How often do you review and update your CV?
Updating your resume is one of the most important career habits you should develop. It helps you to include the most recent developments and achievements accurately. Plus, when you work with professional CV writers, you also keep up with current trends.
To keep your CV lean and effective, here are four items that many people consider necessary, but you should remove them.
Age or Date of Birth
Unless you are applying for jobs where the age is a must-declare requirement, like joining the police or serving in a bar, it should not feature anywhere on your application. After all, it doesn’t affect your ability to perform. Plus, recruiters and employers focus more on the right experience rather than the age.
Moreover, declaring your age is not a legal requirement. When you do, you expose yourself to discrimination based on age which is illegal.
So, save yourself the trouble and work with a professional CV writer to emphasize the right experiences.
Marital Status or Number of Dependents
Just like the age, you don’t need to indicate your marital status or the number of dependents in your CV. It can trigger irrational discrimination. Besides, discrimination based on personal circumstances or marital status is prohibited by the law.
Plus, it should not and doesn’t affect your ability to perform.
If you had that information on your resume, delete it and work with a professional CV writer to include something more relevant to the job on your next review.
Irrelevant Work Experience and Qualifications
There’s always a chance in a hundred that a prospective employer may find an unrelated experience or qualification to be interesting and worth a second look. But, this could mess up the rest of the 99 chances to grab the attention of a recruiter.
Remember, recruiters, spend less than 10 seconds on a CV. You’ve got to ensure yours is tailor-made and laser-focused on a particular job.
Don’t include irrelevant experiences or qualifications. Work with a professional CV writer to prune down experiences from too far back, and unrelated qualifications.
References
Let’s get this right, it’s important to have references at hand at any stage of your career.
But, do you need to include them in the early stages of applying for a job?
Not really.
Across New Zealand, there’s an expectation by prospective employers that candidates will provide references upon being taken up as new hires. As such, many employers only bother to check references for candidates whom they are considering to hire.
That means references come handy after your CV has been shortlisted, reviewed and found worthy of an interview.
Rather than provide a long list of references, you could say ‘references available on request’ at the close of the resume. Alternatively, just leave it blank.
To conclude, your resume could be having lots of excess stuff. A professional CV writer will help you cut loose this stuff from your CV. They will also help you to keep it focused on what an excellent hire you’d make.
