Here are the top three areas where job seekers either miss an opportunity to showcase their suitability to a role, or just leave the person reviewing their CV to make their own assumptions.
Narrative About Employer
It is all too common for a job seeker just to write their employer’s company /business name, without any explanatory details. However, unless you work for a household brand, it leaves the reviewer of your CV wondering what your employer actually does and are there any synergies to the hiring manager’s business? This is often a missed opportunity for relevance. A quick synopsis with the ‘headlines’ is the best way to try and draw on as many potential synergies as possible. Include not just what industry in which the organisation operates, but also turnover and/or number of staff, as an indication of the size and complexity of the business.
For example:
‘people2people is one of Australasia’s fastest growing recruitment companies. Annual revenues exceed $100m and they employ over 110 staff across 7 offices in Australia and New Zealand.’
By simply adding a few facts, it expands the opportunity for you to demonstrate you have worked in a similar business environment to the one for which you are applying. By including this information for all your current and former employers in your CV, it could also show the reviewer you have worked for a diverse range of organisations/industries and have proven your versatility to adapt to different environments. There could be many other relevant facts to include and it is an opportunity not to be missed.
Address
Privacy has never been more important and it is completely understandable job seekers are hesitant to add their address details. The reality is, once someone has your address, they could look up the value of your biggest asset (house) by simply ‘googling’ it, which not everyone is keen to share in a job application.
There does seem to be a trend to just leave off the address altogether. This leaves the person reviewing your CV to wonder where you might live.
Unfortunately, assumptions tend to be negative and locational bias has always existed. If you do live within a commutable distance of the place of work, you might be harming your chances by omitting your address. My advice is you do not need to include the actual full residential address, no one actually cares which street you live in, (if they do, you should be worried!). However, you can just include the suburb and it serves the same purpose.
Achievements
It is important to demonstrate your responsibilities and what you were accountable for, however what sets job seekers apart, is the position description, but what value was added. The more you can quantify with facts (objective) and the less verbose your achievements ( often subjective) are, the greater impact they will have on the person reviewing your CV. In addition, showcasing the knock-on effects to the rest of the organisation, will really highlight your value.
For example:
Increased productivity by 18% over 6 month period, resulting in reduction in costs by $148,000 and adoption of productivity measures by the broader global business
The next time you are putting together your CV, make sure you don’t do yourself a disservice by omitting vital information which could improve your changes of securing that sought after role.
