Have you ever spent days, weeks or even months working on your CV, only to remain unsure whether it really does you justice?

Perhaps you have rewritten it several times, asked people for feedback and ended up with conflicting advice. Or perhaps you are pleased with the finished document, but it is not generating the response you hoped for.

The difficulty may have little to do with your writing ability or professional experience. When you are describing your own career, your perspective can make it surprisingly difficult to recognise and communicate your value.

You may overlook strengths that others can see

Ask someone to describe their professional strengths and they may struggle. Ask their colleagues, clients or manager and the answers can come much more readily.

We all have blind spots. Qualities that other people recognise in us may be things we overlook or take for granted.

That creates a challenge when writing a CV. If you struggle to identify what makes you valuable, it becomes difficult to communicate your personal brand, strengths and contribution to a prospective employer.

You know the context, but the recruiter does not

You have lived your career. The person reading your CV has not.

When describing a project or achievement, it is easy to leave out details because they feel obvious to you. You understand the scale, complexity and significance of what happened, but the reader only has the information on the page.

For example, “Led SAP implementation” says little about the number of users, the budget or the business impact.

The same problem applies to technical language and acronyms. Familiarity with your subject can make it difficult to judge how much explanation someone else needs.

A recruiter should be able to understand what you did and why it mattered.

Modesty can hide your strongest evidence

Some people feel uncomfortable claiming credit for an achievement. Others question whether their contribution was significant enough to include.

The result can be a CV that describes responsibilities and experience but provides little evidence of how well the person performed.

Your achievements help demonstrate your ability. If you have delivered tangible business benefits, those examples deserve careful consideration when deciding what to include.

The challenge is to explain your contribution clearly and support it with evidence.

Time invested can make objectivity harder

After spending hours choosing words, adjusting the layout and refining descriptions, it is natural to feel attached to the document you have created.

That attachment can make it harder to assess the finished CV objectively.

Does it communicate the right information for the roles you want? Are the strongest achievements easy to find? Does it make your value clear to someone who has never met you?

These questions require you to step back from the effort involved and consider the document from the reader’s perspective.

Well-meaning feedback can send you in circles

Friends, family and colleagues may be happy to offer an opinion on your CV. However, their advice may differ considerably.

One person suggests cutting it down. Another recommends adding more detail. Someone else has a firm view on the format.

Constantly changing your CV in response to each new opinion can leave you uncertain about what you are trying to achieve.

The intended audience needs to remain central: the recruiters and employers making hiring decisions. Their needs should guide the information you include and how you present it.

Your most recent achievement may not be your most relevant

When recalling career highlights, recent projects and memorable experiences often come to mind first.

An older achievement that demonstrates exactly what a prospective employer needs may receive little attention or be forgotten altogether.

Taking time to review your wider career can help you identify examples that deserve a place in your CV.

An outside perspective can help

Writing a CV involves evaluating your experience, understanding your audience and explaining your value. Being so close to your own career can make each of those tasks harder.

Feedback on your CV is feedback on how a document communicates your experience. It is not a judgement of your worth or professional ability.

An expert review can help you see what is clear, what is missing and where your experience could be presented more effectively.

Want to know how job-market ready you really are?

PH Career Services offers a complimentary, confidential 1-2-1 expert review, covering:

  • Your personal brand and positioning.
  • Your job-seeker value proposition.
  • Your CV, reviewed against current best practice.
  • Your LinkedIn profile and visibility.
  • Your LinkedIn Social Selling Index (SSI).
  • An AI detection scan, with expert guidance on interpreting the result.

To get started, visit PH Career Services and submit your CV and LinkedIn profile through the Free CV & LinkedIn Appraisal form.