Careers
What Employers Actually Read on a Graduate CV
Recruiters spend seconds on a first pass. Understanding which signals survive that pass changes how a degree should be presented.
Graduate recruitment at scale is a filtering problem before it is an assessment problem. The first pass is fast, and the signals that survive it are coarse: institution, programme type, evidence of sustained commercial exposure, and one or two concrete outputs.
This has an underappreciated consequence. A placement year or substantial internship inside a recognised firm frequently outperforms an additional academic distinction, because it resolves the reviewer's central uncertainty, whether the candidate has functioned inside a real organisation.
Candidates should write for the filter without writing only for it. Lead with the institution and programme, follow immediately with the placement, and reserve the detailed academic material for the interview, where there is finally time to read it.