12 CV Mistakes That Make It Harder to Get an Interview

There are hundreds of articles online listing CV mistakes.

Most of them tell you not to use Comic Sans, not to lie and to check your spelling.

Fair enough.

But assuming you haven’t written your CV in fluorescent green and claimed to be the former CEO of Microsoft, there are much more common reasons a decent candidate can still have a weak CV.

I’ve reviewed thousands of them over more than 20 years working in recruitment.

These are the things I’d worry about.

1. Your CV doesn’t make it clear what you actually do

I shouldn’t reach the end of page one still trying to work out what sort of job you have.

Job titles aren’t always enough, particularly when your company uses unusual internal titles.

Give me context.

What do you own? What sort of team, customers, projects or budgets are involved? What’s the scope of the role?

Make it easy for somebody outside your current company to understand you.

2. You’ve written a job description instead of a CV

If most of your work history starts with “responsible for”, there’s a decent chance you’re describing the role rather than your performance in it.

Responsibilities matter because they tell me what you were supposed to do.

They don’t necessarily tell me whether you did it well.

Include evidence of impact.

3. Your strongest achievements are missing

This happens more than you’d think.

People leave out genuinely impressive work because it feels normal to them.

They’ve done it every day for years, so it no longer feels noteworthy.

Meanwhile they’ll happily include “attended weekly team meetings”.

If you transformed something, grew something, fixed something, built something or were repeatedly trusted with important work, I probably need to know.

4. Your profile could belong to anybody

“Results-driven professional with excellent communication skills and a proven track record of working independently and as part of a team.”

Great.

What do you do?

Generic profile sections use valuable space telling me absolutely nothing.

Your opening should help me understand who you are professionally and why the rest of the CV might be worth reading.

5. You’re giving everything equal importance

Your first job in 2006 probably doesn’t deserve the same amount of space as the job you’re doing now.

CVs should be weighted.

Recent and relevant experience usually deserves more detail. Older or less relevant experience can often be condensed.

The aim isn’t to preserve your complete employment history in perfect proportion.

It’s to help with the decision being made now.

6. Your CV only makes sense inside your current company

Internal acronyms.

Internal system names.

Internal job titles.

Project names nobody outside the business has ever heard of.

You know exactly what they mean because you’ve lived with them for years.

The recruiter hasn’t.

Translate your experience into language the market understands.

7. You’re hiding the evidence inside enormous paragraphs

I’m not against paragraphs.

I’m against making someone excavate your career.

A CV needs enough detail to be useful without turning every job into an essay.

Use structure. Give roles some context, then make the important evidence easy to find.

You aren’t rewarded for making the recruiter work harder.

8. You’re trying too hard to beat the ATS

Yes, relevant terminology belongs on your CV.

If you’re a Financial Controller and the job requires financial planning, forecasting and IFRS experience, it would be fairly sensible for your CV to mention those things if you’ve actually done them.

That’s not the same as stuffing the job description into the document because a website told you your ATS score was only 68%.

Write for relevance.

Not for imaginary points.

9. You’re using numbers that don’t actually mean anything

Metrics can make a CV much stronger.

They can also make it sound like nonsense.

“Improved team efficiency by 40%.”

According to what?

“Enhanced stakeholder engagement by 35%.”

How was that measured?

Use numbers when they provide real evidence or scale. Don’t manufacture precision because somebody told you every bullet point needs a percentage.

10. You haven’t adapted the emphasis for the job you want

You don’t necessarily need a completely different CV for every application.

But if you’re applying for a role where one part of your experience is particularly important, make sure that part isn’t buried underneath five less relevant things.

Tailoring is mostly about emphasis.

You’re helping the employer see the bits of your experience that matter to them.

11. You’re trying to hide something that would be easier to explain

Career gap?

Short job?

Redundancy?

Step backwards?

Career change?

Candidates sometimes contort their CVs trying to make these things invisible.

Usually that creates more questions.

You don’t need a 500-word explanation, but straightforward context is often much better than hoping nobody notices.

12. You’ve forgotten what the CV is actually for

Your CV isn’t supposed to get you the job.

It’s supposed to create enough interest to move you to the next stage.

That’s an important distinction.

You don’t need to answer every possible question somebody could ever have about your career. You need to give them enough evidence to want the conversation.

Once they make that call, a different part of the hiring process begins. As I explain in The 20-Minute Call That Decides Whether You Ever Meet the Hiring Manager, the recruiter then starts testing and adding context to what they saw on the page.

Your CV’s first job is getting you there.

Don’t fix all 12 if only two are wrong

This is probably the most important bit.

Don’t read a list like this and immediately rewrite your entire CV.

Maybe your profile is fine.

Maybe your formatting is fine.

Maybe your achievements are brilliant but the relevant experience is buried.

The problem with most CV advice is that everybody gets given the same fixes regardless of what’s actually wrong with their CV.

That’s why, before changing everything, I’d diagnose it.

If you’re applying for jobs and not getting interviews, you can use my Free CV Score to see where your current CV is strong and where it needs work.

Then fix the things that actually need fixing.

Score your CV free and find out where to start.