Common Mistakes on Your CV
Your CV is the first step towards moving forward with your career, it represents you before you get a chance to represent yourself and tells a potential employer who you are and why you should be chosen to fulfill a role. Understandably creating your CV can be an anxiety-inducing chore with a lot of room for error. The GRS team has been helping people kick-start their career and move up the ranks for many years during which thousands of CVs have arrived in our inboxes. Here are the most common mistakes you may be making on your CV, let’s fix them up and get you ready for your next big job.
Leaving Typos and Grammatical Errors
This might seem obvious but you’d be surprised at how many people send their CVs out without proof reading them. Even if you are not applying for a role in writing, mistakes on your CV show lack of commitment, slacking off and delivering an incomplete job. Proof-read your CV several time until you are 100% sure it is free of mistakes.
Using a One-For-All Approach
Once you’ve finalised the perfect CV, it’s easy to use it time and again for every role out there. That is one big mistake! For every position you must highlight the skills and positions which appeal to that specific role. This does not mean lying about your capabilities but simply optimising your CV to fit the position you are aspiring for.
Example: a Marketing Executive who has experience in Social Media, Digital Marketing, Website Management and Content Management applying for the ‘Head of Marketing’ position would customise their CV to focus on their Digital Marketing and Managerial skills to sell themselves as a Marketing leader. The rest of their marketing knowledge is there to support them but not the focus of their CV.
Highlighting Duties Instead of Accomplishments
Most people focus on the duties of their previous roles rather than their accomplishments. This makes you one of hundreds of people who have performed these duties without giving any reason as to why your experience with these duties makes you stand out. Instead highlight your accomplishments.
Example: replace “Managed the company’s social media channels” with “Increased the company’s social media following by 45% within 3 months.” The former is simply the description of the role while the latter tells your potential employer how successful you were in that role and what you could achieve for them.
Overloading Your CV With Information
It is very tempting to show off all the many jobs you’ve done in your career and this is exactly what most people do. You may think it’s impressive that you have 13 jobs behind you – even though only 5 of them are relevant for the new job – but your potential employer feels like he or she is wasting time reading your CV. Instead highlight the roles which are relevant for the current position you are applying for to impress your potential employer and catch their attention.
Adding Your Skills at the End of the CV
Old school CVs saved a small section at the very end for skills such as Microsoft Word and Internet Savvy. A powerful CV showcase skills like Leadership, Time Management or Operation Management at the very beginning of the CV. This way if you have skills relevant to the role, you’ve already impressed your potential employer regardless of your job experience.
Trying Too Hard to Impress
With a lot of competition it’s easy to go overboard trying to make your CV stand out, but too many visuals can over complicate your CV and work against you. Keep it simple, don’t overdo the design – unless you are a designer using your CV to showcase your work – and remember the easier it is for HR to spot your skills and strong points the more likely you are to be called in for an interview.
If you are still having a hard time fixing up your CV speak with GRS and our team of experts will connect you with your next big job.