What not to put in a CV

Four very basic points

One thing to remember when looking for employment is that you already have a job, because at this point hunting for a job is your employment. The recruitment process begins with distributing your resume to different companies, if you're finding that not many people are responding when you hand your resume out you may be making some of these common mistakes;

• Don't use fancy fonts - You may be thinking to yourself that having a cursive font looks good, you'd be wrong. These fonts make the text harder to read and as a result a potential employer will not want to waste their time trying to decipher the hieroglyphics you've just handed them. Instead they will re-purpose your resume as a projectile they aim to fire at the bin. Use a font that is easy to read, this includes using different colours for the main body of your resume, all that can be said here is DON'T!
• Using an emoji - Employers don't want to see these within any resume, for the simple reason it shows a lack of the grasp of English language resulting in you feeling the need to use pretty pictures instead.
• The email address you use- Some of these make employers question their faith in humanity. What I mean here is if you have an email address that begins with "bingedrinker76" (yes I received a resume and this was the beginning of their contact email) the chances are the employer will read no further (even though you may have all the qualifications and experience they are after). You don't have to change the email address for all the accounts you have with everything, just create one that is not offensive for employers to respond to, normally (*first name"."surname") is a great way to start.
• The use of borders - Agreed borders can be a good way to give a document a formal feel. Simplicity is key here, having a border that is very distracting and sometimes hard on the eyes can be very off putting for an employer.

You may have noticed the image that I have put within this article (above), it's not really relevant to anything. However there is a reason behind this and that is to highlight the point your resume needs to be relevant to the job you're looking for.

Skills between jobs can be transferable, for example; you may not think that working in a fast food chain would have skills that are transferable to an office environment, here I'll list some;

• It shows you can work as part of a team.
• It shows you understand the importance of health and safety.
• It shows an ability to multi-task

you see my point. You should have a differently laid out and worded resume for each type of job which you want to apply for, the reason for this is because different skills need to be highlighted for different roles.

Yes we all have hobbies, but take a look at yours and see how these may appear to a potential employer. One hobby which is listed on around 90% of resumes which I've had to view is "reading" however during the interview stage I asked one candidate who had listed this, "what was the last book you read and what did you enjoy most about it?" they could not give me an answer (which definitely did not shine in their favour, not because of the fact they did not seem to read but because they lied and could not even back it up).

Certain hobbies can really highlight important skills and values which employers love, one of these is volunteering. This is because volunteering shows that not only are you giving up your free time (dedication) you are also willing to put effort in for no monetary return (passion for what you do).

Some hobbies to not include;

• Gaming - Unless you are looking for employment with a company that specialises in gaming, being on your third prestige on Call Of Duty does not tell the employer much at all. Sadly in today's world many see gaming as an unproductive hobby that does not highlight many skills which would be useful in the workplace.
• Socialising with friends at the weekend - Understandable humans like to communicate and socialise but putting this on your resume can swing one of two ways;

1. They think to themselves "this person must have good interpersonal communication skills.

2. This person may be a party person who is out every weekend? Will they be in work on Monday morning in a state fit for work?

By no means is this article implying that you should only have certain hobbies (if you like putting a mask on and pretending to be Batman around the house, go for it!) however the ones you list do show a potential employer a lot about your character so be aware of this.

This section of the article is going to be very short simply stating;

DON'T USE IT WITHIN A RESUME BECAUSE IT MAKES A VERY BAD IMPRESSION