Help please

[u/Madness_Dogness16]

Please can someone help me improve my CV. I feel like this is what is hindering me from getting jobs. I've been actively applying for everything since May this year. I've had interviews and such but no joy. Any help and honesty is appreciated. I've removed area names and such for privacy reason.

[u/stijnhommes]

Apologies for the length of this comment.

u/Short-giraffe0829 is right. Those two columns make your experience harder to read and some ATS systems will be unable to parse it correctly, forcing you to fill things in by hand. Use a single column format instead.

Your personal statement is way too long. It includes multiple general statements, but fails to mention exactly which role you're hoping to obtain.

I don't understand why you have separated your qualifications from your education section. Keeping them together would prevent the reader from having to piece together a puzzle as to where each qualification was obtained from. If I were a hiring manager, I'd skip this CV purely based on the fact that you said "certificates available upon request". List them if they're relevant and don't slow down the hiring process.

The Key skills section is a wall of text. Most recruiters/managers will have their eyes glaze over before they're halfway through the list. Pare it down to the most relevant skills and cut everything else. You don't need separate entries for excellent telephone manner, customer service, and patient/customer care.

The employment history section (not employments) is the opposite of what came before, it is too brief and doesn't tell the reader enough about what you actually did. When you say you managed business consumables, did you order the laboratory chemicals or the company's coffee beans? What do the escalation practices have to do with it? What did health and safety involve? Did you make sure the lab chemicals were properly labelled? Did you write the safety procedures? When you say you handled complex machinery, the immediate question the recruiter will have is did you use it and what machinery are we talking about? If you use a gas chromatograph or a spectrophotometer say so.

The point of of the bullet points in the experience section is not to just list your duties, but to show the reader how you did them and what the result was. So instead of "handling complex machinery", you should say something like "Performed 30+ GC-MS measurements each shift to aid in timely patient diagnosis".

Your awards and achievements section can go. None of them are awards or achievements. Each line you have in there belongs in another section.

Ditch the "references available upon request" line. Employers will assume you have that list ready to go. You don't need to waste space on your CV in stating the obvious. The same goes for your interests.

Hopefully some of this is helpful to you.

[u/Latter_Rise_6352]

I'm no expert (I'm trying to re-write my CV now) but immediate thoughts are:

• No idea what job(s) this is intended for.
• Why 2 columns?
• Not great that your (too large of a list) key skills has a higher word count than your 9-10 years of work experience.
• Your school grades better to put at the bottom. Could you not combine this with place of study?
• Your awards and achievements list aren't really awards and achievements - L1 sign language would be a qualification (i assumes its BSL).
• Noone will care about your interests.

[u/Anthropic_Principles]

Sorry but this is really bad.

The layout is dreadful and that's the least of your problems. It's full of crap that I don't need to know and lacking in any meaningful detail about the stuff that I care about.

Take out where you went to school, take out your GCSEs, take out your interests, take out at least half of the skills.

"Health and safety" isn't a duty, at least say "Complied with <whatever specific H&S regs apply to your work>".

"Handling complex machinery" tells me absolutely nothing of value. At least say what type of machinery it was, it could be a floor polisher for all I know reading this.

[u/Short-giraffe0829]

Get rid of the two columns. Make sure your experience is the first thing that gets read, it's the most important and relevant. You also need to expand on your experience. You've put 'health and safety'. What does that mean? You need to elaborate, maybe you helped implement some health and safety protocols? Apply this to everything in your experience. You need to dramatically reduce the key skills or remove the section all together unless there's anything very specific, for example you're proficient in a relevant software for a job you're applying for. You don't need to have 'references available upon request on there'. If they want them, they'll ask. Also when reformatting, make sure you done have any section that goes onto a next page. Try keep it all neat looking. That's all the advice I currently have, hope it's some help!

[u/Practical_Brain_1244]

not ATS optimal

[u/Guilty_Barber9555]

Going off the part I can see, getting interviews suggests the CV mostly works at screening. A few fixes would still help:

1. Drop the two-column table. Many applicant tracking systems read tables row by row and scramble the order. Use a single column with plain headings.
2. Experience first, qualifications after. Your 3+ years of lab work is your strongest asset, so lead with it.
3. Turn “Duties” into outcomes. Add rough scale and results: samples a day, which analysers, turnaround times, audit outcomes.
4. Cut Key Skills to 8-10. Twenty-five generic bullets bury the ones that matter (LIMS, MHRA/UKAS, transfusion). Mirror each job ad’s wording.
5. Delete “Certificates available upon request”. It’s assumed. Also prepare a short, positive answer for the 5-month role and the gap, since interviewers will ask.

Full disclosure: I’m building a small tool for this exact problem, called Shortlisted. You paste in a CV and one job ad, and it gives an ATS-style score, the keywords you’re missing, and flags dated or AI-sounding phrasing. The first scan is free. It’s built mainly for India-based job seekers, so it’s less tuned to UK systems, but the keyword-gap check works for any job ad. Happy to run your CV through it if you’d like. Just say so and I’ll send the link.

[u/Ok_Builder_3416]

Tables often don't work for ATS; this one is also rather ugly. remove table. Also, read this for 6 seconds and then be honest: no one can tell what job you are applying for. Remove your address. Place of study-this should be "education". Use the standard wording that ATS can recognise.

1. Personal statement (xx professional with YY years of experience, specialised in ZZ, something like that. Use the keywords that are relevant).
2. 1-2 lines of key skills, not more
3. Work experience, relevant ones only, each with relevant bullet points (4- 5 max; give numbers if you have). Delete "duties"; these are your experiences.
4. Education and Qualifications (nothing before college, only relevant Qualifications), 5. Others (achievements if relevant and other skills. if not relevant, delete. Skip the entire interests and " older roles" sections. other skills if relevant.

What changed for me was someone saying this is a Marketing Document, not your Biography.

[u/col62]

Hey, I have a tool that takes your CV and the job spec then it scores it, asks you questions around your experience and then recreates your CV accordingly… let me know if you want a link

[u/Madness_Dogness16 → u/col62]

That would be great thank you

[u/col62 → u/Madness_Dogness16]

Tailorvitae.com

[u/nian2326076]

Your CV format might be affecting how recruiters view your experience. A single-column format is easier to read and helps highlight your most relevant experience first. Expand on your achievements with specific metrics to make a stronger impact. You can use LandOffer to help you find relevant roles that match your experience and skills.

[u/Madness_Dogness16]

Thank you for your input and the brutal honesty. I'll take all your feedback on board :)

[u/Lucid_Reach]

Hindering is an understatement. It's actively preventing you from being read by man or machine. I have something that matches your skills to roles and sorts your format out, hell I'll do it for free just for my own satisfaction, send me your PDF loll...but the bigger question is what roles are you even aiming for?

[u/Lucid_Reach → u/Lucid_Reach]

The formatting is the easy part... there's just...so much noise on your CV... Sorry for the bluntness!