4 Warning Signs Your CV is the Reason You are not Getting Interviews

By Selipha Kihagi

Do you apply for numerous jobs but never get invited for a job interview? Are employers and recruiters not responding your job applications? Is your job search process resulting into constant frustrations?

You are not alone!

Many people complain about not hearing back after a job application.

You send in your CV for a job you believe you meet qualifications for, only never to get a reply. When this continues for months or even years, you start to wonder what could be wrong.

In this post, I shall focus on one of the common reasons job seekers don’t get called for interviews. There are various reasons why, but today’s focus will be on your CV.

Remember that a CV is the one document that matters most during a job application.

It chronicles your career history and tells recruiters if you are qualified for a position or not. It’s then only natural that it should be faultless, deliver on requirements and effectively communicate your suitability.

Here are 4 Signs Your CV is Costing You Job Interviews & What to Do

1. It uses paragraphs instead of lists

How do you describe your previous roles? How do you tell the recruiter about the duties and responsibilities you held? Do you use paragraphs or lists?

If you use paragraphs to explain what you did in your previous positions, you are going about CV writing all wrong. Employers and recruiters don’t have time to read through a long paragraph of text.

They want to see your duties and responsibilities in bullet points, just like they appear in the Job Description.

Using lists makes your CV easier to read, highlights the most important aspects of your experience, and appeals more to employers and recruiters.

It also makes it easy for someone to see your qualifications. If you have been using paragraphs, start using bulleted lists from today onwards.

Read Also >>> How to Write a Great CV

2. Important employment details are missing

While education plays an important role in the recruitment process, your experience is the most important factor. An employer will hire someone who lacks the education but has experience, and will disregard someone with top education but lacks in experience.

This then means that your CV must be clear on previous employment details. Under your work experience section, ensure you include these details for every position held;

• Job Title
• Period worked (e.g 6 months or 1 year 3 months)
• Start and End Dates
• Name of Company where you worked
• Duties & Responsibilities
• At least 2 achievements

3. It lacks keywords for the job in question

In a previous post here, I mentioned the importance of using keywords in your CV. It is not enough that you send in a CV as an application for a new job opening, it needs to also match the job in question.

To achieve this, minor editing should be done to include similar terms as those used in the job description.

But don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that you should lie about your qualifications or include terms you are not familiar with.

What this means is that you should consider using synonyms and related terms. Job titles differ from one company to the other, but the duties and responsibilities are relatively the same.

So instead of having the job title assigned to you on the CV, consider tweaking or adding the title given in the Job description. As long as your duties match, you should be good. It’s a proven trick that works well in getting recruiters to read on.

See Also >>>How a Professional CV Helped Me Change Jobs

4. It lists your entire career history instead of the most important details

Yes, a Curriculum Vitae is a document that highlights your career history. But this does not mean you include each and every role you have held. This would result to a very lengthy CV that ends up confusing recruiters instead of impressing them.

Regardless of your years of experience, try and make your CV 2-3 pages. Those very experienced may feel the need to have more pages, but try to make it as short as possible.

Why? A short document that goes straight to the point communicates better than a lengthy one.

Remember that recruiters only need a few seconds to decide if you warrant an interview or not. Make sure you communicate your experience in the first page of the document.

In the End

These four signs are only focused on your CV. They are probably not new to you, and you’ve probably heard about them more than you want. But many job seekers are still failing at it and losing out on jobs they meet qualifications for.

Don’t become one of these job seekers. 

Focus on changing your job interview odds by having your CV professionally written. You can use available guides on the internet, or have a professional do it for you for a small fee.

For professional assistance, get in touch with our CV writing department by emailing cvwriting@corporatestaffing.co.ke