‘I’m a recruiter and many mess up common CV question’

A recruiter has revealed why so many interviewers may ask you to summarise your CV for them – even if they’ve read it. It’s all because they want to know one thing about you.

Between December 2024 and February 2025, unemployment rate in the UK rose to 4.4%, which is about 1.57 million people, according to the Office of National Statistics. This is an increase of 114,000 from the previous year.

While it can seem impossible to find a job, with many newly graduates struggling to find jobs, it can be nervewracking if you do manage to get yourself a job interview. To help, one recruiter and career mentor named Rob Cancilla has shared his tips and tricks on how to make a good impression at your interview.

Taking to social media, Rob shared the reason why a lot of interviewers may ask you about your CV, and revealed what they actually want to know from you in your answer.

“A very common mistake that so many people walk into during such an important part of a job interview – when someone says ‘walk me through your resume’,” he said at the start of his TikTok video.

He continued to explain: “What they’re really saying is connect the dots for me on how your past experiences and successes are relevant and going to add value for this role.

“So many people don’t use their time efficiently during this important interview question, and they regurgitate their entire resume without connecting the dots.

“A really strong approach that I recommend using is what I call connector statements.”

Connectors are words or short phrases that link ideas or statements together across different sentences or paragraphs.

“By utilising connector statements, you’re going to be laser focused in your answer, and you’re also going to highlight to the interviewer the experiences, skills and attributes that you are bringing to the table,” he said.

He went on to share some examples of what connector statements could work the best during a job interview.

He said: “Example connector statements could be ‘where I added the most value and impact to my previous role was’, ‘when I think about that role, what I’m the most proud of’, ‘as I think about what you’re looking for in this role, my most relevant experience is probably in my role at’.”

“These connector statements are super easy to use and they will make you absolutely more efficient in answering the question ‘walk me through your resume’,” he said at the end of the video.

People took to the comments to share their appreciation for Rob’s useful tips, however some just found it frustrating.

One person commented: “”hy don’t interviewers just ask the question they want to know the answer to??? if they want us to connect our experience to the role we applied for, they should ask for THAT instead.”

To this, Rob replied: “I hear you.”