Despite the lots of career advice out there, many entry (and even experienced) career individuals still include irrelevant information in their CV.
Your CV has to convey the best possible professional version of YOU. This means that, as much as you want to make your CV impressive, in some instances you should be careful not to include information that either doesn’t help your cause or hurts it even. If you are an entry level professional/jobseeker you can check tips on how to write effective CVs.
Here are a few things you should not bother including in your CV. They either are outdated or doesn’t help to make your CV look better.
Sensitive Personal Information
It’s simple – leave out any sensitive personal information that someone can use to steal your identity or carry out fraud. Don’t put your driver license details, or any ID card number for that matter (social security, passport, etc).
Information That Can Be Used to Discriminate Against You
See those people that still include stuff like religion, political affiliation, state of origin etc in their CV? It’s no more relevant these days. In fact in lots of cases those information will leave you vulnerable to discrimination
Salary Information
It is never a good idea to include information on your current or previous salaries. It will only serve to undercut you and hurt your chances of negotiating a better pay. Those are discussions that will be had during the interview or later stages when you pass the interview.
Empty Buzzwords
Lots of people think that using fluffy words and pointless phrases will impress prospective employers. Those useless phrases and buzzwords instead do the opposite for you. Keep the words and sentences in your CV simple and meaningful.
Headshots or Photographs
We still see lots of CV designs that come with a head shot or photograph of the candidate. While it may not be quite harmful to your chances, is it important or useful to include your photo? Unless you are applying for a role that requires looks (eg modelling etc) you are better off leaving your photo out of your CV.
In fact we think this falls under – information that can be used to discriminate against you. Most employers and jobs have nothing to do with your looks. So except for jobs where looks are part of the mix, you should create your CV without your photograph.
You can use CVHack to build a professional CV for your job applications. Choose from several smart templates and have a CV you can be proud of in less than 5 minutes.