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Why You’re Not Getting Interviews (Even When You’re Qualified)

Why You’re Not Getting Interviews (Even When You’re Qualified)
Why You’re Not Getting Interviews (Even When You’re Qualified)

It’s one of the most frustrating parts of the job search. You’ve got the skills, you’ve got the experience, you’ve applied for roles you know you can do — but your inbox is full of silence, or worse, rejection emails landing within 48 hours.

If that sounds familiar, here’s the good news: the problem usually isn’t you. It’s not that you’re unqualified or unemployable. More often than not, it’s how you’re presenting yourself on paper.

I’ve spent nearly 20 years in recruitment, scanning thousands of CVs across industries and seniority levels. I can tell you with certainty: plenty of great candidates miss out on interviews because their CV doesn’t tell the right story. And the frustrating thing is, it’s fixable.

Let’s break down the three most common reasons your CV isn’t landing interviews — and how to fix them fast.

1. Your CV Isn’t Telling the Right Story

Most CVs read like job descriptions. A long list of responsibilities. “Managed a team of five.” “Responsible for budgets.” “Tasked with improving customer service.”

The problem? That’s not a story. That’s just a list of what you were hired to do. Hiring managers don’t want to know what you were responsible for — they want to know what you actually achieved.

Example of the wrong way:
“Responsible for managing sales team.”

Example of the right way:
“Led a sales team of six to deliver 120% of target for three consecutive quarters, increasing regional revenue by £1.2m.”

See the difference? One tells me what you did day to day. The other shows me the result, the scale, and the impact you had. That’s what makes a CV stand out.

Quick Fix:
Go back through your CV and for each role ask yourself: What did I achieve? What changed because I was in that role? Can I put numbers, percentages, or examples against it? Even small wins add credibility.

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2. You’re Not Highlighting Transferable Skills Clearly

Another common problem: your CV is technically accurate, but it doesn’t make it easy for someone outside your current niche to see how your skills transfer.

Let’s say you’ve worked in retail operations but now you’re applying for project management roles. If your CV is full of “store processes” and “till operations,” a recruiter in a different sector won’t make the mental leap. They’ll just think: not relevant.

It’s your job to bridge that gap.

How to do it:

  • Use the language of the job description. If they’re asking for “stakeholder management,” and you’ve been managing area managers or suppliers, call it stakeholder management.
  • Add a “Key Skills” section at the top of your CV with 6–8 bullet points that reflect the skills they want to see. Make it easy for the recruiter to skim and match.
  • Reframe examples. “Implemented a new rota system across 5 stores” becomes “Delivered a cross-site change management project impacting 100+ staff.” Same achievement, broader relevance.

Quick Fix:
Look at three job descriptions for the roles you’re applying for. Pull out the key skills and phrases that keep appearing. Where you genuinely have that experience, mirror that language in your CV.

3. Your CV Isn’t Getting Past the First 10-Second Skim

This one’s harsh but true. Recruiters don’t read CVs word for word. They skim. You’ve got maybe 6–10 seconds to convince them to keep reading.

Here’s what they’re scanning for:

  • Where you’re based (is location suitable?).
  • Your most recent role and job title.
  • Evidence of relevant skills and achievements.
  • A quick sense of your career progression.

If they can’t find that quickly on page one, they’ll move on.

Common mistakes that kill the skim:

  • Burying key information halfway down page two.
  • Overloading with long paragraphs or walls of bullet points.
  • Using fancy two-column templates that are hard to scan.

Quick Fix:

  • Put your contact details, LinkedIn, and location at the top.
  • Add a short, sharp professional summary (2–3 sentences).
  • Use a “Key Skills” section in bullet form so your most relevant skills jump off the page.
  • Keep your most recent role detailed with clear achievements, and strip back older roles to just job title, company, and dates.

Remember: the goal of your CV is not to get you the job. It’s to get you the interview. To do that, it has to survive the skim.

Bringing It All Together

So if you’re not getting interviews despite being qualified, here’s your action plan:

  1. Rewrite your CV around achievements, not responsibilities.
  2. Frame your experience in the language of the jobs you’re applying for, making transferable skills crystal clear.
  3. Structure your CV so it passes the skim test in under 10 seconds.

When you make these changes, your CV stops being a passive document and starts actively selling you as the obvious choice.

You Don’t Need The Perfect CV

If you’ve been applying for jobs and not getting calls back, don’t immediately jump to “there’s no jobs out there” or “I must not be good enough.” More often than not, it’s just that your CV isn’t doing its job properly.

And that’s something you can fix.

If you’re not sure where your CV is letting you down, my AI CV Reviewer will break it down for you in minutes. It’s trained on 20 years of my recruitment experience, and it’ll tell you exactly what’s working, what’s not, and how to improve it.

Because remember: you don’t need the perfect CV. You just need a CV that gets you into the interview room.

Start with these tools that thousands of jobseekers use every week:

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