturers and mentors what recruiters in certain companies or for specific functions expect to receive to make sure you are aligned with industry standards.
Not Tailoring Your CV
Finally, as each position and company is unique, sending the same CV to apply for every position will highly reduce your chances of succeeding. A hiring manager will be able to identify when a résumé has been sent in bulk, making it essential to take the time to tailor it to the position and brand you are applying for.
Read the job description thoroughly and detect the keywords within it you can use on your CV. If you have a considerable amount of experience, only include the most relevant ones and highlight what makes them relevant to the position in question.
Find some CV samples and get yours reviewed by one of our industry experts directly on The Glowth Academy.
Written by Valentine Fabre