Reasons why your application is getting rejected

Many of us spend hours writing a CV, so it can be frustrating when you get no response from employers. The experience is common among job seekers, but don’t worry! Take a look through these common mistakes and take it into your own hands to take steps to improve your CV and job-hunting approach… a simple change might start landing you worthy interviews!

This is the first thing an employer will see so a weak opening paragraph is unlikely to mean you’ll get put to the top of the pile. Generally, an employer will look at a CV for an average of 7 seconds before they make a decision. Therefore, this initial paragraph is super important to get right.

Clichés such as ‘I am hard-working’ or ‘I work well in a team’ will be seen in almost every CV the employer has been given. Therefore, a snappy introduction to include how you have excelled in your career and what hard skills you have to bring to your new role is likely to grab more attention. Take your time on this section, it can be tricky but you want it to be right.

As recruiters, we come across spelling and grammar mistakes regularly. We are all only human so mistakes are made but it is likely to put an employer off, especially if it is a role that relies heavily on attention to detail. We would recommend that you check over your CV several times and then copy and paste it into a grammar software (Grammarly is great for this) to ensure it is as mistake free as possible. It is also worth getting someone else to look over it to ensure they don’t spot any mistakes that might have been missed.

Most companies recruiting are only interested in relevant jobs you have had in the past 5-10 years, and it is most likely that your previous two positions will be the reason you will get hired for your next role.

So, don’t elaborate too much! 2 full pages is the maximum, but 1 full page is recommended. Use as much space as you can on the page but don’t make it cluttered. Before altering your CV, write down 5 achievements, skills or anything unique about you that makes you stand out against other candidates. Any jobs older than 10 years ago that aren’t relevant to the role you’re applying for can just be listed rather than elaborated on.

Artistic CVs are great if you are applying for a creative role, but they won’t suit every opportunity. Instead, use a black standard font and one other colour if you wish to highlight information. Also, use a standard font such as Calibri, Arial or similar. Avoid hard to read fonts.

The format should also be readable, the hiring manager doesn’t want to piece it all together when it should be done already. It’s not only the poor formatting that puts off recruiters and hiring managers but also job boards such as indeed or reed as they struggle to correctly display a poorly formatted CV.

Keywords are critical in order to help you get your CV noticed by employers. Recruiters especially, will use software such as reed or LinkedIn to find you, but they can’t find you if you have no keywords on your CV even if you are the perfect applicant for the role. So, if you are applying for a marketing role for example, then you will need keywords such as social media, content creating, SEO, PPC, data and analytics.

These are just a few reasons why your CV might not be getting through to the next stage, but there are also other factors to check, for example, is your contact information up to date? Do you have a silly email address you created years ago? Address all the reasons one by one and think to yourself, if you didn’t know the person behind the CV would you hire you?