Most CVs are rejected for a small number of repeated, fixable mistakes. The biggest is describing duties instead of achievements. The rest are a mix of layout choices that break screening software and habits that make a strong candidate read like an average one.
Content mistakes
1. Listing duties instead of achievements
“Responsible for managing social media accounts” describes the job. “Grew the following from 2,000 to 11,000 in eight months” describes you. Every bullet should survive the question “so what happened?”. Fix: rewrite your bullets.
2. No numbers anywhere
Numbers are the only part a reader remembers. If nothing in your CV is quantified, nothing in it is memorable. Scale counts even when outcomes are not measurable: team size, ticket volume, budget, client count.
3. A generic personal statement
“Hard-working professional seeking a challenging role in a dynamic organisation” could belong to anyone. If a competitor could paste your summary onto their CV unchanged, it is doing no work. See the personal statement guide.
4. Sending the same CV to everything
The relevant experience ends up buried in the fourth bullet of the second job. Twenty minutes of tailoring moves it to the top.
5. An objective statement
“Seeking a position that allows me to grow” tells the employer what you want. They are reading to find out what you offer.
6. Claiming skills you cannot defend
“Advanced Excel” earns you a live test. Only list what survives a follow-up question.
Layout mistakes
7. A two-column template
Screening software reads straight across both columns and scrambles your text. It looks designed and parses badly. Details in the ATS guide.
8. Contact details in the header or footer
Many parsers ignore those regions entirely, which makes you unreachable. Put them in the body of the page.
9. Text in tables, text boxes or images
Anything not plain flowing text is at risk of being dropped. A scanned CV extracts nothing at all.
10. Creative section headings
“My Journey” instead of “Experience” means a parser looking for the standard heading finds nothing.
11. Font too small to be comfortable
Below 10pt to force a fit produces a page that gets skimmed and abandoned. Cut content instead. See CV length.
Detail mistakes
12. Years only, no months
“2022–2024” could be 25 months or 13. Ambiguity reads as concealment even when nothing is being concealed, and it breaks duration filters.
13. Unexplained gaps
A gap is a small question. Hiding it makes it a large one. One line settles it.
14. Typos and inconsistent formatting
Mixed date formats, some bullets ending in full stops and others not, two different fonts. Read it aloud, then read it backwards line by line — that catches what your eye skips.
15. An unprofessional email address or a bad filename
Use firstname.lastname@ if you can. Name the file Ayesha-Khan-CV.pdf, not cv final v3 UPDATED (1).pdf, which is the first thing the recruiter sees in their downloads folder.
A five-minute audit
- Copy your CV text into a plain text editor. Is it readable and in order?
- Count the bullets containing a number. Under a third means rewrite.
- Read only your summary. Could you tell which job it is for?
- Check every role has a month and a year.
- Check the filename.
Build your CV free — ten ATS-safe templates, an instant quality score, and a PDF or Word download. No account needed, and your CV stays in your browser.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most common CV mistake?
Describing duties instead of achievements. Most CVs read like a job description of the role rather than an account of what that specific person accomplished in it, which makes every candidate look interchangeable.
Do typos really cost you the job?
Often, yes, particularly for roles where accuracy is part of the work. A recruiter reading a hundred applications uses small errors as a cheap filter, fair or not.
Should I put my photo, age or marital status on a CV?
It depends entirely on the country. In the UK, US, Canada and Australia, leave all three off. In parts of Europe, the Middle East and South Asia they are still conventional.
Is it a mistake to use a CV template?
No, but the wrong template is. Two-column designs with icons and sidebars look impressive and parse badly in screening software, which costs you more than a plain layout ever will.