10 Sure-Fire Ways To Screw Up Your CV And Alienate Employers

7. Complicated Formatting

The best example I can give of this is to think of that one guy in high school computing who always focused more on sparkle than content. You know that guy. Every single assignment was formatted with a bold underlined title, entire sentences in italics, red borders and random coloured in sections. If you get to the age that you need to make a CV and you're still getting distracted by the marvellous capabilities of Microsoft Word, you probably need to get your priorities in order. Realistically, you only need two or three subtle formatting techniques. A few bold titles and some information in italics is really the most you need to include. Any more and the employer will get confused and give up.

6. Not Updating It

If you did a lot of really good work when you were 23, that's going look excellent on your CV. If you're 31 and you haven't got anything else to brag about...well that just looks suspicious. It's very, very important that you update your CV. Don't think that you can sit down and compile one when you're fresh into your industry and the job is done forever. Not only does it make you look lazy and under-experienced if you hand in a list of achievements from almost a decade ago, but it also raises questions about what you've done since then. Have you even been working? If you took a few years off to explore the world nobody would blame you; but at least mention that in your CV. Otherwise, your employers first thought will be that you couldn't find work or weren't looking for it. That isn't the best look.