Every week, recruiters and hiring managers in Nigeria wade through hundreds of CVs. Most are set aside within thirty seconds. Not because the candidates lack potential but because their CVs are doing them no favours. If you have been sending out applications and hearing nothing back, your CV might be the problem. Here is what’s going wrong and what you can do about it.
It looks like everyone else’s – Most Nigerian CVs follow the same tired template: a long objective statement, a list of duties from previous jobs, and a string of generic skills like “good communication” and “team player.” Recruiters have seen this format so many times it has become invisible. Your CV needs to make someone stop scrolling and that means leading with your actual value, not an everyday summary.
It describes what you did, not what you achieved -There is a significant difference between “managed social media accounts” and “grew organisational Instagram following from 400 to 4,000 in six months.” The first tells an employer what your job was. The second tells them what you’re capable of. Wherever possible, your CV should speak in results.
It is trying to be everything to everyone – A CV that covers every role you have ever held, every certificate you have ever received, and every skill you have ever touched is only useful in some circumstances. When job hunting, what you need is a resume, a document that speaks to the skills you have that complement what the vacancy or organization is looking for. The most effective CVs, or in this case, resumes, are targeted. They are written with a specific role in mind and every line earns its place.
It has not been proofread – This one still surprises people, but spelling errors and inconsistent formatting remain among the most common reasons CVs are rejected. It signals carelessness, and no employer wants to hire someone careless. In this era of AI please do yourself a favor and use grammar check tools like Grammarly or even ChatGPT. Avoid the temptation of just submitting an AI generated resume. Most people whose work involves a lot of reading can easily tell the difference between human and AI generated text. Your resume could get discarded for that. In fact, some organizations explicitly warn against using AI generated resumes.
A good CV is not about dressing up your experience, it’s about presenting it clearly, confidently, and in a way that answers the question every recruiter is silently asking: why should we choose this person?
Our course, How to Write a Good CV, will take you through exactly how to do this, from structure and language to tailoring your CV for specific opportunities in the Nigerian and African job market. Additionally, you will learn why the terms CV and resume have been used almost interchangeably in this article.