Most CVs get about six seconds. That's not a myth or a scare tactic; it's the reality of a hiring manager working through a stack of 200 applications before lunch. In those six seconds, your CV either earns a closer look or gets moved to the bin. Frequently, it's the bin.
After 15 years placing candidates across industries, I've seen the same errors made by graduates, senior managers and everyone in between. Here are the ten that cost people interviews most often, and what to do instead.
1. The generic personal statement that says nothing
Opening with "I am a highly motivated, results-driven professional seeking a challenging role" is the CV equivalent of turning up to an interview in a beige invisibility cloak. Every word in that sentence has been devalued to the point of meaninglessness. Recruiters skip straight past it.
Your personal statement should name your specialism, your level and what you actually bring. Three to four sentences, specific and tailored. If you're unsure how to write one that reads well, how to write a personal statement that actually gets read is a good place to start.
2. Not tailoring the CV at all
Sending the same CV to fifty different employers is not a strategy. It's a lottery with very long odds. Hiring managers can tell immediately when a CV hasn't been written with their role in mind; the language doesn't mirror the job spec, the irrelevant experience is front and centre, and the relevant experience is buried on page two.
Tailoring does not mean rewriting your CV from scratch every time. It means adjusting your personal statement, reordering your bullet points and making sure the skills they've asked for are visible at a glance. How to tailor your CV for every job application without losing your mind walks you through a repeatable process.
3. Responsibilities listed, achievements nowhere in sight
This is the most common mistake across every level I've ever recruited. Candidates list what their job involved rather than what they actually did within it. "Responsible for managing social media accounts" tells me nothing useful. "Grew organic Instagram following from 4,000 to 22,000 in eight months" tells me everything I need.
For every role, ask yourself: what changed because I was there? Then put the answer on the page, with numbers where you have them.
4. A CV that's three pages long (and earns every word of none of it)
Three pages is almost never justified. If you have under ten years of experience, two pages is your ceiling. If you're earlier in your career, one page done well beats two pages of padding every time. The instinct to include everything comes from a good place; you don't want to leave anything out. But length doesn't signal thoroughness to a recruiter. It signals an inability to edit.
Cut the 2009 part-time job at a call centre. Cut the hobbies section unless your hobbies are genuinely relevant. Cut every sentence that starts with "I was responsible for."
5. Dates that don't add up
Gaps are not the catastrophe candidates think they are. Recruiters understand redundancy, caring responsibilities, health, retraining and the general chaos of modern working life. What we don't understand, and frankly don't forgive, is a CV where the dates have been fudged to hide something. If you were at a company from March 2022 to August 2022 but your CV says 2022 to 2023, we will notice. We always notice.
Be honest about gaps. A brief, neutral line in your personal statement or cover letter is all it takes.
6. Lying about skills (especially software)
I once interviewed a candidate for a data analyst role who had listed "advanced Excel" on their CV. Within thirty seconds of asking them to walk me through how they'd build a pivot table, it was clear they'd used Excel perhaps twice. The interview was over in spirit about four minutes in.
If you can use a piece of software at a basic level, say so. If you've never used it, leave it off. Hiring managers test these things. You will be found out, and you will have wasted everyone's time including your own.
7. A format that fights the reader
Tables, text boxes, columns with invisible borders, graphics where text should be and fonts that were last fashionable in 2003. All of these make a CV harder to read, and many of them cause problems when a CV is processed through an applicant tracking system before a human ever sees it. If you want to understand why that matters, ATS-proof your CV: what recruiters' software is really looking for is required reading.
Keep your format clean. Readable font, consistent spacing, no graphics unless you're in a creative field where a portfolio is expected alongside the CV.
8. An email address that undermines the whole thing
This sounds minor. It isn't. If your contact email is still the address you made at age fifteen, hotpinkdiva99 or similar, change it before you send a single application. It takes three minutes to set up a professional Gmail and it costs nothing. Recruiters notice, and it sets a tone.
Whilst you're at it, check that your LinkedIn URL is included and that your profile actually matches your CV. Contradictions between the two are a red flag.
9. The skills section that lists personality traits
"Good communicator. Team player. Works well under pressure." These are not skills. They are adjectives that every candidate on earth would apply to themselves, including the ones who definitely shouldn't. A skills section should list things that are demonstrable and specific: programming languages, sector certifications, tools, methodologies, languages spoken.
If you want to convey that you're a good communicator, show it through the quality of your writing elsewhere on the CV.
10. No thought given to the format itself
Most candidates default to a reverse-chronological CV without thinking about whether it's the right choice for their situation. If you're changing fields, returning after a break or your most relevant experience isn't your most recent, a different structure might serve you better. The CV formats explained: chronological, functional, and hybrid, which to use and when guide covers this clearly.
Format is a strategic decision, not a default.
One last thing
None of this is complicated, which is what makes it frustrating when CVs still arrive with three of these mistakes baked in. The good news is that most candidates are making the same errors, so fixing even a handful of them puts you ahead of a significant chunk of the field.
Before you send your next application, print your CV, put it face down, then turn it over and read it as if you've never met yourself. If you wouldn't invite that person to interview based on what's on the page, neither will the recruiter.
Sources
- CIPD, Resourcing and talent planning survey 2024, cipd.org/globalassets/media/knowledge/knowledge-hub/reports/2024-pdfs/8430-resourcing-and-talent-planning-report-2024.pdf
- ONS, UK labour market overview, April 2026, ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/uklabourmarket/latest
- The Guardian, How to write a CV that gets past the robots, theguardian.com/careers
- GOV.UK, Write a CV: templates and examples, gov.uk/create-a-cv
- TotalJobs, The truth about CVs: recruiter survey findings, totaljobs.com/advice/cv-tips