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Create ResumeIf your CV is not getting interviews, the problem is usually not that you are “not good enough”. More often, your CV is failing to make the hiring case quickly, clearly, and convincingly enough for the UK job market. Recruiters and hiring managers do not read your CV with patience, optimism, and a cup of tea. Lovely idea. Not reality. They scan for relevance, evidence, risk, clarity, level, and fit. If those things are hard to find, they move on.
The painful part is that many candidates are qualified but badly positioned. Their CV lists responsibilities, uses vague wording, hides achievements, applies too broadly, or fails to match the role they want. A strong CV does not simply describe your career history. It tells the employer why you are worth interviewing for this specific job.
When candidates tell me their CV is not getting interviews, I usually look for one thing first: is the CV making the recruiter think, or is it making the recruiter decide?
That distinction matters.
A recruiter should not have to work hard to understand what you do, what level you operate at, what kind of roles you fit, and why your background is relevant. If they have to piece it together like a mildly depressing puzzle, your CV is already losing.
In UK hiring, especially for competitive roles, your CV is normally being reviewed against a job brief, a hiring manager’s expectations, salary range, level, sector preference, technical requirements, and sometimes an applicant tracking system. That means your CV is not being judged in isolation. It is being judged against what the employer thinks they asked for.
This is where many candidates go wrong. They write a CV that explains their experience from their own perspective. The employer reads it from a risk perspective.
They are thinking:
Can this person do the job?
Have they done something similar before?
Are they at the right level?
Will the hiring manager understand this CV quickly?
One of the most common reasons a CV does not get interviews is that it reads like a job description. Candidates list what they were responsible for, but not what they actually delivered.
A responsibility tells me what your employer expected from your role. An achievement tells me whether you were any good at it.
There is a big difference between:
Weak Example
Responsible for managing customer accounts and supporting sales activity.
Good Example
Managed a portfolio of 45 customer accounts, improving retention by strengthening follow up processes, resolving service issues faster, and identifying upsell opportunities across key accounts.
The weak version tells me the job existed. The good version tells me what the candidate handled, how they worked, and what kind of commercial value they brought.
This does not mean every bullet needs a percentage or dramatic achievement. Not every job is a LinkedIn success story, and I do not expect every candidate to have “transformed” something. But I do expect the CV to show impact, judgement, scope, complexity, or contribution.
A good CV answers the question behind the question. Not just “what did you do?” but “why should this matter to the employer?”
Is there evidence, or just confident wording?
Does this candidate look like a strong match compared with the other applicants?
Is anything unclear enough to make me hesitate?
That last point is brutal but important. In recruitment, hesitation kills applications. If the recruiter is unsure, they rarely stop and investigate. They usually move to the next CV.
A lot of candidates assume recruiters read CVs carefully. Some do. Eventually. But the first screen is usually fast.
That does not mean recruiters are lazy. It means they are filtering. If there are 180 applications for one role, nobody is reading every CV like a novel. The first pass is about identifying obvious matches, possible matches, and clear no matches.
Your CV needs to make the match obvious in the first few seconds.
That means your opening profile, job titles, recent experience, core skills, and achievements need to align with the role you are applying for. If the role is a project manager position and your CV opens with broad phrases about being a “motivated professional with excellent communication skills”, you have wasted valuable space.
The recruiter is looking for signals such as:
Relevant job titles or closely related roles
Industry or sector alignment
Tools, systems, methods, or technical skills mentioned in the job advert
Evidence of similar responsibilities
Appropriate seniority
Clear employment dates
Outcomes that match the employer’s priorities
A logical career direction
If those signals are buried halfway down page two, you are relying on the recruiter to rescue your application. That is not a strategy. That is hope wearing a cheap blazer.
A generic CV often looks professional but performs badly.
This is one of the most frustrating CV problems because candidates sometimes have a clean layout, decent experience, and no obvious mistakes. But the CV still does not convert because it is trying to appeal to everyone.
A CV that tries to fit every role often feels slightly wrong for all of them.
In the UK job market, employers are usually hiring for a specific problem. They do not just want “an experienced marketing professional”. They may need someone who can improve campaign performance, manage paid media budgets, reposition a brand, support lead generation, or handle stakeholder heavy work in a regulated environment.
Those are different hiring problems.
Your CV should be shaped around the role type you want. Not rewritten from scratch every time, but adjusted enough that the recruiter can see why you fit this vacancy.
That includes:
Reordering key skills so the most relevant ones appear first
Adjusting the profile to reflect the target role
Highlighting the most relevant achievements in recent roles
Removing or reducing details that distract from your current direction
Using language that reflects the job advert without copying it awkwardly
Making sure your most relevant experience is not hidden under generic wording
The mistake I see often is candidates treating tailoring as keyword sprinkling. That is not tailoring. That is decorating a weak argument.
Real tailoring means changing the emphasis of your CV so the strongest evidence for that specific role is easy to see.
Hiring managers are not only checking whether you can do the tasks. They are checking whether you are operating at the right level.
This is especially important when applying for senior, manager, specialist, or leadership roles in the UK. A CV can include the right keywords and still feel too junior if the evidence does not support the level.
For example, if you are applying for a Head of Operations role, your CV should not only say you improved processes. It should show scale, ownership, decision making, commercial awareness, people leadership, supplier management, cost control, risk, and operational complexity.
If you are applying for a mid level role, your CV should show that you can work independently, handle workload, solve problems, and contribute without needing constant direction.
If you are applying for an entry level role, your CV should show transferable skills, motivation, reliability, learning ability, relevant projects, internships, volunteering, part time work, or education based evidence.
The level has to be visible.
Employers often reject candidates when the CV creates level confusion. That happens when someone applies for a role above their current evidence, or when a strong candidate writes their CV so modestly that they look less senior than they are.
I have seen very capable candidates undersell themselves so badly that their CV makes them look like support staff when they are actually leading workstreams, managing stakeholders, or influencing decisions.
Modesty is lovely in a person. On a CV, too much of it can be expensive.
Achievements are powerful, but only when they feel credible.
A common CV mistake is using dramatic claims without enough context. Phrases like “significantly improved performance”, “successfully managed projects”, or “delivered outstanding results” do not mean much unless the reader understands what changed, how, and why it mattered.
Recruiters are used to seeing inflated CV language. We do not automatically believe something because it sounds impressive. We look for evidence.
A strong achievement usually includes some combination of:
The problem or situation
The action you took
The scale of responsibility
The result or improvement
The commercial or operational impact
The tools, stakeholders, or processes involved
For example:
Weak Example
Improved team performance and increased efficiency.
Good Example
Introduced a weekly workflow review across a team of 12, reducing duplicated admin, improving response times, and giving managers clearer visibility of workload bottlenecks.
The good version works because it is specific. Even without a percentage, it tells me what happened and why it mattered.
Not every achievement needs to be huge. Sometimes the strongest CV evidence is practical and grounded. Employers like candidates who can solve real problems, not just candidates who write like they have personally saved capitalism.
Candidates often talk about applicant tracking systems as if the ATS is a mysterious robot rejecting everyone in a dark room. In reality, most ATS platforms are not making final hiring decisions. They store, organise, search, and sometimes rank applications. Human screening still matters.
The mistake is thinking you only need to please one side.
Your CV needs to work for both ATS search and human judgement.
For ATS readability, keep your CV clean and simple. Avoid overly designed layouts, text boxes, graphics, icons, unusual columns, and important information placed in headers or footers. These may look nice, but they can confuse parsing systems.
For recruiter readability, make the content sharp, relevant, and easy to scan.
That means using clear section headings such as:
Professional Profile
Key Skills
Career Experience
Education
Certifications
Technical Skills
It also means using the right terminology. If the job advert asks for stakeholder management, budget management, Salesforce, Excel, audit support, payroll, procurement, or project coordination, and you have that experience, those terms should appear naturally in your CV.
Do not stuff keywords. Recruiters can smell that nonsense immediately.
Use keywords because they accurately describe your experience, not because you are trying to trick a system. The goal is not to game hiring. The goal is to make relevant experience findable.
Sometimes the issue is not the CV format or wording. It is the story.
If your career path is varied, your CV needs stronger positioning. Otherwise, the recruiter may not understand what you are aiming for.
This happens often with candidates who have:
Changed industries
Taken a career break
Worked in several short term roles
Moved from permanent to contract work
Returned to work after caring responsibilities
Worked across different functions
Been made redundant
Relocated to the UK
Built experience internationally
None of these things automatically damage your application. But if the CV does not explain the logic, recruiters may fill in the gaps themselves. And when people fill gaps quickly, they do not always fill them kindly.
For example, a candidate with sales, operations, and customer success experience may look unfocused unless the CV positions them clearly for a customer success manager role. A candidate moving from teaching into learning and development may look like a risky career changer unless the CV highlights training design, stakeholder management, facilitation, safeguarding, assessment, and learner outcomes.
Your CV should make your direction obvious. The reader should not finish your CV wondering what kind of role you actually want.
A strong positioning statement is not a fluffy personal summary. It is a short, relevant explanation of your professional identity and target value.
For example:
Good Example
Customer success professional with six years’ experience managing B2B client relationships, improving retention, resolving complex service issues, and supporting account growth across SaaS and technology enabled environments.
This works because it gives role identity, years of relevant experience, key strengths, and sector context. It helps the recruiter place the candidate quickly.
This is the part candidates do not always want to hear, but it matters.
Sometimes your CV is not getting interviews because the CV is weak. Sometimes it is because the roles are more competitive than you realise.
There is a difference between being qualified and being one of the strongest applicants.
For many UK roles, especially remote roles, well paid roles, graduate schemes, NHS roles, civil service roles, finance roles, tech roles, and competitive corporate positions, employers may receive a large number of applications from candidates who meet most of the criteria.
In that situation, “I can do the job” is not always enough. Your CV has to show why you should be shortlisted over other people who can also do the job.
That is where candidate positioning becomes critical.
You need to ask:
What makes my background more relevant than a general applicant?
What evidence shows I can solve this employer’s problem?
What experience do I have that matches the role priorities?
Am I applying at the right level?
Is my salary expectation aligned with the role?
Does my CV show recent and relevant evidence?
Am I relying on transferable skills where the employer wants direct experience?
This is not about discouraging ambition. Apply for stretch roles, yes. But be honest about the gap between your profile and the likely competition.
If you are applying for 80 jobs and getting no interviews, the answer is rarely to apply for another 80 in exactly the same way. That is not persistence. That is a spreadsheet with emotional damage.
Not every rejection is about missing skills. Sometimes the CV creates small doubts that make the recruiter hesitate.
These doubts may include:
Unexplained employment gaps
Frequent short roles without context
Job titles that do not match responsibilities
Overly long descriptions for old roles
Missing dates
A profile that claims seniority but experience that does not support it
Too much focus on tasks and not enough evidence of results
A CV longer than necessary for the level
Confusing formatting
Spelling or grammar mistakes
Inconsistent tense, layout, or job information
A lack of location, work rights, or availability information where relevant
One small issue may not matter. Several small issues together can create a feeling of risk.
Recruitment is full of pattern recognition. Recruiters notice when something feels unclear, inconsistent, or overworked. Hiring managers notice when a CV looks difficult to understand. Nobody usually says, “This candidate had seven tiny red flags.” They just say, “Not quite right.”
That phrase can hide a lot.
Your job is to remove unnecessary doubt. You cannot control every employer preference, but you can make your CV cleaner, clearer, and easier to trust.
Hiring language can be vague, and candidates often interpret it too literally.
When employers say they want a “strong communicator”, they usually do not just mean you can speak nicely in meetings. They may mean you can manage difficult stakeholders, explain technical information clearly, write well, influence decisions, handle conflict, and keep people aligned.
When they ask for “commercial awareness”, they usually want evidence that you understand cost, revenue, customers, efficiency, risk, or business priorities.
When they ask for a “self starter”, they often mean they do not want to hand hold someone through basic ownership.
When they ask for “fast paced environment” experience, they may mean high workload, changing priorities, imperfect processes, and managers who expect you to cope without turning every minor issue into a group therapy session.
Your CV should translate these vague requirements into evidence.
For example, instead of saying:
Weak Example
Excellent communication skills and able to work in a fast paced environment.
Say:
Good Example
Managed daily communication between sales, operations, and customer teams during high volume periods, prioritising urgent queries, resolving service issues, and keeping stakeholders updated on delivery risks.
That gives the recruiter something real to assess.
Start with the role, not the CV.
Most candidates open their CV file and start editing sentences. That is usually the wrong first move. Before you rewrite anything, analyse the roles you are applying for.
Look at five to ten relevant job adverts and identify the repeated requirements. Do not just look at keywords. Look at the employer’s pattern of need.
Ask yourself:
What responsibilities appear again and again?
What skills are essential, not just nice to have?
What level of ownership do these roles expect?
What tools, systems, or methods are commonly requested?
What outcomes does the employer seem to care about?
What type of candidate would feel like a safe shortlist choice?
Then compare that against your CV.
You are looking for gaps between what the market is asking for and what your CV is showing.
Once you know the gap, improve these areas first:
Profile: Make your target role, level, sector relevance, and strongest value clear in four to six lines.
Key skills: Include skills that match your target roles, but only where you genuinely have evidence.
Recent experience: Strengthen your most recent roles first because they carry the most weight.
Achievements: Replace vague claims with specific examples of scope, action, and impact.
Relevance: Reduce detail that does not support the role you want.
Clarity: Make dates, job titles, employers, location, and progression easy to understand.
ATS readability: Use a simple structure with standard headings and clean formatting.
Add evidence wherever the CV currently relies on opinion.
A good CV is not just “well written”. It is well aimed.
A stronger CV helps the recruiter make a confident decision faster.
It does not force them to infer your value. It shows it.
It does not bury relevant skills. It surfaces them.
It does not list everything you have ever done. It prioritises what matters for the role.
It does not rely on personality claims. It proves competence through examples.
It does not sound like a copied job description. It shows how you performed in the role.
The best CVs often feel calm, clear, and commercially aware. They do not scream. They do not beg. They simply make the evidence hard to ignore.
A strong CV usually has:
A clear professional identity
A focused opening profile
Relevant skills aligned with the target role
Reverse chronological career history
Recent roles with strong detail
Older roles summarised appropriately
Specific achievements
Clean formatting
Accurate keywords
Evidence of level, scope, and impact
No unnecessary personal details
No vague filler
That last one matters. Filler weakens trust.
Phrases such as “hard working”, “passionate”, “dynamic”, “results driven”, and “team player” are not automatically wrong, but they are overused and usually unsupported. If you are hard working, show it through workload, outcomes, consistency, or progression. If you are results driven, show the results.
Recruiters do not need adjectives. They need evidence.
Sometimes the CV is not the only issue.
If your CV is strong but interviews are still not coming, look at your application strategy.
You may be applying too late. Many employers review applications as they arrive, especially through job boards. If a role has been live for three weeks and has hundreds of applicants, your chances may already be lower.
You may be applying too broadly. If every role is slightly related but none are a strong match, your CV may keep losing to more obvious candidates.
You may be relying only on job boards. In the UK market, referrals, recruiter relationships, direct applications, LinkedIn visibility, and speculative approaches can all matter depending on the sector.
You may be aiming for roles where your salary, location, work rights, or availability do not align. These factors are not always fair, but they are real screening considerations.
You may also be applying during a slow hiring period or in a market where employers are being cautious. When hiring slows, employers often become more specific. They take fewer risks. They look for closer matches. They delay decisions. They add extra interview stages. Wonderful for nobody, but common.
This is why you should track your applications properly.
Do not only track how many jobs you applied for. Track:
Job title
Company
Date applied
Source
Whether the role was a close match
Whether you tailored the CV
Whether you received a rejection
Whether you reached interview stage
Which version of your CV you used
After 20 to 30 targeted applications, patterns usually appear. If you are getting no responses at all, the CV, targeting, or timing is likely the issue. If you are getting first interviews but no second interviews, the CV is doing its job and the interview performance or role fit needs attention.
Do not diagnose the wrong problem. That is how candidates waste months.
Before sending your next application, check your CV against this recruiter style checklist.
Can I understand your target role within ten seconds?
Does your profile match the kind of role you are applying for?
Are your strongest relevant skills visible near the top?
Does your recent experience prove you can do the job?
Have you shown achievements, not just duties?
Are your job titles, dates, and employers clear?
Does the CV reflect UK hiring expectations and terminology?
Have you included the right tools, systems, qualifications, or technical skills?
Is the CV tailored to the role without sounding copied from the advert?
Have you removed irrelevant detail that distracts from your current goal?
Is the layout simple enough for ATS and human screening?
Would a hiring manager understand your level quickly?
Does your CV reduce doubt or create it?
Is there a clear reason to interview you over a similar candidate?
That final question is the one most candidates avoid. But it is the question hiring teams are effectively answering.
A CV does not need to make you look perfect. It needs to make you look relevant, credible, and worth a conversation.
A rejected CV does not always mean you were unqualified. It can mean your experience was not clear enough, relevant enough, recent enough, strong enough, or competitive enough for that specific role at that specific moment.
That is annoying, but it is also useful. Because most of those things can be improved.
You cannot control the entire hiring process. You cannot control internal candidates, unrealistic job adverts, slow employers, budget freezes, vague hiring managers, or recruiters who apparently communicate via smoke signals.
But you can control how clearly your CV presents your value.
You can make the match easier to see. You can remove vague wording. You can show stronger evidence. You can tailor with more intention. You can apply more strategically. You can stop sending the same CV into different roles and hoping the market does the thinking for you.
The candidates who get more interviews are not always the best candidates. They are often the candidates whose CV makes the hiring decision easier.
That is the real lesson.
Your CV is not there to tell your life story. It is there to get you shortlisted.
Written by Simar Malhi, a recruiter and headhunter with international recruitment experience. I write about CVs, job applications, hiring decisions, and the reality behind recruitment processes. My goal is to help candidates understand more honestly how employers, recruiters, and hiring managers actually select candidates.
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