5 CV Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

CV Mistakes

Knowing how to format your CV will help reduce your CV mistakes, increase your chances for interviews, and get you hired faster.

In Ghana and most parts of Africa, however, graduates are not going through the process of formatting their CVs to make them stand out.

Even experienced job seekers with decades of work experience still face the challenge of presenting their accomplishments.

This Sobiaonline career advice on CV and Cover Letters intends to unveil some of the 5 common CV mistakes you can avoid when you are writing your next CV.

CV mistakes #1:  You are overly dependent on AI

AI-generated CVs are here to stay in the job market. Fortunately, popular tools such as Canva and traditional résumé builders have now integrated AI into their platforms.

This is a positive development, as AI significantly enhances efficiency, customisation, and grammar correction.

However, it is also saddled with improper use! Many beginners now leave the entire CV Writing process of analysis, job needs assessment, design, and content development entirely to AI.

Yet, it is widely known that AI-generated CVs tend to be generic, lack authenticity, and are often produced without context, factors that are crucial for any CV to perform effectively.

AI is here to stay, and CVs created with its assistance should not be dismissed outright, but they must be created intentionally by using the AI only after a draft CV, where the AI can then be used to critique, identify gaps, and offer valuable suggestions.

This approach will help personalise your CV and ensure it truly reflects who you are and what you stand for. Unfortunately, many job seekers begin with an AI-generated draft and only attempt to refine it later, and many seldom make edits afterwards. Ideally, this process should happen in reverse.

CV mistakes #2:  You Have Failed to identify the Problem to be addressed

Do you remember the problem statement struggles during your academic research at the University?

The problem statement is often one of the most challenging parts of research, whether at the undergraduate, master’s, or PhD level. Many students (myself included, metaphorically) struggle with it as it requires clarity, focus, and relevance all at once.

The good news is that you can apply the same trick to your CV Upgrade.

Every job description comes with a hidden problem the employer wishes you to solve as an employee. Without that problem, your services should not be needed by the employer.

For your  CV to win the race, you will first need to identify the core issues the company seeks to address and then optimise your CV to address them.

CV mistakes #3: Avoid Very Personalised Information

Job seekers mostly assume that the more personal information they put in their CVs, the more recruiters will get to know them. This is true.

However, when it comes to job searching, your prospective employer need not know everything about you.

You must not include any subjective information such as age, sex, marital status, religion, ethnic background, or related demographic variables.

These are very subjective variables which can affect your chances either positively or negatively. By going neutral you are helping to prevent biases and inconsistencies that might affect your chances.

CV mistakes #4: Poor Introduction

One of the most important sections of your CV is your profile summary.

There are various names for the introductory section, such as career summary, professional summary, background, career objective, and related terms.

At Sobiaonline, we simply call it “introduction” as its primary purpose is to introduce the employer or recruiter to the main CV.

Our review of numerous resumes reveals that this section is frequently misused by job seekers

This situation might be attributed to a poor understanding of the rationale of this section, the nature of the content that should be presented therein, and as well, the formatting style to use.

The objective of a CV introductory section is to lure the reader to go down to the other sections of your CV and not discard your CV within 6 seconds!

This underscores the need for this section to be brief and straight to the point, such that readers will not be bored.

The introductory section of your CV is aimed at revealing the following to the employer and should be formatted as such:

• A summary of your professional life
• Your personal qualities
• Your hard skills and core competencies
• Your value proposition

CV mistakes #5: Never use a Photo in your CV unless expressly requested by the employer.

There are some exceptions to including your photo in your CV depending on your profession.

If you are a professional photographer, for instance, you can even create a portfolio of your ” best shots”.

Likewise, employers would want to see prospective models, bartenders, actors, and related professionals visually before making informed decisions.

Please note that among all these professions above,  looks are very essential! If your job does not depend on your looks, please do not add a picture to your CV. 

Lisa Rangel and her team at Chameleon Resumes advise that:

You could have the best photo in the world but if HR doesn’t like it you’re not getting a call.

In fact, many HR departments will automatically trash resumes with photos in an effort to avoid any chance of discrimination.

Additionally, images can actually “choke” the resume scanning software the companies use to receive and organize resumes.

In other words, if you send in a resume with a picture they may not ever receive it because the system could not scan it.

CV mistakes #6: Focus on accomplishments over duties

Your CV is a tool you are using to convince the recruiter that you have been able to excel at similar positions in the past.

You can not achieve this by simply listing your duties and responsibilities.

Doing this will not differentiate your efforts from any abysmal performer who occupied the same position or a similar position.

We advise you today to stop listing your duties and focus on your accomplishments.

A career accomplishment, according to jobscan represents work-related achievements performed by a job seeker that are both measurable and unique to their experience.

It is imperative to highlight that accomplishments are stated as “claims” and if you claim something, you will need to back it up with key quantitative performance indicators and concise descriptive statements.

One of the best ways to describe your achievement is by using numbers.

Secondly, you can use dates to make your events more specific.

Thirdly, you can use percentages and approximations that you know you have attained.

The best way to identify your accomplishments is to look at your past reports.

You can also identify how you have helped your former workplace in terms of cost reduction, happy customers, and improved operations, among others.

At Sobiaonline, we specialise in upgrading CVs and Resumes that increase calls for interviews and repeat hires. Click to Upgrade Your CV Now

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