10 things to remove from your CV

Every bit of information on your CV needs to earn its place, but there's probably at least one thing on your CV making it look outdated or irrelevant. Let's take a look at what to remove from your CV to ensure it's catching attention for all the right reasons.

1.    Personal details

Personal details have no place on your CV, including your date of birth, age, nationality, marital status, religion and shoe size. The focus of your CV should be your career, and the skills and qualifications you have that have helped you to excel.

Recruiters should only pay attention to the details that reflect your ability to do a job. If they consider your personal details, they risk accusations of bias and discrimination. They should ignore this information, so there's no point it being there. Before adding personal details, ask yourself if it's something that genuinely helps you to do your job effectively. If not – remove it from your CV!  

Of course, you still want to be contactable. Your email address and phone number are required, but your home address isn't.

2.    Salary

Stating your salary at this early stage of the recruitment process is never a good idea. While some numbers are necessary on your CV, this isn't one of them. It seriously risks undermining and limiting future salary negotiations.

If your current salary is higher than the budget for the role, you risk being ruled out as too expensive. If your current salary is lower than the budget, you risk being ruled out for not being senior or experienced enough.

Remember, too, that your salary is just part of the overall compensation package. Both parties also need to factor in other benefits, making a single salary figure misleading.

3.    Reason for leaving previous jobs

The reason for leaving previous jobs can always be removed from a CV. People move on, it's a fact of life. The days of a "job for life" are long gone. Whether you left due to maternity, redundancy, or for a higher salary, the reason doesn't affect your ability to do the job.

Rather than giving a reason for leaving, give a reason the company were lucky to have you.

4.    Objective statement

The objective statement is a relic from the past that can be removed from your CV. Thinking about it logically, your objective is always to get the role you're applying for – you don't need to spell it out in the CV, as it is already assumed.

The CV is never about you, it's about what you can do for a business. Including an objective statement moves the focus from what you can offer to what you want. Spoiler: no-one cares what you want. When a hiring manager is reviewing your CV, they are looking for information that shows you can fill a gap in their business. An objective statement does not help them to visualise you in their empty seat.

5.    Skills with no context

While a list of skills on your CV is all well and good, without context they're just a load of floating words. More important than simply listing skills is proving that you have those skills. Add context and credibility by giving specific examples of when you've used each required skill, throughout the Professional Experience section of your CV.

Adding skills relevant to the role helps to ensure your CV contains those all-important keywords. That means your CV will pop up in recruiter searches. However, the tech behind those searches is increasingly advanced and no longer needs exact matches, so concentrate instead on combining skills with context and outcomes.

Remove from your CV all skills that you can't contextualise.

6.    Photos and other images

Much like personal details, photos should be removed from your CV as they can lead to bias and discrimination. Additionally, photos and other images, such as logos, icons and skills charts, are not always read accurately by applicant tracking systems, rendering them useless.

Recruiters and hiring managers, on the whole, prefer plain CVs – that is to say, no graphics, columns or non-standard fonts.

7.    Clichés

Imagine you're a recruiter, reading through piles of CVs to fill your open vacancies every day. Now imagine how many of them use the same tired clichés. "Works well independently", "passionate", "hardworking", "enthusiastic", "highly motivated", "good communication skills"… it gets very repetitive, very quickly.

It's a common mistake but, given that the point of a CV is to stand out, churning out these tired phrases has the exact opposite effect. Grab the recruiter's attention by being uniquely yourself and removing clichés from your CV.

8.    Ancient history

As a rule, the last 10-15 years of your career are the most relevant to your next steps. Focus on this experience and remove from your CV anything earlier – or at least summarise it. For example, remove detail from earlier jobs, but keep the title and employer name so that the reader can understand your career progression.

Similarly, GCSEs and A-levels can be removed if you have a degree or recognised industry qualifications.

There's no need to distract hiring managers with detail that isn't relevant to their vacancy. If they scan through your CV and only see a strong match, you'll get an interview. If they scan through, tick a few boxes and then get distracted, an interview is less likely.

9.    References

References used to be a must-have element of every CV – but no more. Your CV is just the first stage of a recruitment process that will involve at least one interview, if not more, at a later stage. References aren't needed this early.

Removing references from a CV works well for jobseekers in two ways. Firstly, they can use the space they'd have dedicated to someone else's contact details to actually selling themselves into the role. And secondly, it means their referees won't be contacted until much later, meaning there's a good chance of you landing the role. Their references will be so much more enthusiastic if they only have to write one, rather than one for each of the many roles you've applied for!

And while we're at it, the phrase "References available on request" should also be removed from a CV. It's a pointless statement, as anyone wanting references will certainly ask for them - whether you say this or not!

10. Typos

Seriously, get proofreading. Typos are a natural part of modern life but, when you're applying for a job in a competitive market, professionalism and attention to detail are non-negotiable.

Get friends, family, or even a professional CV writer to give your final document the once-over before you send it out.

Ensure your CV sells you into the role

If you're unsure what modern CV best practice looks like, want a professional pair of eyes on your document or just want confirmation that you've done it right, why not contact Word Dragon? With CV services for all budgets and over 15 years' experience, you'll be able to step into your job search with the confidence that your CV is presenting you in the best possible light.

Updated 2026