Employers have revealed how jobseekers are ruining their chances of landing work by making bizarre gaffes on their CVs – including one who gave God as a reference.
Among some of the clangers are a candidate who listed lion tamer as a hobby, another who wrote their resume in rhyme, one who used a photograph of somebody else and an applicant who only gave their name and number with the phrase: “I want a job.”
Other howlers outlined in the survey by Careerbuilder.co.uk included a person who claimed to be a direct descendant of the Vikings and a candidate who listed “Master of Time and Universe” under his experience. Another failure was a candidate who wrote their CV on a page torn from an exercise book and one who sent in their application from an email address which had “lovesbeer in it.”
However, perhaps the most glaring own-goal came from somebody who put down the Almighty as a referee…..and without a phone number.
Nearly one-third (32 per cent) of 194 UK employers surveyed said they spend one minute or less reviewing a CV. Fourteen per cent spend 30 seconds or less. Twenty-three per cent also said they detected a lie on a CV in the past year.
When asked what would make them automatically dismiss a job candidate, it’s no surprise that spellings errors and typos were cited most often. Other turn-offs include:
- CV with large blocks of text that are difficult to read – 36 per cent
- CV that had exact text from the job ad pasted into the document – 36 per cent
- CV with no cover letter – 26 per cent
- CV that is not customized to the position – 25 per cent
- CV that is three pages or longer – 18 per cent
- CV that has an objective instead of a career summary – 17 per cent
- CV with an unprofessional email address – 16 per cent
“You want to stack the deck in your favour when writing a CV,” said Tony Roy, president of CareerBuilder EMEA. “Make sure to highlight key accomplishments with quantifiable results, so employers can see how you put your skills into action. It’s also important to remember that employers often use electronic devices to screen and rank CVs. Pepper in keywords from the job ad into your CV as it relates to your experience to improve your ranking.”
While UK employers will look for a wide variety of skill sets, the most popular keywords they said they use when scanning CVs are:
- Communication skills – 68 per cent
- Problem-solving skills – 62 per cent
- Computer software skills – 44 per cent
- Customer satisfaction or retention – 34 per cent
- Leadership – 32 per cent
- Productivity – 32 per cent
- Project management – 29 per cent
- Sales – 18 per cent
- Web or Internet – 17 per cent
- Management – 17 per cent
Survey Methodology
An online survey of 757 business leaders in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Sweden was conducted in a range of organisations between 17 November and 17 December 2010. Business leaders included C-level executives, directors and senior managers with recruitment responsibilities. The survey was conducted online by Shape the Future, a market research agency based near London which specialises in high speed online research.
The total sample size in the UK was 194, giving a margin of error of 7.04 per cent at 95 per cent confidence. The survey was conducted strictly according to the code of conduct of the UK’s Market Research Society.
