Test of fire for any candidate, the development of a resume is often long and painful.

But the game is worth the candle since your CV can encourage an employer in a few minutes to give you a chance in an interview or to fail you directly.

To help candidates put their chances on their side, the specialized cvprofessionnel.com platform analyzes more than 1,000 resumes received by its customers each year and identifies the most common mistakes made.

Review.

1 - Get lost in detail

According to this survey, each recruiter receives approximately 250 applications per job offer and therefore spends barely 53 seconds on average.

In other words, your CV must capture attention at a glance!

However, 82% of candidates forget to offer a profile summary at the top of their curriculum.

However, this section is essential since it allows you to highlight in two or three lines your professional skills, successes and ambitions.

It's still a good way to set the tone and assert yourself.

Another pitfall, unfortunately very common: to extend over pages and pages.

Indeed, 76% of resumes are too long according to the analysis of cvprofessionnel.com.

Remember that it is useless to mention all of your professional experience and internships.

Only positions that are relevant and significant to your search count.

Of course, if you are very experienced, however, it is normal for your CV to be more substantial.

Be careful then that quantity is synonymous with quality.

In the same vein, don't forget to give your CV a title, so that the recruiter can understand at a glance the position you are applying for.

2 - Forgetting the essential

Beyond the content, the very way you organize and present your experiences is important.

According to this barometer, 21% of CVs offer a reading in chronological order, which is particularly tedious for the recruiter.

On the contrary, it is necessary to adopt a much more relevant reverse chronological order of presentation, in other words from the most recent position to the oldest.

Rather than just listing your previous ventures, also highlight what you accomplished during those experiences.

85% of CVs do not mention results or successes even though recruiters pay particular attention to them.

When indicating the skills you have mastered, on the other hand, refrain from self-assessing using rating scales or diagrams, which do not add much (57% of CVs analyzed).

3 - Do not self-disqualify

In the register of crippling errors, we can never remind you enough that an application with spelling mistakes obviously has every chance of being directly eliminated!

Nevertheless, 54% of CVs reviewed by cvprofessionnel.com contained errors.

To avoid this, we re-read and have ourselves re-read by a third party, in digital version but also on paper in order to better visualize the typos in the text.

As for fonts, forget those that are too fanciful (23% of CVs).

You have to know how to stay sober without being obsolete.

Exit Times New Roman and Comic Sans MS.

Instead, adopt Arial, Verdana or Helvetica, ideal for young graduates.

If the addition of a photo can help personalize the application, be careful to choose a shot of the face, smiling and strictly professional.

Similarly, while 72% of CVs indicate the family situation of the candidate, it is better to abstain since it can give rise to discrimination!

In any case, the employer does not have to know whether you have children or not or whether you are single or in a relationship.

OUR "EMPLOYMENT" FILE

Finally, unless you are a designer or exercise a creative profession, refrain from proposing a curriculum with an overly original style which could, again, penalize you.

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The little extras

  • a LinkedIn link: in the era of professional social networks, an easily accessible profile will allow the recruiter to find out more about your background and your achievements, while discovering any recommendations from your employees.

  • an optimized file: label your application clearly, such as "CV First name Last name Year" so that it does not get lost and to prevent it from exceeding 200 KB, otherwise the file could be blocked by the company's security system recipient company.

  • Use

  • Candidacy

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