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Given the volume of CV’s received by recruiters in response to every job advert placed, it is no wonder that many have turned to computers to help them with the onerous task of short listing. That means that the CV over which you laboured so long and hard may not even be seen by human eyes before being discarded, along with a heap of others. “What went wrong?” you may find yourself asking, “I was absolutely perfect for that job!”

To be honest, you may well have been the perfect candidate for the role, but unless your CV is tweaked to attract the attention of the recruiting software, you will have little chance of being invited for interview! Recruitment software has become intelligent enough to read your CV and recognise keywords specified by the recruiter. CV’s can then be ranked according to the presence of these key words and the software then spits out a neat little list of the most likely candidates.

In some ways, this is exactly what a recruiter would have done manually in the past. However a recruiter, being a real person, could use discretion if he or she came across anything in the CV that looked relevant, but didn’t quite fit the wording they were looking for. A computer is unable to do this and you have to learn to play by its rules.

So the trick, as always, is to think like the recruiter. What key words is he or she going to ask the software to search on? Here you should refer back to the job spec and identify the sort of person they are looking for. We’re not suggesting that you claim skills you don’t have just because the job spec asks for them. But if, for example, the job description requests someone with a knowledge of spreadsheets, then ensure that you call attention to your experience in this area by using the words ‘spreadsheet’ and ‘Excel’ (or whatever is relevant) somewhere within the description of your experience. Similarly with your management skills and personal strengths. Identify (using the job spec) what words the software is likely to be searching for and make sure that you include these somewhere within the CV.

Once you have made sure that you have included the keywords you think will help draw attention to your CV, then go back and begin to eliminate things that might disqualify you from being selected. Common ones here are things like your address or your current salary. If you are prepared to commute a fair distance, or are even prepared to relocate, then make sure you do not include your address on the CV. Many recruiters will slim down their list of applicants by eliminating those who live too far from the location of the job. While this makes sense in most instances, you may actually be looking to move into the area and your CV keeps getting thrown out because you appear to live too far away.

Similarly, mentioning your earnings can also be a mistake, as there are many different ways of reporting the same package – some people will show it including benefits, or excluding a car allowance, or just a plain cash amount. Again it would be a pity to find yourself outside of the boundaries set by the recruiter just because you like to report your salary as total package and they have asked the computer to search for people with a basic salary between certain limits.

Beyond these ‘must’ or ‘must not’ include words are a whole range of other things to consider in making your CV visible to recruitment software. A job title, for example, can say either a lot or a little about you. Using a job title that is specific only to your current employer, but does little to show what you do from day to day is not a brilliant move. Rather use something that actually reflects the role that you play, even if it is not the official title by which you are known. For example, if you are officially an Assistant Manager and your job is to manage a small department within a pensions environment, why not rather call yourself Department Manager (Pension Valuations) or something that gives a little more info than your official title? Similarly don’t use product names that are company specific, but rather speak of the product line in more generic terms that will be understood by anyone in the industry, including the recruitment software.

Optimising your CV for recognition by recruitment software is akin to optimising a web site so that the various search engines can find it. The bottom line is that if it doesn’t rank within the top 10 or so listings, it is unlikely to be viewed.

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