CV tips
How to make your CV better.
Before a human reads your CV, software does. Applicant tracking systems, recruiters skimming in seconds, and AI matchers — ours is one example — all read a CV structurally: they look for specific sections and fields, and what they can't find, they can't credit you for. Get the structure right and the same document works harder everywhere it lands.
Upload your CV once. We read it, tell you what's missing, and match you to roles.
How your CV gets read
A CV is data before it is a story.
Every modern hiring pipeline turns your CV into structured fields — languages, skills, roles, dates, education — before anyone decides anything. A recruiter filters on them. An ATS keyword-matches on them. An AI matcher builds its understanding of you from them.
So the failure mode is rarely that you aren't qualified — it's that a reader couldn't extract a fact you never made explicit. The fixes below each close one of those gaps. They're ordered by how much they affect whether you're matched at all, most important first.
The checklist
Eight things every reader looks for.
Each is a field a recruiter, an ATS or a matcher tries to read off your CV. If it's there and explicit, you're credited for it. If it's only implied, or buried in prose, it's easily missed.
- 01Highest impact
List the languages you speak — with a level
Required languages are the single most common hard filter in hiring software, ours included. A CV with no explicit languages section gives a matcher nothing to confirm against, so a role that requires a language you actually speak can silently exclude you.
How to fix it
Add a short Languages section naming each language and your level — a CEFR band (B2, C1) or "native". Don't leave it to be inferred from where you've worked.
- 02Highest impact
Name your skills and tools explicitly
Recruiters and ATS keyword-match on concrete skills, and a matcher weighs the tools, methods and technologies you name. A skill only implied inside a sentence about a project is far more likely to be missed than one listed plainly.
How to fix it
Keep a dedicated Skills section with the specific technologies, tools and methods you actually use — not vague adjectives, the real names a search would look for.
- 03Highest impact
Include your work history in full
Your roles are how any reader gauges seniority, scope and fit. Without a clear experience section — employer, title, what you did — there's almost nothing structural to match you on.
How to fix it
List each role with the company, your title, and a couple of lines on scope and impact. Lead with what you owned and what changed because of you.
- 04Worth fixing
Put start and end dates on every role
Dates are how tenure and recency are read. A role with no dates can't be placed on a timeline, and a reader — human or software — often treats a missing date as a gap you'd rather not show.
How to fix it
Give every role a month and year for start and end (use "Present" for your current one). Consistent MM/YYYY beats a bare year or nothing.
- 05Worth fixing
Keep it structured so nothing gets cut off
Automated readers parse best when a CV has clear sections. A very long unbroken block, a dense multi-column layout or an everything-in-one-table design can get truncated during parsing, and the roles that fall off simply never reach the matcher.
How to fix it
Use plain, clearly-labelled section headings and standard formatting. Avoid cramming your whole history into one giant block or an exotic layout a parser might not follow to the end.
- 06Nice to have
Add an education section
Education is a lower-weight signal than experience, but many roles still filter on a degree or field, and its absence reads as a missing field rather than a deliberate choice.
How to fix it
Include your qualifications — degree, institution and year — even briefly. If formal education isn't your route, name the training or certifications that are.
- 07Nice to have
Open with a one-line headline
A short professional headline tells a reader in one glance what role to place you in. Without it, they have to reconstruct your target from the rest of the page — and a fast skim or a matcher may place you wrong.
How to fix it
Put one line under your name stating your role and core focus — e.g. "Senior Backend Engineer — Go, Kubernetes, distributed systems".
- 08Nice to have
Include your LinkedIn URL
A LinkedIn link lets a recruiter verify and enrich what your CV says, and lets a matcher tie your profile together. Its absence rarely excludes you, but its presence removes friction and adds trust.
How to fix it
Add your full LinkedIn profile URL to your header, alongside your email — the complete link, not just your name.
Let us read itand do the matching.
Upload your CV to WhyBrilliant. We check it against exactly these points, tell you what's missing, and match you to roles that fit — for free.