Dear Jobs Guru: ‘Employers keep ignoring my CV and I’m starting to lose hope’ 

Reader Lucy says her friends reckon she’s got a great CV – but she keeps sending it out to employers and never hears a word back. Our Jobs Guru James Innes is here with some advice

I’ve rewritten my CV umpteen times now and, each time, I convince myself it must finally be perfect.

I’ve tweaked the wording, moved things round, cut things back, added things in again – and even had my friends take a look. They all say it seems fine – but the result never really changes.

I send it out and hear next to nothing – which is driving me mad! At what point do you stop blaming the CV and start wondering whether the problem is something else like the jobs I’m applying for, my age, or something I can’t even see?

Lucy, Cambridge

Well, Lucy, this is indeed where a lot of people start going round in circles! They keep fiddling with the CV because it’s the main element of a job search that they have full control over.

They change the wording, move a few bullet points around and, yes, they ask their friends what they think – and then send it off again, hoping for a different result.

Can the CV still be the problem? Absolutely. A weak CV can sink you very quickly. But if you’ve rewritten it several times and the response is still flat, you do perhaps need to stop treating it as the only possible explanation.

Ask yourself some hard questions. Are you applying at the right level? Are you using the same CV for jobs that are actually quite different? Are you applying for roles you could do, but where your background doesn’t immediately look like the obvious fit?

Friends, bless ‘em, often aren’t much help. A recruiter sees only what’s on the page, without the background and context your friends have.

So, yes, your CV is clearly really important. But you may be letting it become a scapegoat…

Top Tip:

If you’re getting nowhere fast in your job search, stop rewriting your CV for a moment and pressure-test your whole approach. Wrong targets? Wrong level? Poor fit?

Spotlight On: Why friends are terrible CV judges

This sounds rather ungrateful, I know, but, whilst a second pair of eyes can sometimes be helpful, friends are generally not the best people to ask to judge your CV.

A recruiter sees only what is on the page, and they’ll often look at a CV for only a few seconds before deciding whether to keep going or not.

This is very different to how your friends will be reading your CV, not to mention that your friends know you anyway and you don’t need to sell yourself to them.

So when a friend says, “Looks great to me!” it may be comforting – but it’s probably not very useful!

Get a head start in your job hunt with James’ new book, The Job You’ve Always Wanted – out now from Pearson at £16.99.

Our Jobs Guru, James Innes, is a best-selling careers author and founder of the world’s leading group of professional CV and resume writers .