What Recruiters Actually Notice During the First Review of a CV

A recruiter rarely starts by reading your CV from beginning to end. The first review is much faster and more selective than most candidates imagine.

Having spent many years screening CVs, interviewing candidates and hiring professionals, one thing I repeatedly see is that people often invest enormous effort in perfecting individual sentences while overlooking the bigger question:

That first impression matters. It does not mean recruiters are careless. It means they are trying to establish quickly whether your experience appears relevant enough to justify a closer read.

Here is what I tend to notice first.

1. What are you professionally?

This sounds obvious, but many CVs make it surprisingly difficult to answer. I want to understand:

• what you do now;
• what level you operate at;
• what your main area of expertise is;
• how your career has developed;
• and, ideally, what kind of role you may be suited to next.

If I need to piece this together from several unrelated job titles and a long list of responsibilities, the CV is making my job harder than it needs to be.

This is particularly common among experienced professionals. As careers become broader, people often accumulate roles, responsibilities and projects without updating the way they describe their overall professional identity.

A strong CV does not simply document your career. It helps someone make sense of it.

2. Is your recent experience relevant?

Recruiters naturally pay particular attention to your most recent roles. Your experience from 15 years ago may still be important, but your last few positions tell me much more about the level at which you currently operate.

One mistake I see frequently is giving every role equal space. A position held many years ago receives six bullet points, while the current role receives four. That usually makes little sense. The emphasis should reflect both recency and relevance.

Your CV is not an autobiography. It is a professional document designed to help someone understand why your experience matters for the opportunity being considered.

3. Responsibilities are not enough

Many capable professionals undersell themselves by writing CVs that read like job descriptions. For example:

• responsible for client relationships;
• managed projects;
• participated in recruitment;
• prepared reports;
• worked with stakeholders.

None of these statements tells me very much. I already have a reasonable idea of what someone with your job title might be responsible for. What I want to understand is:

• What did you actually contribute?
• What scale did you manage?
• What improved?
• What did you build?
• What problem were you asked to solve?
• What changed because you were there?

Not every achievement needs a percentage or financial number. But your CV should give me evidence of scope, responsibility, complexity and impact.

4. Does the level of the CV match the level of the candidate?

This becomes increasingly important as professionals move into senior roles. A senior manager's CV should not read like the CV of an individual contributor with more years of experience. At more senior levels I expect to see evidence of things such as:

• decision-making;
• leadership;
• ownership;
• organizational impact;
• commercial responsibility;
• team development;
• transformation;
• influence across functions;
• strategic contribution.

If these elements are buried beneath operational tasks, the CV can unintentionally position the candidate below their actual level.

5. Does the career story make sense?

I am also looking at the transitions.

• Why did someone move from one role to another?
• Does the progression make sense?
• Was there increasing responsibility?
• Has the person changed function or industry?
• Is there a period that requires explanation?

None of these things is automatically negative. Career changes, breaks and unconventional paths can all be perfectly reasonable.

The problem arises when the CV leaves the reader to create the explanation themselves. Where your path is less obvious, your positioning needs to work harder.

6. Is there too much information?

One of the most common problems with senior CVs is not lack of experience. It is lack of selection. People are understandably reluctant to remove things they worked hard to achieve. But including everything can make the important parts harder to see.

A strong CV requires judgement.

• What should stay?
• What should be shortened?
• What no longer adds meaningful value?
• What deserves greater emphasis?

This is why professional CV writing should not simply involve rewriting existing sentences in more polished English. The harder part is deciding what story the document needs to tell.

7. Does the CV feel credible?

I am wary of CVs filled with exaggerated adjectives and vague self-praise:

• “visionary leader”
• “exceptional communicator”
• “dynamic professional”
• “results-driven strategic thinker”

These phrases are easy to write and difficult to verify. Evidence is far more convincing. Show me what you led, built, changed, improved or delivered and let me reach the conclusion.

The strongest CVs usually sound confident without trying too hard to sound impressive.

Your CV has one main job

The purpose of your CV is not to capture every detail of your professional life. It is to make the value and relevance of your experience easy to recognise.

When I review a CV, I am essentially trying to answer:

If those answers are clear, the document is doing its job. If they are not, better formatting or more sophisticated language will rarely solve the underlying problem.