Job hunters across the UK are at risk of jeopardising their career opportunities by making small mistakes on their CV. This is according to the latest research from CV-Library, which finds that many candidates’ CVs include spelling mistakes, unrelated skills and irrelevant information, which is pushing businesses to breaking point.
According to the study from the UK’s leading independent job site, which surveyed 200 recruiters on their CV pet peeves, the top ten areas which put organisations off a candidate straight away, include spelling mistakes (71 per cent), with being massively under-qualified for the role (62.6 per cent), listing unrelated skills (40.6 per cent) and having too many jobs over a short period of time (22.6 per cent) following behind.
A CV that is more than two pages long (16.1 per cent) is a big negative point for recruiters, as is including a picture (14.2 per cent) and littering your CV with buzzwords (12.9 per cent).
Propping up the top ten list is having a CV that is ‘too creative’ (12.9 per cent), not having a cover letter, even when the application requires one (7.1 per cent) and not having any social media presence (1.9 per cent).
Lee Biggins, founder and managing director of CV-Library, comments, ‘It can be all too easy to fire out a generic CV, and unfortunately, many candidates do not understand the importance of tweaking their profile for each different role they apply for.
‘The job market is extremely competitive right now, and if job hunters want to stand-out from the crowd, they need to consider the recruiter scanning through their CV at the other end, and think about how their skills and experience will be viewed.’
The research compliments another study conducted by CV-Library in 2016, which finds that recruiters believe that the following sections are most irrelevant: photos (25.85 per cent), jargon (18.6 per cent), hobbies (10.8 per cent), an outdated employment history (9.9 per cent) and unnecessarily big words (7.7 per cent).
Biggins continues, ‘We often find that candidates will try to come across in a professional manner by using jargon or unnecessarily big words, when really, we just want to know what they’ve worked on previously and what they can bring to the table for their next role. While all recruitment professionals will want to see that the candidate is human and does enjoy activities outside of work, that doesn’t mean listing every hobby that they’ve ever done!
‘The best CVs are the ones that are concise, have a short opening paragraph to introduce themselves, and are followed up with a clear layout demonstrating why they’re best suited for the role.’
Further reading on a good CV
