These mistakes will land your CV on the 'no' pile

Your curriculum vitae (CV) is your gateway to potential employers, making it crucial to ensure it leaves a positive impression. Serving as a snapshot of your career journey, an unprofessional or unclear CV can swiftly land your application in the rejection pile. Swiss recruitment specialist Robert Walters outlines 6 common CV blunders and how to avoid them.

Typos and grammar mistakes

You will be surprised how many CVs come in with numerous typos, misspellings and other basic grammatical errors. With a little effort and time, these can be easily avoided. If you submit a CV with mistakes, you will come across as careless and unprofessional.

To avoid this, check your CV carefully before sending it. Spell-checking software can pick out some errors, but it is not foolproof, so ask for a second opinion just to be sure. 

Inaccurate correct contact details

A CV with inaccurate contact details is very frustrating for a recruiter, particularly when it is a great CV with a potential employee for the company he’s recruiter for.

Make sure your email, phone number and address details are all correct, otherwise you might miss out on your dream job.

Visual presentation 

Of course, you want to distinguish yourself from the other candidates with your CV, but you don't want your CV to stand out for the wrong reasons. A casual picture of yourself and using unusual fonts or chaotic formatting will not catch the attention of a recruiter and/or employer in the right way.

Make sure the words speak for themselves. Use a neutral font and make sure the design of your CV is not cluttered and looks professional.

Lack of detail

When employers look at your CV, they want to know what you have achieved in your career so far and how and why this is relevant. Your potential future employer will appreciate it if you include several useful and necessary details in support. 

Evaluate the quality of your CV content by checking whether the following 4 items are clearly stated:

• What position you held

• What your responsibilities were

• What you achieved...

• ...And the benefit this gave your employer 

Long sentences

Avoid using overly long words and extended sentences, as you risk making your CV harder to read and overshadowing your actual achievements. Instead, use bullet points: these help present the information you want to share in a clear and structured way.

After you have written your CV, check whether you can shorten the information so that the whole thing is easier to digest.

A 'one size fits all' CV

Employers usually quickly toss generic, 'standard' CVs into the bin. Recruitment managers are looking for tailor-made CVs that explain exactly why - in terms of achievements and accomplishments in previous positions - the person is suitable for the job.

When writing your CV, it is helpful to have the job description at hand and look critically at what you write. Every word should convince the recruiter that he or she should interview you. 

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