How to write a CV in the age of AI and automation - with Graeme Jordan

#215: Graeme Jordan is a job application, CV and interview consultant.  He explains what you should include in your CV, common mistakes people make when applying for jobs, and how employers screen job applications.

What you’ll learn

• [01:42] What role the CV plays in 2025. 
• [03:25] How to get jobs that aren’t advertised to the general public. 
• [07:08] What happens to your CV when you send it to an employer. 
• [09:29] How employers use AI to screen CVs. 
• [11:09] The different stages of review a CV goes through. 
• [15:09] Common problems with the recruitment process. 
• [19:21] What the application tracking system is and how it works. 
• [23:06] How to improve your CV. 
• [25:11] The type of jobs you should apply for. 
• [25:43] What criteria to include in a job application. 
• [28:28] What to include in your CV and how to keep it relevant. 
• [30:37] How much you need to tailor your CV to each job. 
• [33:30] Why you shouldn’t use the ‘easy apply’ feature. 
• [36:14] How to format your CV and how long it should be. 
• [38:16] What to include in a cover letter. 
• [42:23] The sales skills you need to get a job. 
• [44:30] Marketing techniques you can use to improve your CV. 
• [51:52] How you should respond to a personality test in a job application. 

Resources mentioned in this episode
Please note that some of these are affiliate links and we may get a commission in the event that you make a purchase.  This helps us to cover our expenses and is at no additional cost to you.

• Surrounded By Idiots, Thomas Erikson
• Change Work Life Coaching

For the show notes for this episode, including a full transcript and links to all the resources mentioned, visit:

https://changeworklife.com/how-to-write-a-cv-in-the-age-of-ai-and-automation/

Re-assessing your career?  Know you need a change but don't really know where to start?  Check out these two exercises to start the journey of working out what career is right for you!

Transcript

0:00

What role does the CV play in 2025? With one-click applications now possible on LinkedIn, do you even need still to have a CV? And if you do, is it going to be read by a human or by artificial intelligence? In which case, how should you present it? What should you include? That's what we're going to be talking about in this week's episode. I'm Jeremy Cline, and this is Change Work Life. Hello, and welcome to Change Work Life, the podcast where we're all about beating the Sunday evening blues and enjoying Mondays again. I'm a career coach, you can find out more about that changeworklife.com/coaching, and in each episode, my guests and I bring you tips, strategies and stories to help you enjoy a more satisfying and fulfilling working life. What role does the CV play in 2025? In a world of LinkedIn, easy apply, automation and AI, how important is your CV when it comes to looking for a new position? To answer this question and more, I'm joined this week by Graeme Jordan. Graeme is a job application, CV and interview consultant who has helped people across six continents to understand and communicate their value so they can succeed in the jobs market. Graeme, welcome to the show. Thank you very much for having me. So, let's dive straight in with a fairly broad question. What role does the CV play in 2025? Yeah, interesting. The CV will continue to play a role as long as employers keep asking for it. It's something you have to accept as soon as you start applying for jobs. It's the employer that's in control, and you may or may not like that, but ultimately, they have the power to offer you a job and contract that's going to offer you ongoing payment in return for your work. And they'll only do that if they think that you're the right person. So, yeah, whatever method they choose, within reason, is the method that you have to get on board with. So, yes, still the vast majority of private sector employers ask for a CV, some public sector employers as well, which people don't realise. I mean, there are application forms as well, mostly online now, but I've helped teachers get jobs by applying with the CV, and in various other public sectors, government departments, people applying to work in those. So, the CV is still very much alive and very much important. And as we'll probably discuss, even with modern approaches like networking, you will get asked for a CV at some point, because it's a summary of your background, and your background, I mean, your working background, that is, it'll always be relevant to the selection decision. Let's talk about networking for a minute, because there's a lot said about the hidden job market and the role of networking versus advertised jobs. I forget the stat, but it was something ridiculous like only 20% of jobs are actually advertised, and the rest are filled through networking or something like that. You might be able to correct me on that. But yeah, where does the CV fit in in that kind of landscape? It's funny, isn't it, because apparently 87% of statistics are made up. I saw a statistic this weekend on someone's T shirt, it said something like, three out of every four people make up 75% of the population. I loved that one. Brilliant. Yeah, brilliant. I mean, how could you possibly measure the number of jobs that are hidden? The word hidden gives you a clue, doesn't it? Look, there are some jobs that aren't advertised. I've got no idea what the proportion is, for that reason that they are hidden. Now, I can tell you that in my career, I did once get three jobs in a row that weren't advertised. So, this definitely works, it definitely is a thing. But that's not to say that applying for jobs that are advertised is a waste of time. If an employer is advertising a job, it's usually because they want to recruit someone. And people are very cynical about that at the moment. But it's a very small proportion of jobs advertised that aren't real. Yes, sometimes it's recruiters looking for just new candidates that they can then try to find roles for elsewhere. Sometimes they are scams, but that should be quite clear. So, bar and all of that stuff, when an employer advertises a job, it's because they want to recruit someone. So, yes, you can use the so-called hidden jobs market, you can apply speculatively, if you've got a target employer, you can literally just contact them and say, 'I'd love to work for you for these reasons. These are the things I've done in the past. This is why I think I'd be a great fit. Do you have any roles in ABC kind of area?' And it does have to be as specific as that. It can't be, you know, 'You got any jobs?' And I did use to work in recruitment, and you did use to get people walking in the door saying, 'I'll do anything if you got any jobs.' And as much as that might be what you want, really, you've got to communicate with someone why you're interested in that role. Because people who are interested and motivated are usually going to do a better job. So, you've got to do that, and you've got to tell them why to choose you. So, my advice, use the hidden jobs market as much as you can, do your networking, but ultimately, you've got to keep an eye on things that are being advertised as well. Because why would you differentiate between the source of the opportunity? It's either the right opportunity for you, or it's not. And in terms of the CV, even if you're doing it through the hidden jobs market, I guess you can still expect the question, someone will say,'Okay, lovely chatting with you, why don't you send over your CV?' Exactly. And that is exactly what they say. So, you're not getting around the process, you're not getting around the need to have a great CV. It's just ultimately going to be there, and in whatever format it is, you are going to have to convince someone to choose you instead of choosing other people. And that's just an absolute fact of the matter that isn't going to change. So, before we look at the CV itself, let's spend a little bit of time talking about what actually happens to the CV. So, kind of when it goes, when it leaves your desk, or once you've hit send. So, I mean, basically, what happens to a CV once you have submitted it to an employer? Well, somebody evaluates it, and there are various ways of doing that, and they decide whether to shortlist you for interview or not. In terms of what they're evaluating it against, the only fair and reasonable way to evaluate any job application is against the person spec. They should have told you what that is in advance. You should have known that when you applied. And it is whether it's a one-page document or a few adjectives in the advert, or whether it's something even more detailed, a table with bits that are essential and bits that are desirable. One way or another, you're going to know what they're looking for. So, they're going to evaluate you against that. Now, there might be other stuff that's implied, that they're particularly interested in one thing or the other. But ultimately, and we can talk about the quality of job adverts, the quality of job descriptions and person specifications, let's be honest, they're not very good, most of them, so you might have to do some reading between the lines and some inferring of what the real criteria are, especially if the wrong person has written the person specification, which sometimes might be the case, or they've just reused an old one or whatever it is. But ultimately, a set of criteria exists, and somebody is judging you against that, but also against the other people who've applied. So, you've got this other unknown thing that you can't control, which is who else has applied and how good are they, meaning how good is their application really. Because how brilliant you are at the job and how good your application is are very different things. And I don't see a correlation between them. I never have seen a correlation between them, which is why I do what I do. There is, of course, the question of is it a person doing this evaluation, or is it a piece of software, is it AI? And there are various views on that, aren't there? My view, it's another one of these immeasurable things. Okay, most employers don't admit to using AI to screen CVs, and most recruiters don't. Now, of course, I do plenty of networking myself, and I talk to recruiters and employers at least a couple of times a week, and from what I'm told, there are some who use AI to screen CVs. It's not a large number by any means. It's not a large proportion. Especially if we consider that 89% of businesses are micro, and 98% of businesses are SMEs. It's probably 99%, actually. So, most businesses don't even have an ATS system, never mind use it to screen candidates. So, it's a smaller issue than most people think it is. And in any case, what are you going to do about it? The only thing you can really do is present your offering in a way that's relevant to the person specification. So, why not just do that really well and not worry about the technology that the employer is using? Yeah, there's a lot to be said for that. Just if you don't know, then don't worry about it, and proceed as you would anyway. I'm sure that for this question the answer will be it depends, and it will depend on things like size of employer and number of applications they receive and that kind of thing. But I mean, typically, how many pass throughs does the CV go through? I mean, if you're talking about a reasonably sizable organisation, will it go through someone, I don't know, relatively junior who will have a set of criteria against which to store it? And then, it goes into a second part for review by someone more senior. Or does that not happen? It just goes straight to whoever it might be a recruiter or head of HR. Is there a general rule? Yeah, there are a couple of instances that I've typically seen. The first one is, if it's going directly to what people refer to as the hiring manager, which could be any line manager who's going to be responsible for the person recruited, so whoever's going to manage the person who's recruited, they might get it first, or it might be a group of people who have responsibilities, certainly for a senior role. And I've been responsible for recruiting senior roles before, and you've got maybe a few senior managers who each evaluate the applications that have come in, and maybe they each do their own shortlist and then compare notes. They might typically have a meeting to discuss who each of them thinks should be on the shortlist, and then they go from there. And you might do a scoring, and then you might compare scores, and people who are borderline, you might discuss it with the others and decide whether to put them on the shortlist or not. There's some competent practise going on there, and obviously, you're scoring them, as I said before, against the person spec. So, that might be something that happens that goes directly to the person who's going to manage the role, or a group of people, a group of leaders, if it's a senior role. The other scenario is if HR are involved. And yes, you might have an HR person who's a professional, not necessarily a specialist in the role that they're recruiting, but you would still expect them to be competent at matching people to a person spec. Bearing in mind everything I said before about, it's your job to convey your value, it's your job to tell them exactly why you're a fit for the criteria that's been given and why they should choose you. So, it's kind of reasonable for HR to do a first sift or a recruiter. Obviously, there can be an external recruiter, there can be in-house recruiters. They should be able to do a shortlist based on that criteria. There are some factors, like synonyms, whether or not they recognise something which is the same as something they've asked for but expressed a bit differently. That's how I've seen it done. And there's nothing really in that process that you need to be concerned by. It's an open and transparent process. Yes, the quality of the people doing the job is questionable, and obviously, it varies from organisation to organisation. I mean, some of them, they're quite open about the judgments that they make. You see people on LinkedIn saying, 'If a candidate does this, they go in the bin.' And people get weirdly angered by people who have the audacity to put photographs on their CV, for example. I've seen people say that before. I have a fairly indifferent view on that, because to me, it doesn't matter a great deal. We've all got LinkedIn profiles and things. Yes, it's not particularly relevant, but it's not something I would then take a really dim view of. So, yeah, people are people, and people vary, but the process that people use to recruit isn't anything to be particularly concerned about. And something that's coming through, and it relates to what we were talking about AI earlier, is that there will be some companies that do recruitment really well, and there will be some that don't do it so well. And I feel like I've been in processes where it felt a bit more like gut feel, guesswork. You see a CV, you kind of think, 'Oh, yeah, they're probably worth speaking to.' But again, you don't know, and so the approach has got to be that, well, you don't know whether they're using AI, you don't know whether they're actually any good at this recruitment. You just kind of adopt a similar approach, whichever, because you're not going to know. And so, you just kind of do the right thing at your end without trying to second guess that kind of thing. Yeah, absolutely. I was perhaps a bit charitable to recruit, as in my previous answer, actually. I think the shortlisting process, people evaluating applicants against the person spec and maybe internally having discussions about that, there's nothing wrong with that. I think the way they do it is absolutely broken. I think there are two major problems with the way recruitment is done, actually. The first one is far too many stages in the process. I've heard of seven stages. It's more likely for senior roles, but seven stages, with four or five of them being interviews, and I have to say very, very plainly, if you need more than two interviews to assess somebody for a job, then your interview skills are poor and need improving. You should ask all the questions you need to ask in one interview. You might have a second interview between a couple of final stage candidates where they're both very close, and you need to maybe explore things in more detail and really make a final decision. But any more than two stages of interview is just absolutely unnecessary. Multiple of the same interview with different people, it's just get them in a room together, get them on a panel. So, yeah, seven-stage processes, absolutely ridiculous. Anything involving free work, that's another big issue that people have. Do you really need to test people? If someone's a qualified professional or a leader, do you really need to test the technical skills by giving them a task? Can you not just use their portfolio or the evidence they give of their previous work in whatever format? Do you really need to test them? Is that a bit patronising for professionals, especially senior professionals? If it's a live client brief that you're giving them, then that's just actually robbery, isn't it? Because you ask them to work for free as part of the process. And that, nobody responds well to that. Nobody who has options and isn't desperate is going to go through that process. And the people who are desperate, you shouldn't be abusing them. So, too many processes, too many stages in the process, too much expected from the applicants. And the other thing is that just this judgmental nature that people have, people vastly overrate their ability to judge someone's ability, even their character, by a small amount of information they've been given during the application process. And that's just not very helpful, is it? This person's done this, therefore I know this about them. This person's got a so-called gap on the CV, therefore I know this about them. All of that stuff goes on, and all of that stuff just points towards, you can't do anything about it really as the applicant, so you've got to just do your best to overcome that. And you overcome that by not giving them any information that they can misuse and by giving enough detail about your achievements. You mentioned earlier the Applicant Tracking system, ATS. Can you give a brief overview as to what that actually is? I feel like it's something which shrouded in mystery to most applicants, and whether this is the AI thing. So, what actually is it? So, what it is depends on who you ask. I can tell you what I believe to be the truth of the matter, which is easily verifiable. It's basically a CRM system for job applicants. So, recruiters and employers use it as a database of applicants. As soon as you apply, your application, all of the information that you've given them is stored in that database, and they use it to manage the process, because they've got to communicate with you. And I know sometimes they don't, and that's bad. But what's supposed to happen is, first of all, they store all of the information about the job, so the job description, personal specification, maybe interview questions, whatever, that's all there in one place with the applicants. So, the applications come in, and they're stored in the ATS system against that job, so that they can be easily reviewed. And all of the communication happens after that. So, they invite people for interview who've been shortlisted. And they do this thing that they call rejection, so you can send your rejection emails via the ATS. Obviously, I'm going to object to that word. You're not really rejecting anyone. You don't know enough about them to reject them. It's such a negative way of looking at it, isn't it? What they're doing is they're deciding to shortlist other people based purely on the information provided. You're not actually judging the people at all, you're just judging their application in reference to this particular job. Someone might be absolutely fantastic at something, but it's just not the ideal match for the job you've got. So, yeah, that's what it does. There is, obviously, an alternative view of what an ATS is, which is this software system that scans your CV looking for keywords, and only if you've effectively keyword stuffed your CV will it then get passed through the filter to reach the humans. And people actually talk about ATS optimising your CV, and they can do that for you, and the purpose is to get past it, as if it's some kind of test. I just disagree with all of that. I think that's entirely fabricated. It is a myth. And have you noticed who the people are who are telling you that ATS systems scan your CV looking for keywords, and you need to ATS optimise your CV? It's always the people who are selling you a solution to that problem, isn't it? Honestly, it's an absolute load of garbage, the whole thing. It's just a database, and you need to absolutely not worry about ATS systems at all. It's just, if you're a job applicant, it's not your job to worry about what technology the recruiter uses. It's your job to tell them why they should choose you. I really liked what you said there earlier about when you're, quotes, rejected, they're not rejecting you, they are saying that on the basis of the information they have received from multiple candidates, and that is relatively scant information, they are deciding not to proceed with you. And I think that's quite an important mindset shift. And I think that probably means that we need to go on to talk about how you can better your chances, and having set up a bit of the background, talk about the CV itself. There's a lot of background noise. I mean, you've just mentioned about ATS optimising. Straight and dirty, keeping it simple, what are your top three rules for writing a CV? Know yourself, know the criteria, and give more detail. They're the top three. So, it needs self-reflection. You need to know why you're suitable for the role in order to communicate that. And you need to give more detail than you're currently giving. Most people come to me saying, 'Graeme, my CV is too waffly, I need to cut it down. Can you help me condense this, please?' And in every single case, my answer to them is, you actually need more detail, not less. There'll be huge swathes of what they've currently got that can just be cut out entirely, especially the key skills list. So, there'll be stuff they can cut out completely, and then what they actually need is much more detail on the stuff that matters. And knowing the criteria was the middle one, because unless it's relevant to the criteria, it's not going to need to be said. I hate the word relevance, by the way, because a lot of the stuff you've done can be relevant, depending on how you communicate it and which bits that you say. Because obviously, we've all done lots of stuff in our lives, we've all done far more than can be conveyed on two pages, for example, three pages maybe. And so, you do have to pick the highlights. And yeah, you can make it applicable to the role if you write it correctly. Just picking up on the first criteria, the knowing yourself, I guess this is an opportunity for people, rather than spray and pray and applying for hundreds of different jobs, they can use this as their own filter and really look at a job, try and get out of a desperation lens, which I know can be difficult, but look at the spec and think, is this job actually for me? Does this look like something, A, that I'm qualified for, and B, that I would actually enjoy? Absolutely. Absolutely. Because why do it to yourself? Why apply for a job that you're half-qualified for, that you're probably going to get either ghosted or a reply saying you're not shortlisted. And that doesn't do anything for your confidence. Why not just apply for a small number of the right roles, learn how to put the right information in that's going to give you a really good chance of getting shortlisted. Yeah, save your time for that. When it comes to criteria, presumably that is going to be based almost entirely, if not entirely, on the job description, or are there any other sources which will help you to figure out what the criteria are that you should be looking to match in your application? Yeah, people always say match it to the job description. If it's well written, and if they've done it in detail, there'll be a specific section within the job description that's either labelled person specification, or it's labelled something similar, like what we are looking for, or you will be. And they should really set out clearly what the criteria are that they're going to measure you against. And yeah, what I say to people, because let's be honest, most job descriptions are very long, very repetitive and absolutely stuffed full of jargon and not very helpful stuff quite often, so I tend to say, skip to the person spec straight away, make a one page list, and it's always possible to get it on one page of what the criteria are, missing out the duplication and putting it in words that you understand. Then, you've got the criteria that you're writing about in your application. Maybe then go back to the job description and read that in full, just in case they've mentioned something in there which is additional. And then, you've got everything that they need to recruit you against. Because, yeah, you can get lost in a six- or seven-page job description full of waffle, and you've got to pick out the most important thing. I would maybe identify what the main purpose of the role is as well. Sometimes they tell you that the main purpose of the role is to, I don't know, grow the business by engaging with clients or manage stakeholders or deliver a service that looks like this. Well, then, you've got something really important there to consider. But yeah, with a professional organisation, there shouldn't be any secret criteria that aren't listed. Not saying there aren't, but you might have to read between the lines. But really, we should be able to expect that the criteria are transparently shared. Can you give a little bit more colour to your third rule about giving more detail? So, how do you make sure that it's relevant? How do you make sure you've cut out all the waffle? And how do you make sure that you don't have a sort of 10-page unwieldy document which probably isn't going to be read properly? Yeah, absolutely. So, you need to start well, you need to use the summary to get across your main value proposition. And I always write that last, because once you've written the rest, you're then in the mindset to say these are my best bits. So, write the summary last. The bit where you need more detail is usually going to be the achievements, and you should have those for each of your most recent roles. So, it's things like, you should never need to say, 'I was responsible for project management, or I was responsible for strategy development.' When people write, 'I was responsible for strategy development for the organisation', I think, well, brilliant. But the more detail comes from, okay, what was the new strategy that you developed? What were the key aspects of it? What were you changing? How were you repositioning the organisation? What new thing were you doing? What new direction were you going in? So, it's the nature of the strategy that was developed, it's the nature of your decision making, it's the decisions that you actually made, rather than I was responsible for strategy development. So, tell them what those are, and then you might want to include some detail about the process you went through. You know, I consulted the senior leadership team, I consulted stakeholders, and I identified these key needs that we needed to address, and I made sure the strategy reflects this. And then, the result was, the organisation grew from X to Y. So, they're the kind of details that people need. And equally, you should never need to say, 'I was responsible for project management', because you can just say, 'I managed these projects, these were the scopes, the size of the projects, and these were the results.' So, yeah, detail of what you personally contributed to the organisation. Let's talk about tailoring the CV, which I know is another hot topic. I take a fairly hard-line view, which is that every CV needs to be tailored for every job for which you're applying. Am I being too mean? No, no, because why would you not tailor your CV? It either matters to you, or it doesn't. And I know people say things like,'Well, I'm doing hundreds of them, so how can I possibly tailor hundreds of CVs?' I mean, there's an easy answer to that, isn't there? You can do fewer of them and just do them really well. So, tailoring the CV will never not be a thing, because your CV only has one job, it'll only ever have one job, and that is to get you shortlisted. So, why not do it in sufficient detail and to the right level of quality to get your shortlisted? Now, there is a kind of caveat to that, really. The situation is harder than it was a few years ago. There are more organisations ghosting applicants, and that reduces people's confidence, because they think that it's a numbers game. They think that because they're getting ghosted so often, they have to do more and more applications all the time. And of course, I can empathise with that. But part of the reason people are getting ghosted, it's partly incompetence on the organisation side, let's be honest. It can only be that, because it doesn't take long to rule out. When you get 500 applications for a job, it doesn't take long to filter out the vast majority of those that are nowhere near suitable, they just haven't got any of the relevant things that you've asked for. And then, you can spend time shortlisting from the people who are vaguely qualified. So, yeah, the fact that that's happening is a problem. The fact that the ghosting is happening is a problem. But part of the reason people are getting ghosted is because people are hitting Easy Apply and applying for 100 jobs a day. You can even get software that applies for hundreds of jobs for you. And this is the problem in AI job applications. So, everybody who says, "Employers keep ghosting me', a lot of them are contributing to that problem by applying for hundreds of jobs a day. As unpalatable as this might be, we've all got to take responsibility for the solution, and we've got to apply only for jobs we are suited to and are interested in, and do a smaller number of good quality applications. And let's not spoil it for everyone else. Should you ever use Easy Apply, or if a job's on LinkedIn, is it better to find the company website, find out what email you're supposed to send it to or that kind of thing, and bypass any kind of Easy Apply, whether that's on LinkedIn or one of the recruitment websites? I think there are two things there. I don't think we should use Easy Apply in the sense of sending a standard CV that's already there, or just a link to your LinkedIn profile, because your LinkedIn profile won't obviously be tailored to that particular job. It might be tailored to that type of job, that industry, but realistically, every organisation is different, they've got different goals and the job's going to vary, even within the same industry, jobs vary. That might be probably not always recognised, but very clearly, we've all had two different jobs in the same industry that have been different. So, there's the equivalent of Easy Apply on job boards as well, where you've got your CV stored, and when you hit Apply, it sends that saved CV. And I've literally been on the other end of that, and you receive this job application that immediately says, 'I am seeking a job in a totally different industry', because they haven't tailored it. Now, related to that, of course, I don't think there's any point in having a career objective on your CV. Your CV is there to get you selected. Presumably, you're applying for a job because you want that job, so kind of miss out the objective and just communicate why you should be chosen for this job. If they want to ask you where you see yourself in five years' time, let them ask you that later, you know. So, no, you shouldn't use an Easy Apply that misses out the tailoring of the application to the job. The other bit about trying to get around the process, I don't think anybody should be trying to get around the process, right? The employer has chosen whatever process they've chosen, wouldn't critique that process, and I often do, but you really should follow the instructions given, because what impression are you giving of yourself if you're trying to get around it or get an unfair advantage, that kind of thing. And that goes for recruiters as well. I know some good ones, but yeah, some of them can be non-specialists, and some of them can be a bit judgmental and not the easiest people to engage with. But if the employer has chosen to work with a particular recruitment consultant, you shouldn't be trying to get around them, because they are the representative of that employer. That's how you've got to see them. I know that people get very hung up on the form of a CV. So, how many pages, the order in which things appear, that kind of thing. How important is that kind of stuff? Well, I don't think your CV should be nine pages. There's obviously got to be some sort of sensible limit on length. For me, and bearing in mind I've worked with CEOs, I've worked with absolute international leaders, some of the best people in their field, and I've never once had to write a CV that was more than three pages. So, you are probably not so unique that you need a CV that's more than three pages. Okay, that's the case. You just have to remove the stuff that isn't helping you and put the right detail in about the right stuff. So, that's my view on length. In terms of format and layout, I'm not a big fan of rules, I don't think it's, you must do this, you must do that. The only thing I would say about the formatting is, don't have anything that's going to distract the reader. I don't mind a little splash of colour in the titles or whatever. But don't go overboard. Because I do find that, as soon as you give somebody responsibility for recruitment, the conservative side of them comes out a little bit, and they do start being that kind of judgmental thing that I described earlier. So, nothing distracting. I like a one-column layout, rather than the two-column or three-column layout, purely because it reduces the pointless white space. Now, you don't need to fill every inch of your CV, it's useful to have a little bit of white space just so that people can understand the different sections, and it looks nicer, and it doesn't look so daunting to read. But I've never once been able to fit the required level of detail in the two columns, because it just leaves too much space unused. Other than that, I don't particularly obsess about format. It's just a professional document. It's got to look like one. Let's talk briefly about cover letters as well. So, let's say that the instruction is to send your CV, and you're given an email address to send it to. First of all, should you do a cover letter in a separate document or just do it in the body of the email? And second, what actually goes in the cover letter that isn't covered in the CV? Yeah, I would always, in that scenario where it's an email, make the body of the email the cover letter. Why invent an extra document? Because if you attach a Word document which is your cover letter, you've then got the awkward thing about what on earth do I now put in the email? And realistically, you're then going to end up writing two cover letters. Absolute waste of time. So, attach your CV, make the email itself your cover letter. And I always try to use a cover letter, if possible. I know this sounds a bit old-fashioned, but what I mean by that is, a message that goes with your CV in whatever format is most applicable, so what goes in your cover letter? Quite simply, the cover letter is a summary of your application. It gives them a brief, at-a-glance overview of what's in the application and entices them to read the application in full. Because I mean, inside news here, not everybody reads cover letters, and even if they've asked for them, some people don't read cover letters, which, of course, is obnoxious. It's unfair to ask for something and then ignore it. But you can't count on them reading your cover letter. They definitely are going to read your application, otherwise they're being incredibly negligent. So, it's just a summary of what you've got. There's no point in adding anything in the cover letter that isn't in the CV, because I would very much hope that your CV is longer. And so, how could you possibly have space for putting something else? And so, don't try to overthink it, don't try to explain something that doesn't need to be explained, like your decision making or a so-called gap or anything. Tell them the job you're applying for, tell them why you're interested in the job, because motivated people perform better, and then tell them why they should pick you, and then sign off. And absolutely do not overthink you cover letter. And all of that information, if they haven't asked for a cover letter, should be in the CV anyway. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Maybe less on the motivation stuff, because like I said, it should be obvious from the relevance of your career history and your achievement. I mean, even if you've worked in a different industry, I do loads of career change CVs, so it's totally possible to change careers if you've got something useful to offer the new employer. But even if you've worked in different industries and different environments, the achievements that you are listing are going to have to be relevant and applicable to the job you're applying for. So, even the motivation stuff doesn't have to go on your CV. It's obvious you're applying for that job, so you want that job, and you can do it more subtly than 'my career objective is', you know. The more I've learned about it, the more parallels I see with a marketing process. So, like what you've said there, the cover letter is designed to encourage people to open the CV document. The CV document is the thing which, it's its job is to get you shortlisted to the next stage, whatever that is, an interview or whatever. With your own marketing background, what other techniques can people use which they probably don't think of, if they don't think of it in terms of this is a marketing exercise, essentially a sales exercise, so what are the other things that people can think about? I would suggest the whole process is a strategic marketing issue. It's a strategic marketing, I hesitate to use the word process, but it is because you've got to understand your personal value proposition, you've got to communicate that in enough detail, you've got to know your audience. So, the audience is the recruiters, the HR people, anybody who's going to evaluate your CV, and the person you're then going to report to when you're selected for the job. You've got to know what the audience needs, which, if they've done it correctly, is listed in the person spec. And then, the thing people often forget, it's not just about being qualified for the job, it's being qualified for the job to a greater extent than the other applicants of which you have no information about. So, it's being unique and communicating that. So, ultimately, it's going to result in a sale, which is you're offering your work, whatever that might be, to them, in return for a salary or a wage or a fee or whatever it is, and you've got to persuade them to do that. So, all of the usual marketing principles come into play, all of the psychology of how you influence people, all of the copywriting. You might as well write in a persuasive way. It doesn't have to be overly salesy, you are conveying facts here, so obviously, everything you write on your CV has to be true for various reasons. There's no point in using anything that isn't true. But you're free to communicate it in whatever way you want, so you use whatever method is most effective in the given situation. Yeah, the whole thing is about marketing. Are there any marketing techniques realistically you can use to improve your CV? So, marketers use things like A/B testing, which I'm guessing is not really going to be very easy to do when you're doing it in the kind of small scale of job applications, but is there that kind of thinking, anything you can bring into, say you've applied for jobs, and you're not getting interviews, anything that you can learn to improve what you're doing? I guess you would get a different answer from a different marketer. But I agree with what you just said. I wouldn't be tempted to take an engineering approach and do some testing and learn, you should, of course, be learning from the feedback, but imagine doing an A/B test, and your most favourite job is the one that you test the thing that doesn't work on. I would be aiming for the best you can do on all of the jobs. Because there's no secrets in terms of the criteria, there shouldn't be any risk in that. Get advice if you need it. But yeah, marketing techniques, I mean, again, caveat in what I'm going to say, the most important thing is to strategically communicate your value proposition in good quality copy in the format that they've asked for. So, that in itself could be called a marketing campaign, we're not taking any risks apart from just communicating in our own way authentically and powerfully. There are, of course, gimmicks you can use. If you're a graphic designer, you're going to have to design something that looks appealing. Right? There's just no question about that. So, I don't know, if it's a company that does a particular thing, you might design something, I don't know, it's a transport company, so you design the whole thing as some sort of, I don't know, train ticket, I don't know. They're a print company, so you send them your CV in a leaflet form. All of those things can absolutely be done. I wouldn't push the board out too much with that. Remember what I said about how judgmental recruiters can be and how conservative. It happens less recently, but it kind of reminds me of a graphic designer I know, who once got sent home from an interview for wearing jeans. So, even though you think this industry is really casual, you give someone recruitment experience, and suddenly, they become excessively conservative. So, relevant gimmicks are fine, but let's not overthink it. Let's not go too far. But ultimately, you need to stand out, so relevant ways of standing out are all right. Is there anything we haven't covered that you feel that we really should cover in this conversation? Probably not. Ultimately, you're trying to convey what you've done and achieved that makes you the right candidate to do this job and do this job well. And you're trying to use your past performance as a predictor of future performance in the role. So, know your achievements, get help in recognising those if you need to, and ignore the wealth of terrible advice that's out there. It's funny, I'm a marketer who writes job applications. I've chosen two areas to work in my career that everybody reckons they're an expert in. Everyone's got an opinion on how you should write your CV, right? But ultimately, you've got to do it in the way that's authentic to you and you are happy represents you. So, ignore the keyword stuffers, ignore the people that say you must do this, you must do that. Just tell people why they should choose you. It's boring, isn't it? It's really boring advice that. Tell people why they should choose you, tell people what you've done and achieved in the past. How dull. But yeah, that's the truth, unfortunately. Well, you say dull, but it's probably also difficult. And that's why people want to look for the easy, oh, just do a gimmick or something like that. When, in fact, it really is, tell people why they should choose you. It really is that simple. The application of it needs specific guidance that's unique to you, but the fundamental purpose of what you do really is that simple. For anyone who wants to dive into the topic a bit more, are there any tools or resources which you've come across, which you'd like to share with the audience to help them in their journey? Yes. So, I'm not going to recommend any specific resources about CV writing specifically, unless you want to just go on my website, graemejordan.com, because when I first set up this business 13 years ago, I got six books out of a prestigious university library about how to write your CV, and I've read them all from cover to cover. And I was shocked at how terrible they all were. So, all of the advice was far too basic, and there was some stuff in there which was specific rules and advice that I just thought was either out of date or probably just wrong in any time period. So, be careful about templates and rules-based advice like that. But I think in terms of growing a career, I do a lot of reading about psychology and people and market, obviously. And I think the more you know about people and how people work, the better you're going to perform, both in the job and in terms of getting selected for it. So, with psychology in mind and with the stuff I was saying before about self-awareness and knowing what you've got to offer, I do think things like personality profiling are useful. And it might not be scientifically valid, I filled in these questions, therefore my personality type is A, B or C. But the approach generally, which is, let's understand how I personally make decisions and what's natural to me, is totally a valid thing to do. So, there's the book Surrounded by Idiots by Thomas Erikson, which is about the four different personality types and which one you are. And I know I'm the red one, and I know that I have to tone that down sometimes and not always be the first person to speak and all the rest of it. So, I do think knowing what's natural to you in that sense and then how to use that to your advantage, because they're all equally good, there's no bad personality type, it's just going to be different from other people, so ultimately, the most important thing to learn from that is to adapt to others. So, yeah, that's the recommendation I would make. Can I make one other point as well? You did ask earlier. One of the things I've seen on bad job application processes is where people misuse this type of psychometric test and a personality profile. And I've seen it recommended by recruiters, which is absolutely shocking, where they've got two candidates who are broadly comparable, and they use personality profiling to choose between them. And that's an absolute misuse of that system, because there's no right personality for a job. It's just the team has to adapt to different styles, and you have to be open to that. So, yeah, if you do get a personality test as part of a recruitment process, don't try to come across as the person they want, don't try to trick it, because you'll probably not succeed. Just try to answer the questions as accurately as you can. Some of them are not always easy to understand, but just do it as accurately as you can, because you're not going to know which type they want anyway. So, why trying to guess? Fantastic. Once more, where's the best place for people to go to find you? graemejordan.com. I will put a link to that in the show notes. Graeme, there's a wealth of tips in this conversation. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing them. Pleasure. Thanks very much. Okay, hope you enjoyed that interview with Graeme Jordan. The perhaps slightly surprising message from Graeme is clearly, yes, there is still a place for the CV. Even if you've been made aware of a role through networking, there is a very good chance that someone will still ask you to send a copy of your CV. And that's happened to me when I've just been having a conversation with them, and we've talked about how I might be able to help, and they've said, 'Great, can you send me a copy of your CV, please?' And it's quite heartening to know, at least on what Graeme has seen, that humans still look at CVs. It isn't all just going through a computer picking out keywords. There are, in most cases, humans looking at what you're sending through. And I really liked what Graeme highlighted as being the purpose of the CV. In other words, it's to get you shortlisted, and that really is its only function. It's when you start to look at it through that sort of lens that you can focus much more on what it is that you want to put across in the CV itself. Show notes for this episode are at changeworklife.com/215, that's changeworklife.com/215. And if there's a role out there that you're thinking of applying for, but you're not sure whether it's a good fit for you, or maybe you're not sure if you've got the skills, and you want to do a bit of an audit on those, that's something that coaching can help with. So, take a look at changeworklife.com/coaching, that's changeworklife.com/coaching, and see whether this might be something that I can help you with. As we go into the last quarter of 2025, my goodness, how did that happen, we've got some more great interviews lined up, so if you haven't already, make sure you've subscribed to the show, and I can't wait to see you next time. Cheers. Bye.