The 5 Top Reasons Your CV Gets Shredded Number 4

Right. Your CV looks good and you have cleaned up your social media act. You have made sure there are no ‘omissions’ or errors on your CV.

That’s not enough though. It’s enough to make sure your CV gets more than a cursory glance sure enough.

But what you do need to do now is make sure that the information that is most relevant to the employer / agency – is quite obvious and in the right place. So – for example – unless you are a recent school leaver or a specific qualification is essential for the role applied for DO NOT under any circumstances list all your O levels or GCSE’s at the beginning of your CV

Why not?

Well – you have about 5 – 10 seconds of the readers attention, to decide if your CV is worth reading. They will scan for the reasons already mentioned in the previous 3 posts and if you pass that test they will have a quick look at the detail. Do you really want to waste 5 seconds of that on your qualifications that were some years ago and have no direct relevance to anything (even if you are very proud of your A star in Physics).

No – the most relevant things are your most recent experience – so concentrate a good half a page on your current / most recent role.

This next point is so important – you might want to make a note of it.

With this – your CV will be taken as a serious contender for the role you have applied for. Without this – you are just one of a number of CV’s that ‘might’ be suitable and when it gets down to final screening you might not get into the golden short list.

What am I referring to?

I’m talking about you telling me why I should employ you, and not just relating what you have done.

What do I mean by that?

Well it is the difference between describing your talks and your achievements.

An average CV will say something like ….

In this role I had to create programs in Java, test them and roll out the finished software”.

It would be far better to say…

The company was having an issue with X. I created some java programming that meant the system could do Y. I then tested it and rolled it out to all users which created a time saving of Z.
Always try and answer the “so what” question in your CV Readers mind.

Who cares what you did – so what? I’m not being rude, but really – SO WHAT? Your potential employer needs to know what value you added, not what tasks you completed that they could hire ANYBODY to do.

So – once you have jumped over hurdles 1,2 and 3 and made sure you are maximising on the opportunity in 4 – what is the 5th biggest reason your CV ends up in the Shredder?

Click here for part 4