This simple CV mistake makes you look like a liar, according to hiring managers

Let’s get it out of the way early, why don’t we: everyone lies on their CV. Everyone. Some more than others, admittedly – not everyone is erroneously claiming they can speak French or tap dance when actually all they have is a C grade GCSE and a proclivity to start dad dancing any time they hear Africa by Toto. 

A little tweak here and there, though; a bit of exaggeration about how much responsibility you had, is pretty normal. 

But there could be something on your CV that you might not realise seems like a lie – and it could be stopping you from getting job interviews, according to WorkItDaily CEO J.T. O’Donnell.

Writing for Inc., O’Donnell says that “hiring managers often assume you’re a fake” if you don’t include numbers on your CV. By this she means quantifiable figures – a percentage by which you’d increased a company’s revenue, for example, or the number of times you performed a particular task in a day. 

“Unfortunately, many job seekers are making a simple mistake that looks like they’re lying on their resume,” O’Donnell writes.  “A resume without numbers is suspect. If you can’t quantify your experience, who knows if you’ve accomplished anything?

“The purpose of a resume is to help the reader understand how you justified the cost of hiring you to your former employers,” she continued. “What did you do that saved or made the company enough money to pay for your salary and benefits?

“The more clearly you can quantify your accomplishments on the job, the easier it is for hiring managers to imagine the value you could bring to their organisation. Conversely, a resume without numbers screams, ‘I don’t know my worth and I’m just trying to make myself sound successful.’”

Think your job can’t be quantified? It can, O’Donnell says. 

Answer phones all day? She suggests working out how many people work at your company, how many calls you take every day, how many phone lines you use and so on – and asking yourself a few simple questions about how to quantify your job could turn up similar answers. 

(Images: Rawpixel / Unsplash)