What Happens When The Opportunity Comes, And Your CV Is Not Ready

Derick Misango did not come to me with a long story.

He came with one sentence.

“I just failed a background check on a role I really wanted, and I think my CV had something to do with it.”

He sat down, and I asked him to explain.

It turned out not to be a background check. It was a skills assessment that the company had sent after reviewing his application. He had sailed through it; he got top scores and was very confident about getting the role. The hiring manager had called him personally to say he was impressed.

Then they had gone back to his CV. And something had not added up.

He was a graphic designer and A really good one. he had mastered all the important tools in the Adobe suite and more, even the ones he rarely uses. Knowledge is important, he kept on saying.

His portfolio was even better, it described his extensive clientele, his quotation and all the amazing infographics, motion graphics, you name it, he had come up with. He had designed a campaign for a nonprofit that had been picked up and shared by two large media outlets without any paid promotion. Just the work itself was enough to travel for.

He had also quietly built a small base of freelance clients on the side, one of whom had referred him to two others, purely on the strength of what he had delivered.

Four years with Real work to show for it. The kind that showed up in the world and did something. But Derick wanted more; he was looking into changing his employment from freelance to full-time, so it was time to switch things up. He started applying to several jobs he knew he qualified for.

Again and again, no one responded. The last interview was the last straw that made him find his way to my office.

The Problem Was Not His Portfolio

As I said earlier, His portfolio was excellent. That was never in question.

The problem was that his CV and his portfolio were telling two completely different stories.

His portfolio showed someone with a sharp eye, with creativity beyond compare. His work made a difference and made an impact; somehow, his CV could not translate it totally.

His CV described someone who “assisted in the development of visual content and supported brand consistency across various platforms.”

Assisted. Supported. Various platforms. Those were the words used to describe his work, nothing brilliant about that sentence and yet that was what recruiters were seeing.

The hiring manager had looked at the portfolio and thought, this person is exactly what we need. Then he had gone back to the CV to confirm it and found someone who sounded like a junior designer helping out on the edges of other people’s work.

The two did not match. And from my experience, when two things do not match in a hiring process, doubt creeps in, and the person ends up looking fraudulent; that kind of risk is something recruiters don’t take.

That doubt had cost Derick the role.

Derick used an AI tool to quickly write his CV. He felt like his work should speak for itself. The portfolio was there. Anyone who looked at it would understand what he was capable of. The CV felt almost unnecessary.

So he had treated it as almost unnecessary. He had written it quickly, used careful language, and moved on.

Bottomline

If you are a creative, you might believe, the way Derick did, that your portfolio is doing all the heavy lifting.

Your CV is the story that frames everything else. It shapes how your work gets evaluated before anyone has even opened the first page of your portfolio. You made the work. Your CV should own it.

Click here to get started. Let us make sure your CV and your portfolio are telling the same story.