In today’s world, the writing of a CV has become a very serious affair that requires numerous data components and a lot of attention to detail to avoid hiring managers putting your CV in the bin the second they pick it up. To make sure an employer wants to even glance at your precious CV, it must be as close as it can be to perfection in the hope they will match your enthusiasm for your own CV when reading it for the first time. To make a CV capable of catching the eye of any recruiter is a skill that requires numerous hours of fine tuning and precision.
Being too generic and forceful
When someone seeks to find examples of successful CV’s in the past, they will most often find CV’s that have been filled with superlative adjectives for every job experience and skill acquired by an individual. Whilst this enabled the candidate to fill up their A4 page very quickly, it did not actual explain in fine detail what he had actually accomplished in his job position, other than his eagerness to learn as many adjective that would define him in a grand manner! In 2019, this type of approach must be avoided at all cost as recruiters no longer seek out paragraphs full of adjectives, but concrete understanding of your past experiences and how you have learnt and developed skills upon them. This may seem easy to translate however in practice it is a time consuming exercise to make sure an employer is conveyed the right message. Furthermore, when a candidate is writing a CV for the first time or adjusting it for a job description, it must keep in mind that it is facing hundreds of other individuals for the same role. Asking questions about yourself as to why you should and shouldn’t get the job are great starting points to finetune your CV.
Make sure to mention appropriate skills
Another common mistake made when writing up a CV is to mention numerous unnecessary accomplishments or hobbies which may add no value to your application. There is no purpose in mentioning a music achievement at school if you are applying for an investment bank with a requirement for strong maths and a very good academic background. Furthermore, hobbies which are completely unrelated to your job application or which could not determine a certain skill or ability in conjunction with any future application should not be included to make sure the recruiter doesn’t get distracted.
