All guidesBy SuitedCV TeamUpdated
The CV mistakes that quietly cost you interviews
Most CVs are not rejected for one glaring fault. They are passed over for a few small, common mistakes that add up to a weaker impression than the person deserves. None of these are hard to fix once you can see them. This guide walks through the ones that cost the most, and what to do instead.
Content mistakes that flatten a strong candidate
The most expensive mistakes are about what you say, not how it looks:
- Listing duties instead of results. 'Responsible for social media' says nothing. 'Grew Instagram from 2k to 18k in a year' says everything.
- No numbers anywhere. A CV with no figures is all claim and no proof. Add scope, volume, time saved, or growth wherever it is honest.
- A generic profile of adjectives. 'Motivated team player with excellent communication' is invisible. State what you do and for whom.
- Burying the best material. Your strongest achievement should not be the third bullet of your second job.
- Explaining everything, prioritising nothing. A CV is a highlight reel, not a full record.
Formatting mistakes that break the read
- Walls of dense text with no white space, so nothing stands out.
- Inconsistent dates, fonts, and bullet styles that read as careless.
- Two-column layouts and text-in-images that confuse an ATS. See the guide on ATS-friendly CVs.
- Tiny margins and 9pt type to force one page, when tighter wording would do it cleanly.
- A creative layout for a conservative field, or a plain one where a portfolio is expected.
The biggest mistake: one CV for every job
Sending the same CV to forty openings is the most common mistake and the most costly. A generic CV matches no job especially well, so it loses to candidates who mirrored the posting's language and led with the relevant experience.
The fix is not forty CVs written from scratch. It is one strong master CV and a light tailoring pass per application: reorder to put the relevant work first, and match wording to the job. See the guide on tailoring your CV to a job description.
Small things that cost you anyway
- Typos and grammar slips. Read it aloud, and have one other person check it.
- A dead or missing link: a broken portfolio URL, or a LinkedIn that no longer exists.
- An unprofessional email address, or contact details that are wrong or out of date.
- A file named 'CV final v3 (2).pdf'. Name it firstname-lastname-cv.pdf.
How SuitedCV helps you avoid them
SuitedCV's templates handle the formatting mistakes by construction: one clean reading order, consistent dates and type, ATS-safe structure, and a text-based PDF, so the layout traps are already closed. The live preview and word count keep the page from turning into a wall of text.
For the content mistakes, tailoring suggests result-focused wording per job and shows the keyword gap against the posting, so you avoid the generic-CV trap without rewriting from scratch. You approve every change, so nothing is invented.
Common questions
What is the single most common CV mistake?
Sending one generic CV to every job. A CV that is not aimed at the specific role loses to candidates who tailored theirs, even when their experience is similar.
How do I catch typos I keep missing?
Read the CV aloud, change the font briefly so your eye sees it fresh, and have one other person read it. Spellcheck misses correctly-spelled wrong words.
Is a creative CV design a mistake?
Only when it fights the field or the parser. A designer's CV can be visual; a lawyer's should be clean. Either way it must stay ATS-readable.
Should I include references on my CV?
No need. 'References available on request' wastes a line, and recruiters ask when they want them. Use the space for results instead.