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Last Updated on September 2, 2025
Overview
- Do Customize
Your CV : Tailor your CV to the job description to highlight relevantskills and experiences. This demonstrates to employers that you’re attentive and genuinely interested in the position. - Do Use Active Verbs: Energize
your CV with action verbs like “achieved”, “managed”, and “created” to convey your accomplishments effectively and forcefully. - Do Include Quantifiable Achievements: Where possible, add numbers to your achievements. For example, “increased sales by 20%” is more impactful than “responsible for increasing sales”.
- Do Keep It Concise: Limit
your CV to two pages at most. A concise CV demonstrates that you can effectively prioritize information and respect thehiring manager’s time. - Do Proofread: Spelling or grammatical errors can make a bad impression. Use tools like Grammarly or have someone else proofread
your CV before submission.
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- Don’t Use a Generic CV: Avoid sending the same CV to multiple employers. A generic CV can make you appear uninterested and lazy.
- Don’t Include Irrelevant Information: Avoid cluttering your CV with information that is not relevant to the job. This dilutes your key messages and wastes valuable space.
- Don’t Lie About Your
Skills or Experiences: Honesty is crucial inyour CV . Employers can easily verify false information, which can lead to job dismissal if discovered. - Avoid Using an Unprofessional
Email Address: If your currentemail address is unprofessional, consider creating a new one specifically for job applications. Anemail address like [email protected] makes a better impression. - Include Keywords: Many companies use software to screen CVs. Ensure that you include keywords from the job description to increase the likelihood that
your CV passes the initial screening.
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Investing time in creating a well-crafted CV can significantly boost your employability, whether you’re applying for high-profile jobs or fresh out of university. A clear and concise CV that highlights your achievements and professional identity is crucial in landing your dream job. Here are some essential do’s and don’ts to keep in mind while creating your CV.
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Keep Things Simple
A well-designed CV is crucial in making a positive impression on potential employers. The design and layout of
This might involve trimming old or irrelevant work experiences, part-time or temporary jobs, and irrelevant hobbies or interests. Focus on highlighting the achievements and experiences that are relevant to the job and company you are applying for. Don’t forget to tailor
The most comprehensive reference of its kind, this powerful resume-writing resource gives readers instant access to 2,500 indispensable keywords germane to 300 careers in nine employment categories
Explain Skills Gained From Particular Jobs
Ideally, when listing a job or
Tailor to Specific Jobs
To increase your chances of landing a job, it’s crucial to understand what to highlight in
Don’ts
Avoid Spelling and Grammar Errors
A few errors in presentation and style will ultimately lead to someone dropping
Use spellcheck and tools such as Grammarly to ensure all errors are captured and corrected. Leverage your friends and family to check your CV and give suggestions.
The Resume.com Guide to Writing Unbeatable Resumes draws upon the author's considerable expertise, as well as the vast Resume.com
Distort Jobs
Please don’t make it out that you had more responsibilities or gained more
Skip Important Information
It’s crucial to include any relevant information in
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Craft a Results-Driven CV Summary
Your CV should open with a sharp, results-driven profile that makes your value obvious in ten seconds. Lead with your role, core strengths, and one or two quantifiable wins that align with the target role. Avoid generic fluff and subjective claims; employers skim for evidence. Keep the summary under five lines, mirror essential keywords from the posting, and make every word earn its spot. For structure examples and phrasing tips, review this concise resume guide and adapt it to your niche.
Customize for Each Application
One-size-fits-all CVs usually fail applicant tracking and human scrutiny. Start with a master document, then tailor a copy to the specific posting. Map their must-haves to your most relevant experience, remove distractions, and reorder sections so high-signal content appears first. Align job titles where appropriate (without misrepresentation), echo role terminology, and emphasize domain-specific tools. This disciplined customization proves intent and fit while improving both
- Keyword focus: Mirror core competencies and terminology from the job description, emphasizing
skills the role repeats and grouping them near your profile. - Role alignment: Reframe adjacent experience to highlight transferable outcomes, tooling, stakeholders, and scale relevant to the target position.
- Evidence first: Place your strongest, most comparable achievements above less relevant history to front-load impact.
- How to scan JD: Paste the posting into Jobscan to identify priority keywords, then weave those terms naturally into your bullets and
skills .
Quantify Achievements and Language
Hiring teams prioritize outcomes over activities. Convert duties into achievements that specify scale, baseline, and delta (e.g., “Cut onboarding time 32% by automating access requests across five systems”). Use active verbs, concrete metrics, and credible timeframes; avoid vague claims. Keep bullets tight—one line when possible—and lead with the result, then the method. For phrasing variety, pull alternatives from this practical action verbs list and rotate language to avoid repetition while maintaining clarity.
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Proofread, Format, and Final Checks
Minor errors can overshadow strong experience. Standardize typography, spacing, and date formats; ensure consistent bullet style and tense; and verify every hyperlink works. Print to PDF and review on multiple screens to catch layout issues. Confirm the file name is professional and the document is
- Style consistency: Align fonts, sizes, margins, en-dashes vs. hyphens, and capitalization across all sections to avoid visual noise.
- ATS sanity: Use simple headings, plain bullets, and no text boxes or columns that might break parsing in standard applicant systems.
- Error sweep: Read aloud once, then review backward line by line to surface typos, tense shifts, and duplicated phrases.
- How to check readability: Paste
your CV text into Hemingway to spot dense sentences and simplify without losing precision.
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Next Steps
- Strategy: Extract must-have
skills and keywords; mirror language naturally across summary,skills , and achievements; prioritize exact tools, certifications, and domain terms the employer emphasizes. - Metrics First: Rewrite experience bullets to lead with measurable outcomes, add specific metrics and timeframes, and keep each line concise and comparable to the role’s expected scope.
- ATS Format: Use a single-column layout with standard headings and simple bullets; export to PDF only after confirming a clean plain-text paste preserves order and spacing.
- Quality Review: Run grammar and readability checks, verify links, preview on desktop and mobile, and ask a trusted reviewer to challenge clarity, accuracy, and overall impact.
Final Words
A strong CV is built on clarity, relevance, and credible results. Focus your reader immediately on the most comparable accomplishments, expressed with precise language and defensible numbers. Remove distractions that dilute fit, structure sections so decision-makers can scan, and keep formatting parsable by standard applicant systems. Finally, treat revision as quality control: validate claims, confirm consistency, and secure outside feedback. These habits compound, turning each application into a sharper, more persuasive signal of value.
Stand out from all the rest by crafting letters and resumes that will blow people away. This career reference guide provides a simple, compelling and foolproof way to create both cover letters and resumes that are uniquely powerful and, most importantly, virtually guarantees you the high value job interviews and career you really want.
Mark Fiebert is a former finance executive who hired and managed dozens of professionals during his 30-plus-year career. He now shares expert job search, resume, and career advice on CareerAlley.com.
