CV - What NOT to do!

Whenever employers come onto campus, we take the opportunity to ask them what they like to see in a CV. They usually respond by telling us what they DON’T want to see!

Most employers take - on average - 6 seconds to do an initial read of a CV so you really don’t want to annoy them by not including the appropriate information or making your CV hard to follow.

Here are some tips from Ms Employer on how to make her happy, not grumpy, when reading your CV....

Your email address!

Have an email address that makes you sound professional - hotbabe@gmail.com - is not a good email address to use on your CV!

In fact, any Hotmail address sounds amateurish.

However, don’t use your uni email address either because employers want your external contact.

Think carefully about personal information

• Don’t mention your gender, age or star sign – but do include your visa status if you’re an international student
• Include your cell phone number - but make sure you've got a professional voice message on it. "You know what to do"... or a blast of music is hardly going to inspire confidence in you as an employee.

Career objective? Personal statement?

Only include a career objective if you can write something that does outline your career objective and shows why you're applying to the organisation - I don't need to read your life history or how much you love the company when you've never worked in it.

If I ask you for a personal statement, make sure you provide one that is only four to six lines and focuses on your personal skills and achievements. (see blog on Career Objectives and Personal Statements)

Make it easy to read

Use a font that is easy to read. Employers must be able to read your CV, just as they'll need to read text on any design you produce so if you need to show your creativity, make sure you pay attention to the the legibility of the content in the CV as well as how it looks!

Don’t use jargon and slang. This does not impress employers!

Don’t misspell. Don't rely on the computer spell check because it won't pick up misspellings such as 'principal' vs 'principle' or 'dear', 'dare', 'deer'. Get a human to read through your CV and cover letter.

NB: Misspelling is a particularly bad look if you’re declaring that you are attentive to detail.

Be clear about your work history

Employers are not detectives, so don’t expect them to figure out why there is a three year gap in your study or employment. Unexplained gaps make employers and recruiters suspicious. Time travelling, or looking after someone or redundancy or looking at career options are valid explanations.

Don’t make employers guess how long you spent at previous jobs – include months, not just a year, eg Feb 2021 – Aug 2021, not just the year 2021. Again, this can look as if you're hiding something.

Tell me what you achieved in a role, not the tasks you did. Employers know a cashier collects cash from customers, but did you meet targets? Get given extra responsibilities? Sort out complaints?

Be specific about your education

Employers don’t care if you were top at reading at primary school so leave out the primary school results. If you have a tertiary qualification, they don't need to know your NCEA results either. Nor do they want to read about every AUT paper you’ve ever studied BUT employers are keen to see that you've done papers or courses or seminars that are relevant to their organisation and the job

Please include your interests

Your interests love to see you’re someone with interests, that you are involved in life and hopefully have something to talk about in the lunch room or/and to clients.

However what you did at primary school is – sorry – of little interest - they don’t care about the marble comp you won as an 8 year old. However, if you did something at secondary school that shows you have empathy, can collaborate, have challenged yourself in some way, then yes, please include it.

And ...

Do not include a photo – I don’t want to be influenced by a photo of you when I haven’t read the rest of your CV (Ignore this point if you are applying for a job that requires you to be smartly dressed and visible to public, or an application that specifically asks for a photo)

Now, time to check back over your CV and get rid of all those irritants!

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  Want some help?

  AUT Employability runs workshops throughout the week on CV and cover letters, as well as networking, personal brands, LinkedIn profiles, job search etc for AUT students. There are also regular presentations from employers.

  Sign up to Elab Online to book a workshop or employer session. Not been on Elab Online before? It's easy. Simply click on the link, put in your student password and ID and you're there.

  Written by Angela McCarthy, AUT careers writer