Since 2020 when Covid-19 Pandemic started, i have reviewed and rewritten over 250 CVs and Cover Letters, for nairalanders and other media.

I have come to discover the biggest Mistakes common with the Fresh Graduates and the experience graduates alike and I feel I should share.

Unfortunately, this mistakes are visible to the eyes of only experts and HR recruiter.

They are the core reasons why these applicants were not getting frequent invitations too interview they desired..

and why it has been difficult for the underemployed graduates to move from his low pay job, to a higher paying job that she desired.

A clear reason why a Mid level employed is struggling to transition to a senior level position.

Let’s get into the details of these Mistakes below..

#1. Poor Arrangement of information in CV

87 % of the 250 CVs i've worked on, has poor arrangement of information in their CV. This sets of applicants did not understand the principle of strength and weakness.

So, how can they tackle this problem?.

Consider SWOT analysis. According to Wikipedia, “SWOT analysis is a Strategic Planning techniques used to help a person or organization identify Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats related to business competition or project planning”.

No doubt you have competition in the labour market, in that job you wish to apply for. Therefore, it is your duty to identify your SWOT and position them to your advantage, if you must be ahead of your competitors.

So, what information can be classified your Strength or Opportunity, Weakness or Threats? For me, Information such as, Added academic qualification (Phd,Msc,MBa, etc), additional Certifications, Big brand Work Experience, and your achievements, will stand as my strength and opportunities.

And, I will position them in my first page. While, information such as Personal data (Date of birth; where you are above the age in an advertised job, Your Marital Status, State of origin etc.) will be considered my Weakness and Threats and i will relocate them to the behind pages.

The idea is, you position your strength and opportunities in your first page so that they Grabs attention of your potential employers.

#2 Address of Residence

Common sense is not common practice, as basic as address of residence, it has denied about 95% of applicants opportunities of getting their desired job.

Time has really change things, the days when most employers will recruit new employee from any part of the country and provide free accommodation for 3 months, to help you settle down, have gone down the drains.

The Market forces of demand and supply has change every thing, the Number of graduate Supplied into the labour market far exceed the available jobs in demand....

And, it has given Employers a lot of options to choose from and they enjoy it a lot, because it has created avenue to cut cost to its minimum.

These days, for example, let’s say an employer in Lagos need 50 qualified graduates, she can get all the 50 graduates in Lagos alone, in a day, anytime she places a vacancy advertisement......

These is definitely a problem for an applicant, whose address of residence is not Lagos state, the same for applicants in Portharcourt and Abuja, considered to be job hub in these country. Applicants need to be dynamic in approach.

How do you tackle this challenge if you reside outside these three states(Lagos, Portharcourt, & Abuja)?

Its very simple, for example, let’s say you reside in Benin and you find a job vacancy in portharcourt that you meet the requirements, ask yourself, do I have relations or friends in portharcourt, if yes, put a call immediately to them, explain clearly the situation at hand, ask for their address and replace it with yours in your CV before you apply. When you get the job sort yourself out.

So long as the hunter has decided to shoot without missing, I have decided to fly without perching. Ekele the bird..things fall apart. Chinwe Achebe

#3 Too Many Jobs Within a short period of time.

93% of the 250 CVs i worked on have this Costly mistake. This class of applicant thought that the more places they have worked the better the job opportunities, some have worked in 3 places in 3 years, 4 places in 5years or 6 places in 7 years etc.

The question I do ask most time, is it compulsory to include all your previous job in your cv or reduce it to few number of jobs?

Lets compare and contrast the two applicants below and give our verdict. The first, is an applicant who has worked in 6 places within 7 years. The second, is an applicant who has worked in only 2 places in 7 Years. Who will you consider for a job?.

Here’s My verdict, for the first applicant that worked in 6 places in 7 Years......,

I will not give him a job, because his job history has shown that he doesn’t stay long in a job, he is not consistent, no stable job experience, it might be that he is not a hard working person or he might have a character problem, as such no job for him.

For the second applicant who worked for 2 places in 7 Years, I will give him the job, because he has demonstrated from his job history that he stay longer in a job, it means he has acquired better experience in each job with time, he is consistent and might be hard working and have better character. Yes for him, I will give him the job. So you see the implications.

The idea is, you don’t necessarily need to pile up long list of previous place of work, you should consider prone it down to 2 or 3 work places maximum. You can selects that which you acquired better experience and can get good references in case. Be creative.

#4. Unnecessary Long List of Responsibility.

99.5% of the 250 CVs i worked on failed in this aspect.? This class of applicants see responsibility as an achievement, so they pile a long list and cover the whole space. As define by an online dictionary, “responsibility is the state of facts of being responsible, answerable or accountable for something within ones control”.

Hence that is what it is, it means responsibility is a general things and not personal, such that, 50 persons can have the same responsibilities at a time. for example a responsibility of Customer Service Officer is the same in similar industry every where you go. Then , why the long list of responsibilities in your cv? Wouldn’t it be better if you summarise it to one or two sentence and save yourself a lot of space in your CV. The best CV should have fewer pages depends on your years of experience.

For example a Bank Marketer can summarise her responsibility this way ‘Sale of banks retail products, such as Assets, Liability and Non financial' Simple and straight forward. An attacker in football team, like Lionel Messi and Neymar Junior, if you ask them to tell you their responsibilities, they will answer ‘ to score goals and give assist' simple and straight to the point, any other thing is secondary.

The idea is that, responsibility is a general thing, it doesn’t make you smarter or hardworking and it is not an achievement as you will see below.

#5 Complete Absence of Achievements.

99.9% of the 250 CVs i have worked on, did not mention achievements, even the very few that did, hid it inside their long list of responsibilities.

Its quite unfortunate, perhaps because some applicant confuse achievement for responsibility and others did not realise the impact achievements carry on their CV.

The fact is, Your Achievement is what make you “Stand out from the crowd”, it makes you an island of intelligent in a sea of mediocrity. Achievements is a personal possession, you own it and no two persons has the same achievements, even twins Children.

From our example above, Lionel Messi and Neymar Junior are football attackers, their responsibility is the same thing, ‘to score goals and give assist', but their achievement is completely different....

while both players where in Barcelona in 2014/2015 football season, Lionel Messi Scored about 73 goals and 89 assist, While Neymar Junior scored about 33 goals and 41 assist.

It is Very clear that Lionel Messi has better achievement, and it is the singular reason why Lionel Messi is paid higher than Neymar in Barcelona. And, he is needed in all the big football clubs.

It is your achievements that catches the attention of your potential employers, they come to see you as a problem solver, particular to your job function. No wonder i have started receiving positive testimonials from the over 250 CVs i did reviewed and rewritten here on nairaland, because i use my experience and expertise to uncover their achievements and project it properly in their CV.

It is your duty to identify your achievements and channel them to your advantage. If you are finding it difficult to fix, you can always chat me up on WhatsApp or email below and I will gladly use my experience and expertise to fix it for you, for a small Service fee.

#6 Complete Absence of knowledge of Cover letter.

Unfortunately, almost 98 % of the cover letters i reviewed were poorly written.

The fact is, as you aspire to move up in the job markets from a low pay job to a higher pay job that you desired, Cover letter and not your CV, become the most important weapon you need to persuade employers to look towards your direction.

It is in your cover letter that you have all the space to express your skills and achievements. You can get down to the details and demonstrate how your skills have solve previous problems of employers, particular to your job function.

You will have all the space to show how productive you are.

CONCLUSION:

P.S. You can apply this ideas and craft a Smart CV and Cover letter for yourself .
If you need my assistant you can always email: jopress3@gmail.com or chat me up on WhatsApp: zero, seven zero, 6782, three, seven, six zero. For a service fee.
For the moment, I will assist review and rewrite CV and Cover letter, for the first 10 persons here for #4,000 naira only. Gracia’s(thanks)

Nice write up...atleast I picked sth ...am jus a fresh graduate ND I rilli need a good job....Thnkz Bro.

braino1:
Nice write up...atleast I picked sth ...am jus a fresh graduate ND I rilli need a good job....Thnkz Bro.

smart mind

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Organizational skills

I think this is very important.

I have had to review many CVs in my time and a good 40% of the CVs are terrible.

The most annoying thing though was not being able to back up your CV.

I would also say that if you left your last place of employment on a negative note, consider not putting them on the CV. I have had to not offer a job to someone who I was ready to hire because I knew one of the previous employers and they had nothing positive to say.

Nice tips!

cooooooks:
I think this is very important.

I have had to review many CVs in my time and a good 40% of the CVs are terrible.

The most annoying thing though was not being able to back up your CV.

I would also say that if you left your last place of employment on a negative note, consider not putting them on the CV. I have had to not offer a job to someone who I was ready to hire because I knew one of the previous employers and they had nothing positive to say.

Nice tips!

smart and creative.

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