Westray Recruitment View more

The Most Common CV Mistakes

COMMON CV MISTAKES

Think of your CV as your life profile, this is prime opportunity to sell yourself and give an employer an immediate first impression. Here at Westray Recruitment Consultants we encounter simple yet easily corrected mistakes on a daily basis, check out some of the most common CV mistakes below to ensure you stand out from other candidates.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS:

Although the employer won’t initially meet you face-to-face, the very first impression they will have of you is your CV, including the layout, context, experience and contact details.

A simple tip is to include personal hobbies or interests as this is a great way to find common ground with a potential employer and is a great conversation starter. This also shows your personality and gives an impression of the type of person you are. Keep this simple, bullet pointed and not in too much detail. Employers don’t need to know the name of your dog or intricate details of what you do in your spare time but a brief overview can help you stand out.

CONTACT DETAILS:

It may sound silly, but ensuring you have the right contact details on your CV is crucial. If the potential employer can’t get in touch with you to organise an interview or discuss your skills and experience, the opportunities will pass by.

Common mistakes are email addresses spelt incorrectly or a mobile number missing digits, all of these small errors can cost you interviews and potential employment.

EXPERIENCE:

Your job history is essential for your CV, as without this, employers won’t know how your experience will fit their vacancy. A lot of people will send a CV without any information regarding their duties in previous jobs, making it difficult to understand if your experience matches their requirements.

Another common mistake is missing dates from employment, it’s important for employers to know how long you occupied a job for and the reasons for leaving, including any gaps in employment.

All details of your experience must be explained, including company name, job title, type of role, dates and relevant responsibilities and duties. Including key achievements as another way to help your experience stand out.

THE LAYOUT:

Keeping the layout of your CV simple but effective is important to employers, a CV that is difficult to read could mean they may not read the entire document. Bullet points are a great way to ensure all relevant details are included in the most visually appealing way.

Choosing the right font is also important in order to keep the attention of the reader. Keep it simple and at a reasonable size, a font too small can be hard to read, but a font that is too big is distracting and unnecessary.

The design of your CV should be kept simple as employers usually aren’t interested in who can design the best CV. As long as it includes all the right information, is grammatically correct and explains your job history, they don’t need to see colourful designs or a photo in the corner. However, this may not be relevant if you’re applying for a creative role as expectations may be different.

GRAMMAR:

This is important for many reasons including first impression, professionalism and effort. A lot of people don’t use, or are unaware of the tools we have available to us which can be the most simple yet most common mistake. Technology allows us to use spell check to revise grammar, so we need to take advantage of this. Even having the CV looked over by a pair of fresh eyes can be highly beneficial, regardless of your level of experience. This can be also relevant for cover letters, social media posts or personal statements, anything that is being read by someone else must always be proofread.

Here at Westray we have experienced consultants to help you to apply for your next role and who are happy to help with any queries when applying for our roles. Please feel free to get in touch via our website or call us on 0191 492 6622 and good luck with your job search!

More blog posts

Upload your CV

Thank you for uploading your cv!

A representative from Westray will be in touch with you shortly.