October 3, 2025

I’m a Careers Expert – don’t include THIS in your CV

Robbie-Bryant-1-1-1-wecompress.com

A CV gives a first impression of the candidate to the employer, so it’s essential to get it right. Potential employers will often spend less than 30 seconds scanning through each CV, and it can get monotonous reading the same things over again. Whilst it’s important to include as much information as possible on a CV, there are also some things that should be avoided.

Here, Careers and Education Expert Robbie Bryant from Open Study College, reveals five things you’re doing wrong with your CV.

 

Not the time for a selfie

There’s a lot of misinformation when it comes to sharing an image with a CV. However, unless the employer personally asks for one, it’s certainly not recommended! The candidate should only be focusing on presenting their skills, work experience, and relevancy to the role. In most circumstances, the employer is not hiring the candidate based on their appearance, so sharing an image will add no real value to the CV and could give the wrong impression.

Any irrelevant personal information, such as social media handles, marital status, or date of birth, is not essential for a CV. You should only be sharing this personal information if the employer requests it.

LittleMissSunshinexoxo@hotmail.com

It’s important candidates include an email address for the employer to contact them, however, including an email address that was made years ago, with a descriptive name such as ‘emilyrulez’ or ‘johnnyboy’ might give the wrong impression to the employer, as it lacks professionalism.

Instead, create a new email address to use for your job search. It takes less than five minutes to do and could be the decider on whether or not you make it to the next stage.

 

Expert juggler and fire breather

There’s not a ‘one size fits all’ policy when it comes to a CV – it should be used as a working document and tailored to the job role you’re applying for.  Whilst it’s important to include skills on a CV, some candidates will often include skills that aren’t relevant to the job role. This isn’t necessary, instead, candidates should be listing out between four and five key skills that mirror the skills the recruiter is looking for in establishing important experience.

Of course, if you’re applying for a more creative role, then letting your personality shine might be helpful, but generally speaking, it’s best to stay as relevant as possible.

 

References

A CV needs to be short and sweet, so including your references’ details will only take up valuable space that could be used for something more relevant to the job role you’re applying for. Most employers or recruiters will ask for references once you’ve been offered the job role, so adding reference details in your CV isn’t essential.

 

Don’t go AWOL

Don’t leave career gaps unexplained in your CV.  Unexplained career gaps can be confusing to an employer or recruiter and potentially give the wrong impression of a candidate. We’d recommend adding a simple sentence in your CV summary with a brief explanation of what you were doing that time, whether it was travelling, redundancy, parenting, or something else entirely. There’s no need to go into too much detail, as you can expand on this in your cover letter, but big gaps could be seen as a red flag by an employer.