CV Tip: Only include relevant information on your CV…

Sobhan Mohmand, Career Expert          6 Feb 2019

Your CV is your personal sales brochure, not your autobiography. Therefore, any information that is not ‘selling’ you is regarded as irrelevant and for that reason damaging to your application.

People usually tend to go straight into ‘tell mode’ when it comes to writing a CV. This is a big mistake, do not start your life story; simply list down all the information in a short, clear and accurate way without causing information overload.

Examples of irrelevant CV information

The following are some examples of irrelevant information people include in their CVs:

1. Education to date: Candidates who are educated to the PhD level should never, I repeat never, waste valuable space on their CV by listing down all the primary or even secondary schools they have attended!The only exception to this rule would be where the primary or secondary schools were extremely prestigious. In the rest of the 99% cases, the above statement is applicable.
2. Career to date: if you had a dozen jobs before you reached the age of 40, which many of us will have, it is not wise to include the details of all these jobs. How can a person who has reached the level of an Executive Manager clutter his CV by giving a lot of information about the times when he was a shelf-stacker?!
3. Hobbies: The Hobbies and Interests section of your CV is not an opportunity for you to write paragraphs upon paragraphs about the things you enjoy in life!It should only include a few lines of information which outline your hobbies that are directly linked to the job or have given you invaluable skills that will assist you in doing the job well.