Most people never find out why their CV gets rejected. The company does not call. There is no feedback email. You just never hear from them again.
I got lucky. A recruiter I had connected with on LinkedIn agreed to look at my CV and tell me honestly what she thought. What she said in the next twenty minutes changed everything about how I approach job applications.
The first thing she said:
She did not get past the first paragraph before she stopped. The professional summary at the top of my CV, the section I had spent the most time on, was the first problem.
"This could be anyone," she said. "Passionate professional with a track record of success in dynamic environments. What does that mean? Every CV I read says something like this."
She was right. I had written something that sounded impressive but communicated nothing specific. She told me she needed to know in two sentences who I was, what I had done that was measurable, and why that was relevant to the role she was hiring for. Not adjectives. Facts.
The second thing she said:
My CV had a table with two columns. Left side: experience. Right side: skills and education.
She explained that her ATS, the software that processes applications before she ever sees them, cannot read tables properly. The system mixes up the content from both columns and outputs something incomprehensible. Which means my CV was likely being rejected automatically before she even had the chance to look at it.
The third thing she said:
The jobs I listed from more than seven years ago were taking up space that should have gone to recent accomplishments. Older experience can stay, she said, but as a one-line mention. Not three bullet points.
What I changed:
I rewrote the summary with specific numbers and outcomes. I removed the table and used a clean single-column layout. I cut everything older than seven years to one line each. And I started tailoring the keywords in my CV to match each job description before applying.
The difference was immediate.
Resumelyn helps you make all of these changes without having to figure them out yourself. It analyzes your CV against the specific job you are applying for and tells you exactly what to fix before you submit.
Get honest feedback on your CV at resumelyn.com