In fact, you might not even get a job!
- Your CV is not getting you shortlisted.
- No shortlisting opportunities, no job!
I could do a mic drop right here because essentially, this is what will prevent you from finding a new career path and getting a new job. But let’s dig deeper…
Does your CV template prevent you from being shortlisted?
There is one thing having a professional looking CV with an attractive template but there is a point where the template becomes an inhibitor. As a leadership, life and career coach and professional CV writer, let me share some expertise so you can avoid a common issue.
The internet is full of pretty designs and CV templates offering a great range of choice; this is brilliant. But it also distracts people from the real function of their CV – to get a job interview offer.
Often the prettiest designs are 1-page CV templates; a standard CV length is 2-pages.
Problem #1 – someone with 2-page content selects the 1-page design instead of searching for an appropriate 2-page template. As their content does not fit, they delete content!
Deleting relevant content over design is crazy. Recruiters are not selecting on the prettiest template criteria – they are seeking someone with relevant skills and experience.
If you want a job, select an appropriate template and prioritise high-quality, relevant content over pretty designs. There are plenty of attractive templates to select – it simply needs to be professional, not fancy.
Does your experience meet the criteria?
Think of it like a quiz with the answers provided. If you were going to win a £1 million for answering 10 questions and you had the answer book in front of you, would you use it? Yes? Sensible option!
Yet when it comes to getting a job, there are still too many applicants who completely disregard the criteria set out in the job advert that helps answer what content in their CV is relevant.
The result – a load of irrelevant content that doesn’t match the role specifications – and the result of that, no job interview!
Your experience should not be a list of tasks, nor a dialogue about how much you enjoyed doing things or who you liked working with. Example:
“This role was very exciting as I was able to combine my love of helping with digital marketing. I enjoyed working with the boss, who was very caring and kind, and like marketing and harnessing my inner creativity to make something great!”
How does this match the person specification for a digital marketing role? The answers were given:
- Significant experience of managing digital marketing campaigns in complex organisational and devolved environment
- Demonstrated success in building brand presence online
- Experience of policy & strategy making
- Well-developed people management skills and experience of managing cross-functional project teams
And so on…
Not be unkind, but recruiter doesn’t care in the least whether the applicant had a caring and kind boss – it is not relevant to the role requirements.
The simple formula is this:
- What is your RELEVANT experience?
- What did you do / lead / manage / create, etc?
- What IMPACT did it have?
When you apply relevant content and prioritise this above everything else, you are far more likely to be shortlisted for interview – which means that your CV has done its job taking you one step closer to getting the job you want!
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