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What exactly are the reasons why a hiring manager will bin your CV? Well, there are various reasons amongst which we’ll explore these 10 reasons why a hiring manager will bin your CV at first glance and not call you for an interview.
By Catherine Adenle
Reasons why a hiring manager will bin your CV
With your CV, the first impression counts. Although your CV will never be read in detail by a potential employer at first, regardless, through your CV, you should aim to convince the hiring manager to pick it up, place it in the ‘Yes’ pile and ultimately call you for an interview.
Your CV is important to secure a job because it is a tool to prove that you are qualified for the role, it showcases your skills, guides potential employers through your work history and demonstrates that you have all of the competencies necessary for the desired position. However, some job seekers are still not paying the required attention needed to their CV.
See 6 Critical Components of a Winning Resume
In a survey by Accountemps in 2010, 28% of executives felt job applicants make the most mistakes when writing their CV.
What exactly constitutes mistake on a CV? Well, let’s explore these 10 reasons why a hiring manager will bin your CV.
- Throw in everything but the kitchen sink: A hiring manager will bin your CV if you plaster your life history on the pages of your CV. Potential employers are not interested in your life history or the paper delivery round work that you did when you were ten years old.
- Add unnecessary details: Unless you are applying for a driving job, who cares if there are points on your licence? A hiring manager will bin your CV if you include unnecessary details except for the ones you need to include. So, include few personal details like your full name, contact information including your address, email and phone number. Beyond that, other personal details are not necessary.
- Include salary expectations: This is a no-no! By all means, keep any salary information out of your CV or cover letter entirely, unless the potential employer asks for it.
- Take in any personal data that may suggest a bias: Your sex, age, religion, race, political affiliation, marital status or anything about your family members should be left off your CV.
- Irrelevant information: A hiring manager will bin your CV if you include any information that is extraneous or will do nothing to progress your career goals. That includes irrelevant hobbies or your ability to down several pints of beer within ten minutes or the Hotdog eating competition that you won many years ago.
- Your passport photograph: Trust me; your stunning model look is not what the potential employer is looking for. Unless you are specifically asked to include a Headshot, the general rule of thumb is that pictures should be left out.
- Poor presentation and formatting: A hiring manager will bin your CV if you use different fonts, colours and other gimmicky shapes, they will annoy the hiring manager. Careless formatting can put a potential employer off. Large areas of white space occurring between parts which are very wordy and not clearly separated into sections guarantee a trip to the bin.
- CV not tailored to the job: Your CV content is about a job in a school when the job that you are applying for is in a law firm. If you can’t be bothered to update your CV and tailor it to each job, your CV will end up in a bin.
- Spelling mistakes: Nothing is more certain to guarantee a place on the rejected pile of CVs like a CV with spelling errors. See What Spell Check Doesn’t Catch Can Hurt Your Resume
- PDF or ZIP File CV: Stick to a sending your CV not in a word format but in a PDF or a ZIP file. This way, you give the recruiter a valid reason not to even open up your CV and trust me, they’ll take the chance! A Word-based CV will get into the recruiter’s HR systems and can be posted onto job boards.
As a job seeker, to be in with a shot of getting that needed job interview for that dream job, you need to master the art of writing an effective CV that is customised for the vacancy you are applying for and know how to avoid the pitfalls that could scupper your chances and guarantee your CV a space in the hiring manager’s bin.
See 3 Popular CV Formats: Know the Right One for You
Now that we’ve explored these 10 reasons why a hiring manager will bin your CV, what other reasons can you add? Leave your comments below.
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