CV mistakes you should not be making
Muyiwa Oyadiaro
Muyiwa is a recruitment officer at ICS Limited. You can read more on the job portal icsjobportal, a leading job site in Nigeria. You can follow @icslimited for more information about career development and tips.
Curriculum Vitae, commonly referred to as “CV”, is usually the first chance you have to make a good impression on recruiters or head hunters. Mess it up and you are usually screened off before the job selection process begins.
Make a good case of it and you have scaled the first hurdle in your job hunt. Because your CV is crucial to the success of your job seeking, it is important that you learn how to write a good CV and avoid making some common mistakes we find a lot of job seekers making today.
There is usually no hard and fast rule about writing a good CV but at ICS Limited, where thousands of recruiting take places every year, we generally see these common mistakes.
A candidate found this out the hard way. In her interest segments, she listed one of her interests as cooking dogs and interesting people. Whatever that means!
So what are some of CV mistakes we see job seekers make every day?
1 – Submitting a Handwritten CV
Let me share this true story with you. A job seeker came into our office one day and actually submitted a handwritten CV. A major disaster. It is wrong to submit a handwritten CV in this digital where technology has come to rule, except the advert expressly asks you to or you’re applying for unskilled positions, say Driver.
Immediately we got this CV, we thought the job seeker was probably a little misguided. So we took our time to go through it. Guess what? The job seeker is a university graduate from one of the universities in the country.
2 – Submitting a Scanned CV
You might often be asked to send your CV in soft copy for a number of reasons. It is therefore a wrong idea to send a scanned copy of your CV. Rather, have your CV in a soft copy either in word format or a PDF format so you can always forward it whenever you are asked to do so.
When you scan documents, there is usually a probability it is not going to come out well or the person at the other end might be unable to view it clearly. Since your CV is actually one of the documents required during the job selection process, it is important you present it in a proper way.
3 -Poor Formatting
POOR FORMATTING CAN RENDER YOUR CV ILLEGIBLE. POOR FORMATTING AND WRITING STYLES ALSO COVER WRITING EVERYTHING IN CAPS, USING INAPPROPRIATE FONTS ETC.
How did you find reading the above paragraph? So imagine all this post is written in all caps.
That is what poor formatting and writing in all caps can do to you. So make sure you present your CV in a readable format. Pay great attention to font type, sentence case and make sure your tenses are appropriate. Do not use past tense where you should use present tense, etc.
4 -Name and email missing
This is rare, but we have actually seen it happen. About a few months back, one of my friends asked me to review the CV of a particular friend who had being job hunting and submitting her CV but not getting any feedback.
So I asked for the CV to be forwarded to me. The first thing I noticed was that the name and email were actually missing from the CV. With these crucial information missing, there was no way I could contact her to inform her about any mistake or error on her CV.
If you have been submitting your CVs and you don’t get called for an interview, it might just be that you have missing contact information or incorrect details. Take a moment back to check your CV for this crucial part of your CV.
5 – Chronological order
Curriculum Vitae is a Latin word which means “course of life”. A CV is used to summarize the course of your career life. As a result, it is proper to present your CV in chronological order. Whichever segment of your CV you are working on, make they are arranged in chronological order.
6 – Exaggerating roles and opportunities
We get it. You want to make an impression with your CV. In trying to do so, some people exaggerate their roles, opportunities and even salary. While it is proper to establish and make sure your accomplishments stand out, it is usually not a good thing to exaggerate such accomplishments. Most times, the recruiters spot cock and bull stories when they see one!
In the process of garnishing your CV, you might also have come across as over qualified for that role you are applying for.
Also, most employers will not want employees who have not even gotten a job and have started lying. It is unethical to lie on your CV or at any time during your job search.
Conclusion
Your CV is the first impression prospective employers have about you. Make it count.
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This site is very encouraging and it is a potential leading site for serious youth. let’s make the best use of it. thanks to the author (s)