Why Human Psychology Makes Writing Your Own CV So Difficult

Every week I speak to people who tell me they've spent days, weeks or even months trying to write their CV. Some eventually give up, others produce something they're reasonably happy with, but many think they’ve genuinely created a masterpiece.

The interesting thing?

Human psychology is almost perfectly wired to make writing your own CV incredibly difficult.

It's not because you're a poor writer, or you don't have the experience. It's because your brain plays tricks on you.

Psychologists have spent years studying the way people think, evaluate themselves and make decisions. When you look at some of the better-known psychological models and cognitive biases, it becomes obvious why writing your own CV is fraught with pitfalls.

Here are just a few of them...

The Johari Window

"I can't see what everyone else sees."

The Johari Window suggests we all have blind spots about ourselves. There are qualities, strengths and characteristics that other people recognise in us immediately, but which remain largely invisible to us.

Ask someone to describe themselves professionally and they're often stumped. Ask their manager, colleagues or clients and they'll describe them in seconds.

That's a problem when you're trying to figure out your personal brand, positioning, career narrative, strengths and commercial value. And it’s definitely a problem when you try to communicate all this through your CV.

Most people find it difficult to describe and sell themselves, which makes the concept of writing your own CV somewhat flawed.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect

"I'm much better at this than I really am."

Writing an effective CV isn't simply about writing well. It's about understanding recruitment, employer psychology, copywriting, commercial positioning, ATS systems, branding and marketing.

People who have never worked in those fields often don't realise how much they don't know.

It's a bit like thinking you could become an actor because you’ve watched a lot of TV.

Successful and confident people often overestimate their own ability because they think their ability is transferable and it’s often not.

Being an awesome engineer doesn’t make you a great mechanic, and likewise, being an awesome commercial leader doesn’t make you a skilled CV writer.

The Curse of Knowledge

This is a well-established cognitive bias, cited in behavioural economics and communication research. In other words, "Everyone knows what I mean."

This trips a lot of people up. When it comes to the details of your career, you see the entire iceberg in your head but only a tiny fraction is sticking out of the water on your CV.

You assume everyone sees what you see.

You've lived your career, but the recruiter hasn't.

You might write something like: "Led SAP implementation." Great, but which SAP? How many users? What budget? What business impact?

You skip the context because it feels obvious to you.

Unfortunately, it isn't obvious to anyone else.

Expert Blind Spot

This is another recognised concept in education and cognitive science. Experts forget what non-experts need to know. An engineer writes for engineers, a doctor writes for doctors, an accountant writes for accountants (that’s why there’s finance for non-finance professionals’ courses).

The recruiter reading the CV may not be any of those things, and your knowledge becomes your own worst enemy.

This is similar to the False Consensus Effect where people naturally assume others think the same way they do. "I know what that acronym means", "I know why that project was important", "I know what this software does." The recruiter often doesn't.

Impostor Syndrome

This is incredibly common and doesn’t need an awful lot of explanation.

People are often naturally modest and underconfident, so they edit their achievements out of their CV because they don't feel worthy of claiming them.

Sometimes they just feel uncomfortable laying claim to an achievement or outcome in a document that is distributed to strangers.

Either way, they end up with a CV devoid of evidence that they are good at their job. Skills and experience will take you so far, but it’s ability that creates the differential when you are up against hundreds of other candidates.

The IKEA Effect

Psychologists have shown that people place a higher value on things they've built themselves.

Whether that be furniture, artwork, music, or business ideas…

And CVs are no different.

Sometimes this is called the Endowment Effect where once you've invested hours creating your CV, it becomes surprisingly difficult to judge it objectively.

I personally like to call it Creative Self Delusion Syndrome. It’s a bit like when a child brings home from school some paint daubed on a sheet of paper, thinking they’ve created the next artistic Picasso masterpiece.

There’s something about doing something creative that gives us a dopamine hit that tricks us into believing we’ve created our own masterpiece.

It’s the same with CVs. The creative process trips us up.

But the truth is, doing something creative doesn't necessarily mean it's good.

Confirmation Bias

People naturally seek opinions that reinforce what they already believe, and we are all terrible at taking advice from people that we maybe ought not to.

Your friend who’s a CEO, or perhaps your mum or partner might think your CV is great, but that doesn’t mean it is.

I’ve personally written CVs for people only to receive an email from the client saying that their mate Roger who once recruited someone in 1983 said that the CV should only be one page. Quite why they trusted Roger over me I will never know, but I think this talks to the point I’m trying to make.

Another common scenario is job seekers who will constantly change their CV as soon as anyone gives them an opinion - it’s like they trust everyone but themselves. They finally get to a point where all their sources of information have contradicted themselves several times and they end up going round in circles.

The key is to create the CV for your target audience - not Roger, not mum, not your hubby, but the recruiters and employers who are making the hiring decisions.

Identity Fusion

This is an interesting one. Many people don't see criticism of their CV as criticism of a document - they see it as criticism of themselves.

It’s something we qualify when providing CV reviews, so people don’t feel personally attacked.

Equally, it’s easy to become demoralised in a tough job market. "My CV isn't good enough" can soon become "I'm not good enough" inside the mind of someone who is struggling to get traction.

The Memory Bank Trap (Availability Heuristic)

People remember what's freshest.

The latest promotion, the current role, the recent project.

Meanwhile, the achievement from eight years ago that transformed a business never even gets mentioned.

We teach this during interview coaching. I like to explain that your memory bank is very unreliable - you’ll either withdraw the most recent or the example that is etched in your memory because of its emotional resonance. That’s why we teach people to create a Career Autobiography © to avoid reliance on your memory bank.

So what does all this mean?

When you put all of these psychological biases together, one thing becomes obvious...

Writing your own CV isn't simply a writing exercise. It's an exercise in trying to objectively evaluate yourself, communicate your value, understand your audience, market your expertise and make commercial decisions, all while battling dozens of cognitive biases that are working against you.

To be very blunt, most folks don’t cut their own hair, service their own car, or fix their own boiler. I may be biased, but writing your own CV seems just as flawed.

The difference is that if you cut your own hair badly, you'll know immediately. If you write your own CV badly, nobody tells you. Employers simply don't call.