I’m up on a cold rainy morning 🌧️ to write this post. If una no come read am, my eye go red. Hehe!

Since 2012 I’ve taken up jobs, and sometimes in between I’ve freelanced. 2012 till now is definitely not less than 7 years. Why I’m I telling you this? So you can know and be sure I know what I’m trying to say here.

I’ve worked at different jobs, I’ve sent out hundreds of applications when job searching, I’ve made it to the final stages of tough and long interview processes and still got a NO and I’ve gotten some YES too. I’ve also had to look at people’s applications. So what I’m saying here is what I’ve seen in CVs.

Before I take you through some of the things I’m telling you to kick out of your CV I’ll give you a background as to why. Trying to get people to fill positions in an organization is tough, it’s a lot of work. Imagine receiving hundreds of applications and it’s people who have to look through it all. The people looking at your application are scanning very fast with their eyes to catch the relevant information on your CV that will tell them if you are a potential candidate for the job. So you want to use that space well and give them on point information, not irrelevant things. Try to keep your CV within 2pages.

📌 Except you are applying to a Faith centered organization at any time, your RELIGION is not relevant. Take it out of your CV. Serious companies that just want you to deliver your expertise do not care about your religion. The ones that carry -religio-for-head will frustrate your life and still barely pay you well, especially small private businesses or organizations.

📌 Full date of birth or date of birth entirely. Why? You want us to know you are young or too old for the job? Or maybe you want us wishing you happy birthday and send over a gift. You get the sarcasm?

📌 Your hobbies. Who e epp? Take that out. Instead you can place your core skills there. Nobody really cares if you like football or party jollof.

📌 Tweak your CV to relate to a new position you are applying to, if in the past you were once a Chef at a hotel, then that role is irrelevant to maybe an engineering job. They want to see your past experiences that relate to the new position you are applying for. Don’t just list experiences for the sake of it.

📌Your state of Origin. Marital status are irrelevant and putting them even harms your chances. Remember real people are looking at these most times, so what if your towns people have been annoying the person now looking at your CV and seeing where you are from just annoys them more and so your CV is trashed. That’s not a logical thing to do, but our human emotions get in the way, so don’t put any info that could make someone biased to you in a certain way, even if it’s in a way you think might be positive.

📌Only write languages you speak if it’s relevant to the job. Or international languages like French, Arabic, Chinese. Just listing languages you speak wastes space.

Use your own wisdom to understand when to apply these rules. In every thing there are always some grey areas.

Now do you know sometimes it’s a system called ATS that’s used to sift out CVs before real people look at them. There is a way to make this system easily pick your entry as a potential candidate.

Do you know there are couple of ways to gather work experience right after school than waiting forever on a job?

Do you know that sometimes your application never even reaches the organization, because you believe you sent it through the right channel but NO, you didn’t. There are secrets to not missing your target.

How many of you even know I have an e-book on The Moral Code blog titled JOB HUNT LIKE A PRO which answers these questions above and shares many tips to being more efficient in your job search. Visit the book section of the blog Here to find it.

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