Practical guides for UK job seekers on getting past ATS screening and landing more interviews.
The software that screens your CV does not read your work experience as prose - it reduces every job to a job title, an employer, a start date and an end date, then computes your tenure from them. Here is how to write entries that parse cleanly and still impress the human who reads them next.
Read articleGreenhouse accepts both, Indeed converts everything to PDF anyway, and Reed caps uploads at 1MB. The PDF-or-Word question has a more useful answer than 'check the job ad' - it depends on who handles your file next.
Read articleGCSE grades now come in two currencies, half of UK employers have caught a candidate inflating a degree, and the government's own CV guidance never asks for grades at all. What the education section should say at every career stage - and how the screening software reads it.
Read articleOnly 26% of young people did any work experience last year, per Youth Employment UK - a blank work history is the norm, not a red flag. Here is how to build a first CV from education, projects and volunteering, and why the skills-based format most guides recommend backfires.
Read articleHobbies is not one of the five CV sections the National Careers Service recommends - yet 61% of in-house hiring managers say a unique, job-relevant interests section makes an interview more likely. When the section earns its place, and when it quietly costs you.
Read articleThe box on the application form - not your CV - decides whether an NHS application reaches interview. Trac scores supporting information against the person specification, criterion by criterion. Here is the structure NHS trusts themselves recommend, the real word limits, and the mistakes that cost shortlistings.
Read articleUK employers take up references when they make an offer, not when they sift CVs - that is the ACAS guidance, and it settles the question. Here is why referee details waste space on a CV, the one line the National Careers Service says is worth considering, and the school and finance exceptions where references come earlier.
Read articleHalf of UK job seekers now have at least one gap on their CV, and no mainstream ATS rejects you for it. The damage comes from leaving the gap silent - here is how to explain it in one line, and the popular fixes that make it worse.
Read articleThe standard advice for over-50s is to delete your dates, switch to a skills-based CV, and modernise your old job titles. All three damage the document before a recruiter ever opens it. Here is what actually works.
Read articleThe government's own CV guidance does not include a skills section at all. It still belongs on your CV - but only if you understand what it is for, which is not what most skills lists are doing.
Read articleThree different documents are called a personal statement in the UK, and copying the wrong one is why most CV openings say nothing. Here is what the four lines under your name should actually contain.
Read articleReed.co.uk and Indeed both store one CV per account - upload a new one and it replaces the old file for every future application. So the question is not how many versions you can keep, but which one is sitting where recruiters search. Here is the version system that works.
Read articleRecruiters don't read a job description - they score against it. Here is how an advert splits into essential criteria, desirable extras and search keywords, and how to mark it up in ten minutes before you apply.
Read articleUK graduate employers received a mean of 140 applications per vacancy in 2024-25 - the highest since records began in 1991. Senior vacancies are screened nothing like that. Here is what changes between an entry-level CV and a senior one, and the formatting rules that stay identical at both ends.
Read articleIt rarely means your CV is bad. Under the Conduct Regulations 2003, an agency has to confirm your experience and qualifications to the client in writing - and it can only confirm what your CV actually states.
Read articleThe most repeated ATS statistic in career advice traces back to the marketing of a company that closed in 2013 and never published a study. Here are six ATS myths that push UK job seekers into fixing the wrong thing.
Read articleGreenhouse publishes a list of what makes a CV fail to parse - and it reads like a feature list for the CV templates people download. Here is which templates help, which quietly break your application, and how to tell them apart.
Read articleOfficial UK guidance is blunt about what does not belong on a CV: not your age, not your date of birth, not your marital status, not your nationality. Here is the full cut list, the lines that quietly waste space, and the four things you should never delete.
Read articleTotaljobs research with 748 UK HR leaders found recruiters spend about 3.6 hours reviewing applications for a single vacancy. Against a typical application pile, that is roughly two minutes each - and not every CV gets even that.
Read articleA 2023 TopCV survey found over half of UK professionals update their CV less often than experts recommend. Here is a sensible cadence, the events that should always trigger an update, and why a stale CV costs you real opportunities.
Read articleA professional CV writer costs £45 to £449 and interviews you; an AI rewrite costs pounds and takes minutes. The right choice depends on whether your CV's problem is the story or the mechanics - and most people pay for the wrong one.
Read articleTailoring a CV and lying on one are not the same thing - but the line between them is where most people get anxious. Here is exactly where it sits, and how to make a real CV score higher without inventing anything.
Read articleRecruiters spend seconds on each CV, and a handful of red flags account for most instant rejections. Here are the ones that matter in the UK - and the fix for each.
Read articleA CV that served you well for ten years in one field is precisely the wrong document for entering another - every keyword in it argues for the job you're leaving. Here is how to rewrite it so ATS software and recruiters see the skills that transfer.
Read articleTailored CVs convert to interviews at more than double the rate of generic ones - but a full rewrite per application is a waste of your time. Here is the 20% of your CV worth changing, and the 15-minute method for changing it.
Read articleMainstream UK CV writing services charge £45–£190 depending on your career level, and executive packages run past £1,000. Here is what each price point actually buys, what drives the difference - and the one problem no price tier solves.
Read articleNo ATS emails you a pass or fail. But the timing of a rejection, your application portal status, and the kind of silence you get all carry information. Here is how to read the signals - and what an ATS checker score genuinely tells you.
Read articleThe National Careers Service says a CV should be no more than two sides of A4 - and eye-tracking research shows recruiters form a first judgement in about 7.4 seconds. Here is when two pages is right, when one page beats it, and how to cut a long CV without losing the keywords that get you found.
Read articleThe claim that ATS software auto-rejects 75% of CVs is mostly myth - recruiter studies show only around 8% of systems auto-reject on CV content. But 88% of employers still say qualified candidates get screened out. Here is the honest answer to whether an ATS-friendly CV actually matters in the UK.
Read articleUnder safer-recruitment rules, most UK schools score your application against a person specification - and a CV alone often isn't accepted. Here's how the ATS layer parses teaching applications, and how to pass the filter.
Read articleNearly three quarters of UK graduates now use AI somewhere in their applications - but no mainstream ATS flags an AI-written CV, and the detectors that claim to get it wrong more than half the time. The real danger is quieter: blending into a pile of near-identical applications.
Read articleBefore a recruiter ever sees your CV, an ATS runs it through four mechanical stages: extraction, segmentation, parsing, and ranking. A failure at any stage can score a qualified candidate near zero. Here's exactly how the machinery works - and how to survive it.
Read articleUK retailers and hospitality chains screen CVs through platforms like Tribepad and Talos360 - not the corporate ATS most CV advice assumes. Here's what actually gets scanned, and how to format your CV so it survives high-volume screening.
Read articleThe internet is full of conflicting advice about cover letters and ATS. The honest answer: your CV is what the ATS filters on - but your cover letter still matters at the human stage. Here's exactly when, and how to write one that helps.
Read articleUK financial services plan to hire through 2026 - but with 2.6 unemployed people per vacancy and recruiters now screening for AI-generated CVs, the ATS filter is stricter than ever. Here's how to format a finance CV that passes.
Read articleATS software does not read your CV the way a human does. It scans for specific keywords and scores your application on whether they are present. Here is exactly how to find the right keywords and where to place them.
Read articleCivil Service Jobs runs on Oleeo, a public-sector ATS that scores applications differently from Workday or Greenhouse. Here is what that means for your CV format, Success Profiles keywords, and anonymised screening.
Read articleYour CV bullet points have two jobs: pass the ATS keyword filter and convince a human recruiter you are worth interviewing. Most bullets fail at both. Here is the formula that does both.
Read articleThe NHS uses Trac and NHS Jobs to filter CVs before a human ever reads them. Here is exactly how the system scores your application, which keywords pass the filter, and how to format your CV for ATS compatibility.
Read articleCanva CV templates look impressive. But what does an ATS system actually see when it tries to parse them? We tested three popular UK templates. The results are alarming.
Read article98% of large UK employers screen CVs with software before a human reads them. Here is what that software does to your CV, how it scores you, and why qualified candidates get filtered out without ever knowing.
Read articleSending applications into the void? Before you rewrite your entire CV, check whether ATS filtering is the real problem. It usually is.
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