A year ago, the advice was simple: keep your CV to two pages at most. Today, that advice is outdated. The reason is that the first thing to read your CV is rarely a person – it is a machine. Here is what has actually changed in executive recruitment, how we at Agile Interim use artificial intelligence throughout the process, and how to design your CV so that it is read correctly by both AI and the client.
AI has moved the first screening from people to machines. In the past, a CV was first read by an adviser. Today, it passes through a layer of technology before it reaches a person: databases index it, search engines match it against assignments, and language models summarise and compare candidates.
The consequence is twofold. Speed and accuracy have increased sharply. At the same time, a strong candidate can be overlooked if the machine cannot read the document correctly. The content may be excellent, but if the format prevents machine reading, it is never assessed.
We use AI throughout the process, but always as a tool that supports our assessments – never as a replacement for them.
The final assessment of a leader is always made by a person. At C-level, judgement, chemistry and context are things no model can replace.
A fast lane is an accelerated process that we run by agreement with the client when an assignment is urgent. This is happening more and more often, especially on assignments where we have to deliver candidates within our 48-hour guarantee. We then carry out a technical analysis of the CVs against the role specification and send those with the highest match straight to the client. In these cases, it is often the document itself that decides whether you go through – which is why an up-to-date, machine-readable CV is more important than ever.
Your CV can be considerably longer than before. The two-page rule came about because a person cannot face reading any more. When AI does the reading and summarising, including everything matters more than being brief.
Include all the results you have achieved, and be particularly thorough about the last ten years. What the machine cannot see, it cannot match you on either. A role, a result or an area of expertise left out is a match you will never get.
A simple rule of thumb: if you can select and copy all the text in your CV with the mouse, the machine can usually read it too.
Yes. In most recruitment processes, your CV is indexed and matched by technology before an adviser sees it. The format determines whether the content is read at all.
There is no longer a fixed page limit. Include all relevant results, especially from the last ten years, as long as the content is relevant and specific.
Use Word (.docx) or a PDF with searchable text. Avoid scanned PDFs, which are images and cannot be machine-read.
Be careful. Advanced templates with several columns, tables and graphic elements look attractive to people, but often confuse machine reading. A clean, single-column layout is the safest option.
Keep your profile up to date in the recruitment firm’s database and upload an up-to-date, machine-readable CV. You will then be visible in searches and can receive alerts about relevant assignments.
In the past, we only contacted the people who came up as matches in our database. The challenge is that very few people log in regularly to update their availability – and many would actually prefer to get an alert from us when we have open assignments that suit them. An up-to-date profile solves both.
Written by Hilde Lekven, Managing Partner at Agile Gruppen. Agile Gruppen is one of Norway’s leading specialist firms combining interim management and executive search exclusively at C-level. Through Agile Interim and Agile Executive Search, we cover the entire leadership transition – from the urgent interim manager who has to be in place tomorrow to the permanent senior executive or board candidate who will lead the business forward. That means one partner throughout the process, not a baton handover in a vulnerable phase. We operate nationwide.