5 things that should not be on your CV

1. Your Full Address: In the day and age we live in, it’s not advisable to share your full address with unknown entities. We do, however, still need a suburb and postal code for the purposes of location screening.
2. Personal Details: It is no longer necessary to state age, gender, race, marital status, dependents or religion unless you deem it necessary to mention in order to qualify you for a position. Employers are not allowed to discriminate on any of the aforementioned criteria and omitting it from the CV will rule out any unfair discrimination.
3. Weak Action Verbs: "I helped", "I was responsible for" and "Involved in" are passive words that sound like you didn't do much. Use action words like streamlined, managed, implemented, improved, strategized, monetized, generated and phrases like "proven record".
4. Microsoft Office: Proficient use of the Microsoft Office Suite of products has become a minimum requirement for most positions. In the 1980's, being able to work on a computer was a skill, now it is assumed, so the skills on your CV need to be supported by info about your level of proficiency. 
5. Reference Details: It’s not at all a good idea to list names and numbers of references on CVs for several reasons. The only way that you can control who gets in contact with your references will be to only provide details on request. Secondly, people generally don’t want their names and contact numbers to be shared with anyone unless it is for a very good reason and with permission. We live in an era where contact details can be easily misused, and we need to respect the privacy of other people. 

*Please remember to get permission from your references to share their details in keeping with the POPI Act. (See our blog on references)