Everybody wants their CV to impress so they stand out from the crowd, but it’s important to realise that making it too fancy could in fact negatively impact your chance of getting a job. Every recruiter or HR department needs to import your CV into their own individual CRM systems to help them identify the right job for you. All candidate CVs are then presented to their clients in the same format, on their own branded documents to make them look as professional as possible. A quick copy and paste into the correct format is a recruiter’s dream. The quicker the process for them, the quicker your CV gets in front of the right person for you to secure that interview for your dream job.
Here’s some top tips to prevent your CV lurking in a recruiter’s inbox until they have time to reformat it.
Photos
Photos can move the words around the page and make it look very messy, they are usually removed to ensure your future employer concentrates on your skills, qualities and experience.
Tables and Boxes
Tables are really hard to change or remove, each box of text has to be moved out of each individual table and this then moves the header and footer around and the whole CV falls apart. All of which creates a massive headache for your consultant.
Columns
If your CV has columns, it might look great on your computer screen, however once sent to someone else there are so many different formats of word (the most commonly used format) that it can obscure the columns, which means the recruiter my have to re-format, making sure everything is in the right order and nothing is missing.
Obscure fonts
If you use a nice fancy font, it must be one that is a standard font (such as Arial, Times New Roman or Calibri) otherwise this can appear oddly within different versions of Word. When the recruiter opens your CV random fonts and sizes can be displayed in instead of the nice fancy font you have chosen.
Hidden formulas
Sometimes the recruiter is fooled into a false sense of security – a CV looks perfect – but then a ‘simple’ cut and paste into the clients preferred profile document, and bam it all goes wrong! Words are missing, sentences are in the wrong order and the CV is a total mess, and no one can work out why. Hidden formulas can send a recruiter crashing into despair knowing they are going to have to re-write a CV which can take a good hour.
Meanwhile, any competition you may have for the role who has a super straightforward CV has already had their CV seen by the hiring manager plus an interview lined up. Don’t miss out – keep it simple…. pretty please!
