If you are applying for relevant jobs but rarely getting interviews, the problem usually sits between role targeting, the evidence on your CV, ATS readability and how closely the application matches the vacancy. Check first whether the roles suit your experience, then compare what each employer requires against what your CV actually demonstrates.
Diagnose before you rewrite
Rewriting a CV at random wastes weeks. Work through the causes in order, because an earlier one makes the later ones irrelevant.
Applying but getting no interviews?
1. → Are the roles appropriate for your level of experience? 2. → Does the CV demonstrate the skills the advert requires? 3. → Can an applicant tracking system parse the CV correctly? 4. → Is the CV tailored to each vacancy? 5. → Does the application give evidence rather than claims?
1. Role targeting
The most common cause is applying above or across your level. A vacancy asking for "3–5 years" with a specialist tool is not a numbers game you win with volume.
Check your last twenty applications. If most listed a requirement you have never done, the CV is not the problem — the target is. Narrow to roles where you meet most requirements, and accept that a smaller, better-matched set of applications produces more replies than a large scattered one.
2. Evidence versus duties
Most weak CVs describe responsibilities: "Responsible for social media accounts." Strong CVs describe outcomes with context: "Ran three social accounts for a 400-member society; grew event attendance from 30 to 70 over two terms."
The second version answers the question the recruiter is silently asking — did anything happen because you were there? Go through every bullet and add the result, the scale or the timeframe. Where there is no number, add the context instead.
3. ATS readability
Applicant tracking systems parse your CV into fields. Anything they cannot read is effectively missing from your application. The usual culprits:
- Two-column layouts and text boxes, which scramble reading order.
- Contact details inside a header or footer.
- Skills shown only inside a graphic or a rating bar.
- Job titles that are creative rather than conventional.
- Files exported from design tools as images.
A plain single-column CV in a normal document format is not old-fashioned; it is legible to both machines and people.
4. Tailoring
Employers screen against the advert. If the advert says "stakeholder reporting" and your CV says "updated managers", a human might connect them and a filter will not. Tailoring is not rewriting the whole document — it is making sure the six or seven requirements that matter appear in your language and theirs.
5. Evidence in the application, not just the CV
Application forms with free-text questions are frequently where candidates lose out, because answers stay abstract. Each answer should name a situation, what you did and what resulted. Two sentences of specifics beat a paragraph of adjectives.
A realistic example
Daniel applies to sixty marketing roles in two months and gets two rejections and no other replies.
Reviewing his applications: forty of the sixty asked for paid-media experience he does not have (targeting problem). His CV lists "assisted with campaigns" three times with no outcomes (evidence problem). It is a two-column template with his email address in the header (parsing problem). He sent the same file every time (tailoring problem).
He narrows to content and communications roles, rewrites six bullets to include results, moves to a single-column layout with contact details in the body, and adjusts the top third of the CV per application. The applications go down and the replies go up — which is the only ratio that matters.
What to do next, without any account
- Audit twenty past applications and count how many requirements you actually met.
- Rewrite every CV bullet to include an outcome, a number or a scale.
- Convert the CV to a single column, with contact details in the body text.
- Copy the advert's six key requirements into a checklist and confirm each is visible on page one.
- Track replies per ten applications, so you can tell whether a change worked.
If you are not sure which of these is your problem, an AI career advisor can compare your CV against your target role and show which gaps are costing you interviews.