You can be the right person for the job and still be ignored, because your CV arrived in a form the employer could not open. Most people never find out this happened.
Which one actually arrives?
What happens: IMG_20260811.jpg, 3.4 MB. Sideways, hard to read, and the software many employers use cannot search it at all.
What happens: Thabo-Mokoena-CV.pdf, 180 KB. Readable, searchable, and identical on their screen and yours.
A PDF is a file type that looks the same on every phone and every computer. Word documents often open with the layout broken. Photos of a printed CV cannot be searched by the software many employers use to sort applications.
What about document1.pdf?
It tells the employer nothing, and when they want to look at it again next week they will not find it. Names like MyCVfinalFINAL2.pdf have the same problem, and they look careless before anyone has read a word.
Tap what is in your CV and watch the file size.
Total: 40 KB
- Under 500 KB: Good. This opens instantly, even on slow data.
- Under 2000 KB: Getting heavy. Remove decorative images.
- Above that: Too big. Some employers reject this automatically.
Before you move on
- Save your CV as a PDF
- Rename it: Your-Name-CV.pdf
- Email it to yourself and open it
Check what you know
4 questions. Have a look at what this lesson asks.
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