5 CVs/Résumés that Won’t Get you an Interview

You’ve been through our guides to CV creation like the good jobhunter you are, yet somehow that phone never rings.

WHY?

“Why don’t they call me, Robin?” you ask, desperately seeking Susan answers.

Well my friend, if you want your career to thrive, like Madonna’s acting career *cough* then beware of these fatal mistakes that are stopping you from getting that invitation to attend an interview.

FIVE MISTAKES

ONE CV

LET’S GO!

1 – A STUPID EMAIL ADDRESS

‘sexyrobin69er@….’ ‘ilovebeer@….’ ‘ministryofmayhem@….’ ‘doomed2death@….’ ‘ilikedrugs@….’ ‘bigtiddies@….’ ‘fuzzywumpkins@….’

STOP IT.

You might think it’s cute or funny, but as a potential employer I think it’s stupid and unprofessional and that’s exactly what I want, a stupid and unprofessional employee.

Get a professional email address, and sorry Hotmail users, simply having a Hotmail account can be detrimental to your search.

Get a Gmail account, get ‘firstname.lastname’ if you can, if not then something close (add a number or middle name if needed) add a professional image, only use it for job hunting.

Why?

Because your Google login is linked to everything else and they can search for you everywhere.

2 – YOU TITLED IT ‘CURRICULUM VITAE’

They know what it is. Don’t insult their intelligence and waste space that should be dedicated to demonstrating why you’d be a phenomenal choice for them to employ.

3 – BIG FAT LIES

Look, they do research you know? They check. They call past employers. They check dates. And if any of them don’t add up then you are not being invited to an interview, liar liar, pants on fire.

Trying to dupe me before we’ve even met? Into Organization File XIII with your CV.

4 – U.G.L.Y. YOU AIN’T GOT NO ALIBI – YOUR CV’S UGLY!

Make it pretty. There are hundreds of free and paid CV templates available (we just might have some coming soon…) so use one.

The days of a single column list of jobs you’ve done are over. Make it shine, make it professional, make it easy to read.

Don’t make my job difficult, as an employer I need to see your skills, contact details, jobs, education, and be able to read them, understand them, and know what you’re about.

A solid template, with slick formatting, iconography, headings. Oh man, that makes me like you that little bit more and your CV will head to the ‘to read properly’ pile.

5 – SPELLING MSITAKES

Seriously. No excuse. I don’t care if your spellcheck is full of custom words. I’m really sorry but at this stage I don’t care or even know if you’re dyslexic. I don’t know if English isn’t your first language. All I know is I want someone with attention to detail, who’s done a great job of convincing me to meet them.

Spellcheck it.

Grammarly is excellent for this.

Make sure it’s set to UK English if you’re in the UK. Make sure it’s set to American English if you’re in the States.

Then read it.

Get someone else to read it.

Read it again.

Take your time. A rushed CV is usually easy to spot by those careless whispers mistakes.

There we go folks, 5 CVs that won’t get you a call back and you’ll be stuck forever in that job you hate, languishing, wondering why no one ever invites you for an interview.

Avoid these mistakes, and go get that job!