When Good Isn’t Good Enough: The Day Rachel Realized Her CV Was Holding Her Back

Rachel sat across from me, looking completely puzzled. She had a degree in finance, five years of solid experience as an accounts officer, and glowing recommendations from her previous managers. Yet after four months of job hunting, she’d only landed one interview. Just one.

I know what you’re thinking because it’s what I was thinking too. How does someone with her background struggle to get noticed? The answer was sitting right there in front of us on her laptop screen.

Her CV wasn’t bad. That was actually the problem. It was perfectly fine, professionally formatted, no spelling mistakes. But fine doesn’t cut through the noise when you’re competing with fifty other candidates who also have fine CVs.

Hers just didn’t stand out in any meaningful way.

We started going through it line by line. Under her current role, she’d written that she handled accounts payable and receivable, reconciled bank statements, and prepared financial reports. All true. All important. All are completely forgettable because that’s what every account officer writes on their CV.

So, I started asking different questions. Had she ever caught an error that saved the company money? Her eyes lit up. She’d actually spotted a recurring billing mistake that had been going on for months. Fixing it saved her company about 1.2 million shillings that year.

All of this was missing from her CV. Instead of showing that she was someone who solved problems and made things run better, her CV just showed she could do the basic tasks of her job. Every employer assumes you can do the basics. What they’re really hiring for is someone who can do more than that.

We rewrote the whole thing with a different approach. Every point had to answer the question: so, what? Not just what you did, but why it mattered. Not just your responsibilities, but your results. The difference was night and day.

Rachel was nervous about it at first. She kept saying it felt like she was bragging, like she was making herself sound more important than she really was. I hear this all the time

Many professionals undersell themselves in their applications. That is exactly what Rachel was doing.

That’s why we decided to expand what we offer.

After revamping your CV, we’ll add your CV to our database and actively consider you for jobs that match your skills and experience.

You’ll be allocated a recruitment account manager who will be your main contact person for job openings with our client. We will prioritize you for open jobs with our clients, and you can also consult us for jobs advertised by other employers. You’ll also receive free career advice for a period of three months. I explained to her.

“That’s exactly what I needed,” she gasped. Two weeks later, her recruitment manager reached out with good news.

What Next?

If your CV isn’t getting responses, that’s fixable. If you’re overwhelmed by where to even look, we can help with that, too. Sometimes you just need someone who knows the landscape and can point you in the right direction. Click here today to get in touch.