Top 10 Ways for Your CV to Fail

The secret to gaining more job interviews is having a top notch CV that sell’s your key skills, strengths and qualities required by each individual employer. So, why do people remain unemployed after posting out their CV to hundreds of employers? Because your CV does not secure you job interviews and here’s why…
1. 6-8 page CV is to long and to boring “but I have so much experience that I need to share it…” I hear you shout. Job hunters often get carried away when recording their employment history, writing every single job duty they performed – keep your CV short and to the point, our research shows that employers prefer CVs to be one or two pages long.
2. Dirty Envelopes – The envelope is the first impression the employer has of you, if your envelope is clean and the address is centralised the employer wont even notice it. But when you have a dirty or scruffy envelope the employer will think “who is this guy? They haven’t even made an effort with the envelope”
3. Poor Eye Sight – I’m not saying if you have poor eye sight you wont gain interviews, but some job hunters knowing they have to keep their CV on 2 pages will use font size 10, 9 or even 8 – you wont get a job if the employer cant read your CV
4. Using hypnotic language – NLP and hypnotic language can really help during job interview, but on a CV it sounds really out of place “as you read this CV you feel a great urge to offer me the job..”
5. Adding a Picture – It is becoming more common to add a picture to your CV – But why? We don’t know many employers who offer interviews because of your picture; actually some research shows images repel employers. # images are required for Actor CV and for some Security Positions
6. Sending it alone – Never send your CV alone, now I don’t mean send some flowers as well, but you do need to send a Covering Letter with every CV. This is due to some organisations employing thousands of employees for a high number of different positions, how will they know which position you want to apply for without a covering letter?
7. One Line Profiles – The first section all employers read is the personal profile, this should be a detailed and targeted paragraph highlighting the skills and qualities you would bring to the employers organisation. Using a one line profile is equivalent to using a “yes” or “no” answer during a job interview
8. Coffee Stains – A guy recently wanted some advice on gaining job interviews, after a few questions I found that he was well experienced in his profession and had been applying for many jobs using his CV, which meant his CV needed improving. I asked him to show me his CV, which he did. To my surprise it had coffee stains along one side of the CV. I later found that he had printed 30 CVs split coffee on them and only binned the top 5 copies and sent the rest (and not as stained) copies out to employers – no wonder he was still unemployed
9. The Sample CV – People often use sample CVs or CV templates as a starting point for their CV, which is a good idea as long as you personalise your finished products. When using sample CVs ensure you send out your updated CV as a friend of mine spent 4 hours writing a CV only to send out the template she had downloaded of the internet to the employer
10. The Under Sell – If you wanted to sell a used car, what would you record in the advert “this car is real old and has rust under the wheel trim…” or “This is a reliable car with a full service history…” to sell anything you need to talk about the positives of the product you are selling. This is true with CV’s you need to really sell yourself making your CV stand out above the other 300 CV’s that the employer will receive