What Employers Actually Look For on a CV in 2026

A CV gets somewhere between six and thirty seconds on the first pass. Everything about writing a good one follows from that: the reader is scanning for evidence that you have done something like the job before, and anything that slows that scan works against you.

Evidence, not adjectives

"Excellent communicator, highly motivated team player" tells a recruiter nothing, because every CV says it. Replace each claim with the thing that would make someone believe it: not "improved processes" but "rewrote the onboarding checklist; new starters productive in two weeks instead of five." Numbers are best, but a specific before-and-after works even without them.

The test for every bullet point: could a candidate who had not done it write this sentence? If yes, it is not evidence.

The skills currently in demand

Across UK job adverts the recurring asks are: AI literacy — using the tools sensibly and knowing their limits; data skills, still overwhelmingly spreadsheet-based rather than exotic; cyber security awareness, now expected of everyone rather than only IT; and on the human side, adaptability, communication and the ability to lead change without formal authority. If you have any of these, name them concretely and show where you used them.

What gets a CV rejected quickly

• Length. Two pages. One if you are early career. Nobody has ever been hired because their CV was four pages.
• A generic profile paragraph. Either write three lines aimed at this specific job or delete it.
• Unexplained gaps. Gaps are fine and normal — caring responsibilities, health, redundancy, study. A short factual line closes the question; silence invites the worst assumption.
• Duties instead of achievements. "Responsible for stock" describes a job description, not a person.
• Elaborate design. Columns, graphics and skill rating bars often confuse the screening software and tell the reader nothing.
• Errors. Read it aloud. Then have someone else read it.

Getting through automated screening

Most medium and large employers filter first. That means using the words from the advert — if it says "management accounts", write management accounts rather than a synonym — keeping to a simple single-column layout, saving as a normal document or PDF without text in images, and putting job titles, dates and employers in an obvious, consistent structure.

If your experience is not paid experience

Courses, volunteering and personal projects all count if written as work rather than as a list. A completed course becomes evidence when you say what you built with it: "completed Excel data analysis training; rebuilt the club's membership reporting, cutting a monthly two-hour task to fifteen minutes." That is a real achievement and reads as one.

Frequently asked questions

Should I have one CV or several?

One base document, tailored per application. Fifteen minutes of tailoring beats fifty untargeted applications, comfortably.

Do I need a photo, age or address?

In the UK, no to all three. A photo can raise bias concerns for the employer, and a town or city is enough for location.

Do certificates matter?

They help most where they are a genuine requirement (compliance, care, food safety, some technical roles) and where you can point at what you did with the knowledge. Listed alone, they carry much less weight than the same course plus a concrete result.

Prepare properly with 11 Essential Career Soft Skills and Ace the Interview.