A Curriculum Vitae is a document that provides an overview of a person’s career history i.e. career profile, education, work experience, skills and achievements. This information is essential to recruiters and therefore very important in the job application process. Here are a few suggestions of things or information you should not include.
- Career Objective – An objective is something that you work towards, a recruiter is interested to know what you have that may benefit them but not what you want to achieve, instead use a career profile. A career profile better highlights what the recruiter is looking for.
- Irrelevant Information – Understanding an applicant’s C.V. and career history is a time consuming but crucial part of the hiring process, if you put too much information the crucial information may go unnoticed by the recruiter, it’s important to concentrate on your relevant experiences, skills, education which will therefore be deemed relevant by applicant tracking systems in a job portal, additionally limit C.V. to 3 pages.
- Unnecessary Personal Information – Information e.g. marital status, religion, nationality, age, gender, may be unnecessary to the interviewer and could lead to discrimination instead concentrate more on information which highlights your experiences, skills and achievements.
- Poor Formatting – This can make an interviewer loose interest in reading your CV, using neat and proper formatting for paragraphs, headlines and bulleting of points can make a CV standout and a more compelling read, this will ensure a competitive advantage over your competitors (other job applicants) as it’s easily readable.
- Putting the Wrong Contact Information – It’s important to make sure? your contact details i.e. the phone number is correct,? before sending the application, this is where the hiring manager will reach out to you in case of shortlisting and you may miss the opportunity.
- Uploading a Profile Picture – Including a photo in a C.V. may cause bias or lead to hiring for the wrong reason, it’s important to avoid things that makes a recruiter get additional information that will interfere with their proper judgment in the hiring process, unless specifically requested do not include a photo. (Please note some jobs might require photos e.g. modelling)
- Spelling Mistakes – Lack of proofreading a CV can give a bad impression to the employer, and they may not trust in you to handle assigned tasks in regards to attention to detail. It’s important to create a good impression.
- Why you Left your Previous Job – How you left an organization is not important to include in a C.V. this is best handled at the interview. At the interview you will be able to better articulate reasons you left your last job. Avoid giving information that may disqualify you from being invited for an interview.
- Use Unprofessional/ Inappropriate Email Addresses – Creating an email address with nick names like [email protected] or [email protected] may be unprofessional unless applying for a dj job, it’s good to use your official names when creating an email account to use in applying for jobs.
- Salary – Mentioning your salary expectations can reduce your chances of being invited for an interview, do not include such information unless they have requested you to include it in the C.V.? Your salary expectation quoted may be a little less or more compared to what the company is offering leading to mismatch. It’s always best to leave room for negotiation and deliberation.
In conclusion, a C.V is a very effective tool in the job application process, incorporating the above tips will garner you more interviews, remember the ultimate purpose of the C.V. is to compel or convince the recruiter to invite you for an interview, additionally it is VERY IMPORTANT to pay attention to the application instructions highlighted in the job advert.
