What's the single biggest CV mistake?

Listing what you were responsible for instead of what you achieved. 'Managed the onboarding process' is a duty anyone in the role could claim; 'cut onboarding time from three weeks to five days' is a result only you can. Achievements with numbers are what get you shortlisted.

Should I include a personal statement or profile?

A short one can work if it is specific, three or four lines that say what you do, your strongest evidence, and what you want next. A generic 'hardworking team player with a passion for excellence' adds nothing and wastes your most-read space. If it is not specific, cut it.

Do typos really cost you the job?

Often, yes. A typo signals carelessness on the one document where you controlled every word, and it gives a busy recruiter an easy reason to move on. Proofread, read it aloud, and have someone else check it.

Do I really need to tailor my CV for every job?

For roles you actually want, yes, at least lightly. You do not rewrite it each time, but you reorder and reword so the most relevant experience and the job's keywords are front and centre. A tailored CV beats a generic one almost every time.

Common CV mistakes that get you rejected

The errors that quietly bin good candidates, from duty-listing to the formatting an ATS chokes on.

By Standout · 12 July 2026

Most CVs are not rejected for one dramatic flaw. They are passed over for a handful of ordinary mistakes that stack up until a busy recruiter moves on. Here are the ones that cost people interviews, and the fix for each.

The mistakes that cost you

Duties, not achievements. A list of responsibilities describes the job, not you. Rewrite each bullet as what changed because you were there.
No numbers. Results without figures are just claims. Add the metric wherever you honestly can, time, money, percentage, scale.
One generic CV for everything. Untailored CVs miss the keywords and bury the relevant experience. Reorder and reword for the role.
A vague personal statement. “Passionate, results-driven professional” says nothing. Be specific or delete it.
ATS-hostile formatting. Tables, columns, text boxes and graphics confuse the parser and can drop your experience. Keep it single-column and clean. (See how to make an ATS-friendly CV.)
Typos and inconsistency. Mismatched tenses, wandering date formats and spelling errors read as carelessness. Proofread properly.
Too long, or padded. Four pages of duties is worse than two of outcomes. Cut for relevance. (See how long a CV should be.)

The free Standout CV builder sidesteps most of these by default: it writes your experience as outcomes, keeps the formatting clean and ATS-safe, and tunes it to the role you are targeting.

Turn your history into a polished, ATS-tuned CV, delivered as a Word document in minutes. Free with a Standout account.

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Common CV mistakes that get you rejected

The mistakes that cost you

Common questions