Three mistakes you need to avoid on your CV.
This is part two of a two-part CV advice series.
So if you're joining from my video last week,
which was four simple tips to get more interviews then thank you for joining and
welcome back. If you're new to my channel,
I'm Amri Celeste an HR recruitment specialist and career coach with over nine
years hiring experience. As a note,
all the CVS used in this video are made up and don't belong to real clients or
candidates photo.
So the first thing I have to talk about is a photo on your CV,
because it could be affecting your chances of getting the job you want,
or even getting an interview. Should you,
or shouldn't you include a photo and does it matter either way?
I've seen many people giving advice on CV photos,
but I would like you to think about whether or not you should include a photo
like this.
The purpose of your CV is to assess your suitability for the job that you're
applying for.
This means that everything you put on that document is being used to assess your
suitability. So when you apply for a job,
do you want to be assessed on your skills experience and relevant
qualifications?
Or do you want to be assessed on your photo and the way that you look?
If you don't, then don't include a photo.
Everything on this document is what you're saying.
That you want to be judged and assessed by for the job.
If your looks isn't one of those things, remove the photo.
If you have one don't want to be assessed on your age,
then don't include your date of birth or any other sensitive data like your
personal full address or any other personal information. Now,
I know that some of you may be a bit shocked because you've always used a
picture or somebody that you know,
told you to include one or a multitude of other reasons.
And I understand that there are some exceptions to this rule.
One is your country. In some countries,
it is the custom to include your photo on a CV.
And if you don't include something that is part of the hiring custom,
it could hurt your chances. So please do include one.
If that is required or expected where you live in the UK, it's not mandatory,
but I can appreciate that this is going to be different around the world.
The second exception is if the photo is relevant to the job you're applying for,
for example, a fashion model,
then of course a photo makes sense because they need to see what you look like.
So let me ask you, what do you think about putting a photo on your CV?
Would you include one on yours? Let me know in the comments lies.
The second thing you shouldn't include our good old fashioned alternative facts,
better known as lies. As I mentioned earlier,
the person looking at your CV is likely looking at thousands of others in a
typical week or month. And once you've seen a thousand CVS, you know,
when something looks out of place and why destroy your chances with something
that you can avoid doing, if you know how to write up a good CV,
you don't need to lie. And that is why we'll help you with,
I remember contacting a candidate who said they were head of department in a
school, which didn't tally up with a number of things, including work history.
So, as an example,
you wouldn't go from a junior retail employee to a school head teacher without
any previous experience.
So I asked them questions around this and it turned out that she was an exchange
student. It was such a strange lie.
And it unraveled immediately because I asked questions around what was on the CV
and it's my job to query anything that doesn't tally up because my job is to
find the right candidate. And that means an honest candidate.
So when this person couldn't elaborate on anything that they did day to day and
struggled to answer the questions I was asking, I couldn't take them forward.
It is actually illegal to lie about certain things,
such as a degree Cifas is a fraud prevention agency in the UK.
And they actually mentioned in an article that there is a potential conviction
awaiting you. If you lie about a degree and explain what degree Ford is,
they even include a case study where they caught out a director of a charity of
animal welfare who lied about his degree and even completely fabricated the
university. I've included a link below to that article in the description.
If you want to read about it, three is messy, appearance, font, graphs,
and graphics.
Just some of the visual elements that can make or break your CVS appearance.
First up is font always use a professional font such as Ariel Calibri
or Garamond don't use anything that looks nice, but is messy,
hard to read or unprofessional. So sorry to those of you using comic Sans,
but professionalism is key when submitting your CV,
don't include messy graphics. I know it looks fancy. I know it's eye catching,
but the purpose of your CV is to get you on the short list for the job that you
want. If the prettiness of your CV takes away from that,
it becomes a pointless document.
Don't give into a beautiful template that will get deleted in a few seconds.
Unless of course you are a graphic designer applying for a job,
then fancy graphics may help you sell your skillset.
Here is an example of how graphics can go wrong.
I've seen this a hundred times and it probably wasn't even like this when you
were creating it. But sometimes graphics,
graphs and fancy formatting is affected when the recruiter opens your CV in a
different program and it doesn't register the formatting in the way that you
intended. And if they're using an ATS,
which is a piece of recruitment software that helps to track and store
applications,
then the formatting may completely mess up the system's ability to read or
register your key skills.
And you won't be shortlisted because sometimes that system may be automated and
screen you out. If it can't register your relevant key skills,
don't include a skills bar. A skills bar is this.
It shows a selection of your key skills and what your proficiency levels are
like with each. You might be saying, for example,
that you're advanced with Microsoft word and intermediate or basic with Excel.
So you're showing areas where you're strong and areas where you're weaker.
So the thing that makes a skills graph eye-catching apart from the colors and
layout is the skill fluctuation.
It wouldn't have the same impact if you were five stars in every area.
So you end up having to rank yourself lower in some areas.
I never recommend including anything on your CV that highlights things you can't
do or are not strong at instead, just put down your strengths.
So we've covered some of the things that you shouldn't include.
What content should you include that captures the attention of the person that
will ultimately select your CV. I've actually a winning CV guide,
which is a more detailed step-by-step walkthrough on how your CV should be
structured. It's includes a sample CV,
the types of achievements that you should be including and what to do if you
don't have experience. So it's packed with advice you need.
If you're job hunting, creating, or brushing up your CV,
and you can download that guide via the link below this video.
As I mentioned earlier, this is the second part of a two-part CV advice series.
So if you haven't seen the first part,
which is four simple tips to get more interviews,
I strongly recommend you watch that there is a link to that video in the
description below. So to recap,
don't include a photo on your CV.
Unless one of the exceptions I mentioned earlier, apply don't lie,
use professional font and stay away from messy graphics and skill bars or
anything highlighting weakest skillsets, unnecessary graphics, tables,
and images can block your ability to get shortlisted for a job.
So always make that your number one focus. Thank you so much for watching.
I hope this was helpful if it was tap like subscribe,
if you want more and I will see you soon.