What a recruiter actually sees in the first 10 seconds of viewing your CV

Heatwave’s back. Aircon's arrived. It’s quiet, it’s cold, it’s perfect. I also, like hopefully a lot of you, stayed up to watch England march on to the World Cup Quarter Finals, buzzing, but knackered.

Ok, so the 10 second thing isn’t quite legit. Partly because I wanted you to read on and partly collaborating with the truth. A recruiter won’t read each CV in 10 seconds - but it will take that long to work out if they want to dig deeper into your CV. Think of arriving at the bar for a blind date, do you like what you see enough to want to know more, or have you already made your mind up? (Disclaimer that looks aren’t everything etc etc).

These first 10 seconds are vital and it isn’t because recruiters are lazy, but when you have a role with 300 plus applications, you need to be efficient with time and when you’re an experienced recruiter, you can scan through the core info in a rapid amount of time, to enable the majority of CVs to be viewed through human eyes (see my first blog post).

So, here is where my eyes go on a CV, in order.

1. Your most recent role - title and company. Long and short, if you’re applying to a Java Engineer role, are you a Java Engineer? And where have you been a Java Engineer most recently? You are a Java Engineer? Great, I keep reading. If you’re not and it’s not clear why, I may need to move on.

2. Dates. How long have you been in each role? Myth buster, gaps don’t bother most recruiters anywhere near as much as you may think. Things happen, redundancies happen, health happens, life happens. What I’m looking at is the pattern of length of service. Multiple 6 month stints in perm roles? It’s a question for me to find an answer to. One line can answer these questions often.

3. Location. Sounds simple, matters plenty. If the role is 3 days a week in London and you live in Stoke-on-Trent (big up Staffs Uni), that’s another question that will need answering. If you’re open to relocation or are in the process of it, mention that.

4. The CV format. When I’m scanning your CV, is it easy for me to extract this key info or am I going on a scavenger hunt? It’s not to say I won’t do that, but make the important stuff as easy as possible to find.

So these are the bits I’m looking for straight away. What am I not looking for?

Your personal statement. And, sorry, because it’s personal to you. I will likely read it once I’ve covered off the key info, but the fact that you’re ‘hard working and a great team player’ doesn't tell me anything. Most CVs say this, and if you aren’t those things, you’re not going to add ‘reasonably lazy and doesn’t play well with others’. Leave the generic stuff out, include key achievements and the impact it had on the business.

A photo of you, just don’t.

Fancy designs - maybe if you’re applying for a UX or Graphic Design role, but otherwise, it won’t harm your chances, but it equally isn’t needed.

Buzzwords, please don’t use words like synergy, ninja or dynamic. This isn’t Diary of a CEO (thank god). Plain english and impact, trump buzzwords everytime.

So, these are the things I look for and the things I don’t when scanning a CV. Obviously, they aren’t the only things I’ll read on your CV, but they are the things that make me want to dive deeper. Other recruiters might do it differently, you might think it’s a load of rubbish, let me know if you do, I’d love to hear.

It’s coming home.

This post is written by myself only, not AI. It won't be perfect.