There are many things that makes one anxious and question their whole life’s choices when it comes to finding a job. That’s not necessary.
The reason you’re probably having no luck is that your CV isn’t up to date or has too much irrelevant information on it. Recruiters in the human resource management department know exactly what they’re looking for and if they can’t find it within a quick eye-scan of your CV document, the chances are they’ll move it aside and start analysing the next application.
Importance of a cover letter
The first thing we start with is your cover letter that gets sent with your CV to be considered with your job application. In this letter, human resources want to see the highlights of your CV, your motivation for applying and why you’re the best fit for the job based on your skills and the uniqueness that you’ll bring to the company.
This isn’t the time to divulge in your life story, only why you are the right person for the job and why your CV will confirm that claim. On that note, make sure there are no contradicting facts between your cover letter and CV, you can bet they’ll pick it up and write you off.
What to remove completely
It’s tempting to make our CVs “more impressive” by adding pages of extra information and making lists of entries under all the subheadings. If you studied any human resource management courses, you would know that about half of that information is completely irrelevant and “fluff” material to make the CV seem more spectacular than it actually is. This only leads to recruiters being disappointed, which is not what you should be aiming for at all.
If your CV looks a bit empty, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. As long as the important information is there, you won’t be wasting anyone’s time. A few things that you should remove from your CV right now are:
Detailed address: If recruiters want to know that you live within close proximity to the offices, you don’t need to give them your entire address. You only need the line that has the suburb, city and postal code. No house number, street name or P.O Box details, please. The same goes for your contact details. Keep it simple with your personal cell phone number and professional email address.
Personal details: Not only does it take up unnecessary whitespace on your CV document, but it is illegal for recruiters and interviewers to ask you personal detail questions where they aren’t related to job capability. This includes things like your age, religious beliefs, nationality, sexual orientation, marital status and disability. Human resources are there to ensure you aren’t discriminated against because of these types of personal details. You have no obligation to divulge this information on your CV or in an interview, for that matter.
Photograph: Unless it is specified that a photograph of yourself is absolutely necessary for the job application, don’t add one. It similarly relates to how your sharing of personal details can be used to discriminate against you. If an employer doesn’t like the photo you have chosen for the front cover or how you look, they won’t bother reading the rest of your CV. Don’t give them that power.
Anything more than five years ago: If you have any qualification that succeeds your High School Diploma, you don’t need to mention it anymore (especially not your class subjects). If you have experience after your waitressing gap year, don’t mention it. If you’ve been in the working world for years and are looking to new career horizons, you don’t need to mention any information older than five years (unless, of course, you’ve been in your previous position for more than five years). Get rid of the old and update with the new.
Professional social media profiles
You don’t have to link your social media profiles to your CV unless they’re professional and relevant in terms of supporting your resumé. If an employer really wants to know what you’re like after work hours, they’ll do the snooping themselves.
And if you do choose to show them your social media, make sure you've updated and edited those profiles as well so that you’re not surprised by any posts that may come up or have any outdated information that may lead to questions you aren’t prepared to answer.
Proofread it
Finally, before you send off your cover letter and CV, make sure you proofread it. And possibly get someone else to look it over as well. Spelling, grammar and layout are all important document elements to proof. You want your application to be easy to read, logical to follow and persuasive enough to secure you an interview.
