Written by Nina Dorigo
Have you realised that your CV is changing the way you think about yourself and your skills? We’ve all been there. It is the voice in your head telling you: “Spending three hours a week playing piano is not going to get me employed”, or “I need a committee position for this society to be worth my time”. Something that started as the process of examining your own skills, interests, hobbies, and achievements, and presenting them in a curated two-page document has transformed into an all-consuming habit of filtering all your experiences through employability, rather than genuine interest.
The CV Lens
This is what I call the ‘CV lens’, and its grip on LSE students is palpable. You see it in everyday conversations centred around internships, or in the number of people who rationalise their extracurricular choices based on their ‘CV utility’. But it makes sense that we think like this. The ‘CV lens’ is a direct reaction to the treacherous graduate job market. Currently, employers expect an exceptional level of competency, as well as qualities that differentiate you from the next ‘first-class candidate’, which is often unrealistic for people who haven’t even completed their undergraduate degree. These qualities, such as well-roundedness, are things that make us real people, and on our CVs they become part of the commercial exchange between us and our future employers. For many people, having an impressive CV is a question of survival in the context of ultra-competitive sectors, precarious student visas, the cost-of-living crisis, and student debt. It is undoubtedly a privilege to be able to even question the system that we function in, but that doesn’t mean that we cannot discuss how we have internalised this way of perceiving ourselves, and reflect on how it might be affecting our mental health and happiness.
“Obviously Useful Skills”
It’s one thing to do yourself justice by selling yourself in the best way possible on your CV. It’s another, to do things with the sole intention of putting them on your CV. In this quest to become more suitable ‘candidates’, our perception of time has changed. Skills and interests that you might have invested time in previously may not seem like they’re worth your time anymore – unless you’re good enough at them to have a quantifiable achievement to show for it. The ‘CV lens’ subconsciously constrains us to constantly justify why we might be redirecting time away from university work or career-furthering activities.
By thinking about time as something that is most efficiently used for the end of enriching your CV, we lose ourselves in the process. These include the less “obviously useful” skills that allow you to hold a conversation outside the realm of academics or make you an interesting individual. Although their value might not be overt on your CV, they are tremendously important for us as people and are not worth neglecting. Trying to compartmentalise these different aspects of ourselves is not constructive, because they are mutually beneficial. By applying the CV lens to how we perceive ourselves, it dissuades us from trying new things, being innovative, or investing time in things that we might enjoy and be good at. It takes away from the creativity that keeps our society culturally rich and diverse.
Performativity
Furthermore, the things we do invest time in, have become increasingly performative. By viewing ourselves through the ‘CV lens’, the intention with which we do everything becomes warped. You aren’t actually getting anything out of being the “Events Officer” of X society if you don’t really care about the society, and your interest in the “events” is minimal. We, as a student body, are becoming more superficial and less passionate because this lens dictates the way we perceive the activities we’re involved in. It prevents us from being curious enough to genuinely consider the impact we could have outside the enrichment of our own CVs.
We are getting carried away with this way of thinking. The ‘CV lens’ feels necessary in the brutal job market that awaits us (and maybe it is). But its excessive use is diminishing the meaning and authenticity behind our actions. It infiltrates every social interaction and permeates every non-academic experience we participate in, ultimately corrupting how we see ourselves. It’s ironic because authenticity and genuine intention are what make you stand out in interviews. The qualities that make you employable are the very ones that we are leaving behind because we’ve embraced the ‘CV lens’.
We need to start pushing back on CV culture in social settings and reflect on how it shapes our sense of self. This doesn’t mean abandoning career ambition; it simply means resisting the temptation to turn a simple question about your summer plans into a competition. It means joining a society and actually caring about it. It means not masquerading superficial commitments as professionalism, when in reality you’re just reducing yourself to a mere interchangeable ‘candidate’. It means asking yourself, “Do I genuinely feel that the skills and interests I’m pursuing make me a better person, or does their positive impact only extend to the last line of my CV?”
CV stands for curriculum vitae, or “course of life”. Is your life shaping your CV, or is your CV shaping the course of your life?
