Behaviour-based assessments company Arctic Shores surveyed 500 people aged 16 to 24 years in July 2022 - and found that 43 per cent of respondents said that CVs are an outdated recruitment model.

The research found that 61 per cent of companies use CVs as their first means of assessing candidates - but 59 per cent have considered removing CVs from their hiring process.

Robert Newry – CEO and co-founder of Arctic Shores is of the opinion that CVs are no longer fit for purpose.

He said:

"CVs were designed 20 or 30 years ago as a way of giving us information about somebody that would be helpful in understanding whether they were a good fit for a job, in a pre-digital age."

He added that information on a CV can be exaggerated - and companies rely on them because it is the way it has always been done – saying:

"Everybody knows that you can game a CV; you can embellish information, you can get somebody to help you make it look good, and if you have good connections and come from a privileged background, you can get internships and temporary work that sound impressive to other people. 

We've now got a document we know, and one our research found that most people are suspicious of. We know that CVs are rubbish, but we've been brought up on them as a comfort blanket."

Robert Newry said that examining a candidate's behaviour should be the first step in finding an alternative.

He stated:

"Let's start thinking about a work description - not a job description but a work description - that looks at people's behaviours. What are the things that you want to bring them to the job that's going to make them successful?"

He then added:

"The world of psychometric testing has moved on hugely. We should be looking at whether psychometric assessments can give us a data point about somebody's resilience, their learning agility, curiosity and determination that we can't see through an interview or we can't see through an application form.

That will enhance and augment our ability to, when we do interview, make the right hiring decision. Ultimately, it has to be a human decision that's backed by data, rather than human decision backed by bias."

Most people surveyed felt that companies were not properly assessing their potential – 87 per cent said too much emphasis was put on past experience; 75 per cent of respondents said they did not think they had the skills needed to get a new job and 48 per cent said they had dropped out of the recruitment process - even though they were interested in the job. 

Graham Trevor - Group HR Director at recruitment company Randstad UK and Ireland - said that progress is being made on recruitment methods other than CVs.

He told HR magazine:

"The CV is useful but it's not the only recruitment tool. There's already a trend toward not using CV's as a way to reduce bias. There's plenty of innovation in the recruitment space and there is further hope for young people with limited experience and slimmer CVs.

My advice to young people putting a CV together is don’t get hung up on your lack of experience. It’s likely many candidates are in the same situation as you. Let your character shine through and it may make you stand out above other applicants that have more direct experience."