9 UK CV mistakes that get you rejected (and the fixes)
Updated 1 October 2026 · 6 min read
Most UK CVs never reach a recruiter: they are rejected by screening software on technical grounds, or by a human in seconds on obvious errors. These nine mistakes account for most of it.
1 · A photo, date of birth, or marital status
Under the Equality Act 2010, UK recruiters should not consider these — but a CV containing them invites subconscious bias and marks you as unfamiliar with UK conventions. Remove the photo and all personal details except your name, town and contact method.
2 · A two-column or graphic-heavy layout
Sidebars, tables, icons and infographics look modern and fail in exactly the way it matters: the ATS reads columns out of order, so your career appears as scrambled text. If your CV is a PDF exported from a design tool, treat it as unreadable until proven otherwise. One column, plain text.
3 · Passive, duty-list bullet points
'Responsible for managing a team' tells the reader nothing. The fix is action verbs plus outcomes: 'Led a five-person team' / 'Cut processing time by 30%'. Every bullet should explain what you did and what changed because of it.
4 · Bare-year dates
'2018-2020' is the single most common date mistake in UK CVs. Screening software uses dates to calculate how long you stayed in each role, and recruiters read gaps into year-only ranges. Write months: 'Sep 2018 – Mar 2020'. Use one format everywhere.
5 · Starting bullets with 'I'
A CV is written in implied first person: 'I managed' becomes 'Managed'. Every time a bullet starts with I, my, me or we, it reads as less confident and eats space. It's an easy find-and-replace — and your ATS checker will flag every instance.
6 · American English
UK recruiters notice 'organisation' typed as 'organization', 'CV' called a 'résumé', and 'program' used for a TV show. Run a British-English pass before applying — it takes two minutes and is one of the cheapest credibility wins available.
7 · Missing contact details at the top
No name header, no phone number, no email, no location: each is a silent rejection. UK CVs must start with your name, town and postcode, phone and a professional email address — in the body of the page, not in a header, where systems skip it. Apply with a CV that leaves these out and you make it impossible to shortlist you.
8 · An ATS-hostile file type
Photos, scans, .png exports and fonts the system can't read all count. Save as .docx with a standard font (Calibri, Arial) at 10.5–11pt, and upload a preview to confirm the text is real, not an image.
9 · Not tailoring the CV to the job
A generic CV loses to a tailored one every time. Mirror the job description's own keywords, lead with the experience the advert mentions first, and cut what's irrelevant. Score your CV against the job spec for free with the CV Room ATS checker — it maps the job description's keywords against your CV and highlights what's missing.
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