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Your CV is your marketing brochure through which you try to
sell a commodity i.e. yourself to the potential buyer i.e. the prospective
employer.
The sole purpose of your CV is to fetch you an interview call. Nothing more,
nothing less. So, make sure that you send out your best CV to the prospective
employers.
Here are certain things which put the recruiters off but are seen on many CVs.
Make sure that you do not commit these mistakes in the most valuable document
of your job hunt. But again, these are not the lines carved on a stone.
At times you will need to break the rules and go against them. If you want to
add these things knowingly and purposefully to your CV we advise you to do
that.
The things mentioned here are not listed in the order of priority rather they
are listed in the sequence as they usually appear in a CV.
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Colorful or glossy paper and flashy fonts- Your CV is a formal, official
document. Keep it simple.
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Resume or CV on the top- Many people have a habit of giving a heading to their
CV. The usual ones are CV, Curriculum Vitae, Resume. Do not do this. These put
the recruiters off.
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Photographs until asked- Do not add your photo to the CV until you have been
asked for it. Photographs are required only for certain types of positions like
models, actors etc.
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Usage of ‘I’, ‘My’, ‘He’, ‘She’-Do not use these in your CV. Many candidates
write, ‘I worked as Team Leader for the XYZ Company’ or ‘He was awarded Best
Employee for the year 2007’. Usage of ‘I’ and related terms makes you look
egomaniac in your CV.
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Spelling mistakes and grammatical errors- Proof read your CV until you are
confident that it doesn’t have any spelling mistakes or grammatical errors.
They are big put offs for the recruiters. Moreover, sometimes these mistakes
might land you up in an embarrassing situation. A candidate who submitted his
CV without being proof read committed a mistake of wrongly spelling ‘ask’ as
‘ass’. Now you can imagine the type of embarrassment he must have faced during
the interview, when the interviewer pointed it out. These mistakes convey your
lazy and careless attitude to the interviewer.
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Lies about your candidature- Do not lie about your past jobs or qualifications
or anything which might have an impact up on the job. You may be able to secure
a job with these lies today but tomorrow you may lose it as well.
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Abbreviations or jargons that are difficult to understand- People screening
your resume usually belong to the HR department. If they do not understand what
the abbreviations and jargons mean, they will simply dump your CV in the trash
can. So, avoid over usage of such terms.
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Reasons for leaving the last jobs- Leave them to be discussed during the
personal interview. For example, some candidates write, Reason for leaving the
last job: Made Redundant. Avoid making such statements in your CV.
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Any past failures or health problems- Mentioning these would reduce your
chances of getting an interview call. Suppose if you have a gap in your
employment because you started your own business which did not do well. In this
case, some candidates might write, Reason for gap in employment: Started own
business which did not do well. Do not do this type of injustice with your job
hunt at this stage of writing the CV.
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Current or expected salary- Leave it to be discussed while negotiating the
salary.
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Irrelevant details- Leave out the details like marital status, sex, passport
number, number of kids, age of kids. These are usually irrelevant for the
interviewers but at times might be used as a basis of discrimination.
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References- Do not include them until asked. It is not even required to mention
the line “Reference available on request”
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