3 CV mistakes to avoid during your 2024 job hunt

Development organizations are currently busy finalizing their staffing budgets and team structures for the coming year, making January a very busy month for hiring. As such, now is the time for job seekers to start planning to get their CVs into shape so they can hit the ground running in 2024. To help you along, we recently held a digital event featuring insights from Kathryn Harper, an expert in professional development writing. She offered a wide range of advice for ensuring your CV best reflects and positions your expertise and experience through the lens of global development hiring authorities. Harper also reflected on this past year from her perspective working with clients on improving their CVs, citing common mistakes she has seen and pointing out areas where job seekers can bolster their chances of success in the coming year. For instance, she has seen a “pension towards shortcuts” in some of her work and highlighted some of the reasons these can backfire. “If you walk away from this workshop with nothing else, believe me when I say that no one can do what you do, how you do it, why you do it, where you do it, and what outcomes you do it for. That is your story, and no one else can tell it as well as you,” Harper said. Here are three key takeaways from our discussion that will help you avoid potentially crucial errors on your CV in 2024. Substance over style Some job candidates have been shifting to what Harper calls the “newsletter” CV template, which incorporates visual elements such as photos and graphics. However, she stressed that this kind of approach is less likely to succeed in global development. “If graphics and all that were really good, LinkedIn would be all over it, and LinkedIn profiles are really pretty boring when you think about it. They are just a list of what you did, who you did it for, how long you did it, and what you achieved. And there's a reason for that because that's how readers consume information,” she said. “Most recruiters are reading from top to bottom, and they want to see a chronology,” Harper added. A job description isn’t a CV Harper also pointed out several “shortcuts” that she has seen candidates attempt, including “an over-reliance on using one's job description as a CV,” she said. A CV and a job description “are two different things, and never the two shall meet,” Harper said. The job description of a role is “What you were hired to do. Your CV is what you actually are doing, and what you're achieving, and what impacts you're achieving at what outcomes you're achieving,” she explained. Don’t rely on AI There’s a lot of buzz about artificial intelligence in the workplace and in recruitment, but in terms of whether it can take on the role of CV writer, Harper urged caution. “I don't see AI serving job candidates well in terms of actually writing a ready CV or a ready cover letter because, to me, AI is still too generic. I think it is still untested in the arena of distinctive storytelling,” she said. There may be some value in using AI-driven platforms to provide baseline CV templates, Harper said. “But you still have to go back in and customize it. So I'm not sure it's saving you any time.”