Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Your CV is your marketing brochure through which you try to sell a commodity, ie your skills to
the potential buyer ie the prospective employer. The sole purpose of your CV is to fetch you an
interview call. Nothing more, nothing less.
However, creating a CV isn't as simple as just using flowery language and pretty fonts. There are
certain things that put recruiters off and if you want to make a good impression, make sure you do
not commit these mistakes in what is arguably the most valuable document of your job hunt.
While the rules listed are well-founded, they are not carved in stone. At times you will need to
break the rules. If you want to add these things knowingly and purposefully to your CV we advise
you to do that.
The points mentioned here are not listed in the order of priority; instead they are listed in the
sequence in which they usually appear on a CV.
A candidate who submitted his CV without proofreading it committed the mistake of wrongly
spelling 'ask' as 'ass'. Now you can imagine the type of embarrassment he must have faced
during the interview, when the interviewer pointed it out. These mistakes tend to convey a lazy
and careless attitude to the interviewer.
For instance, you have a gap in your employment because you started your own business which
did not do well. Some candidates might write -- Reason for gap in employment: Started own
business which failed. Do not do this type of injustice with your job hunt at this stage of writing the
CV.
~ Irrelevant details
Leave out the details like marital status, sex, passport number, number of kids, age of kids. These
are usually irrelevant for most interviewers but at times could be used as a basis for
discrimination.
~ References
Do not include them until asked. In fact, it is not even required to mention the line 'Reference
available on request'. If the recruiter requires a reference, he/she will ask you to bring it along
for the interview.
Now that you have run through the list, take a fresh look at your CV and prune away unnecessary
details and unaffordable blunders that could have cost you your dream job.