This post by Alexander Rocket, Co-Founder of FormaCV, is part of our blog series, “The Recruitment Rule I’d Break”.
Many agencies have some version of this rule, even if nobody wrote it down. The consultant who owns the candidate rebuilds the CV in the house template before it goes to the client. They know the candidate, so they catch the gaps. They care about the relationship, so it goes out looking right.
The rule made sense when a shortlist was three CVs a week and templates were simple. It doesn’t hold up at today’s volumes, and I’d break it. What follows is how to do that without losing the quality the rule was meant to protect.
Why the rule fails now
Between 2025 and March 2026 we interviewed more than 50 recruitment agencies by email about how long it takes to turn a candidate’s CV into a client-ready document. Recruiters not using any AI tool said 15 to 45 minutes per CV, from two-person desks to consultants at global staffing firms.
At 30 minutes a CV and 40 CVs a month, that is around 20 hours a month per consultant. Very little of it draws on what the consultant knows about the candidate. Retyping dates, fixing fonts and rebuilding tables is layout work.
The rule doesn’t guarantee quality either. When formatting is squeezed in before a deadline, that is when the phone number survives in the header, the previous agency’s logo stays in the footer, and two consultants send the same client two different-looking CVs in the same week.
Split the job in two
The rule bundles two different jobs.
The layout job is mechanical: the client’s template, branding, consistent headings and, for blind CVs, removing personal details. It needs care and consistency, not knowledge of the candidate.
The judgement job belongs to the consultant: why this person, for this role, for this client. In practice that is a short, specific summary at the top of the CV or in the covering note, plus a final check before it goes.
Give the layout job to one owner. That can be an operations coordinator, a resourcer, a shared inbox with a turnaround time, or software. The point is that one person or process does it the same way every time, and the consultant stops doing it at 6pm.
What it looks like in practice
A six-consultant perm desk. Consultants drop the original CV into a shared folder with the client name, the template and the redaction level. A coordinator formats in two batches a day, at 11am and 3pm, and returns the file to the consultant. The consultant writes a five-line summary and sends it. The batches give consultants a predictable turnaround, so nothing waits in a queue overnight.
A high-volume temp desk. Format once, at registration, not at every submission. The candidate’s CV is rebuilt in the agency’s standard layout when they join, and the consultant only adapts the summary for each client. That removes most of the repeat work, because a temp can be submitted to several clients in the same week.
A two-person boutique. There is no one to hand the layout to, so reduce it instead. Lock the template so it can’t drift, keep a list of the edits every CV needs, and cap the time: if a CV takes longer than ten minutes to lay out, that’s a sign the template needs fixing.
What the consultant still checks
Handing off the layout doesn’t mean handing off responsibility. Before any CV leaves the building, the consultant checks:
1. The right candidate, with the name spelt correctly.
2. Job titles, employers and dates match the original CV.
3. For blind CVs: no name, email, phone or address in the body, the header, the footer or the file name.
4. The correct client template and logo.
5. Notice period, availability and salary match what the candidate told you.
6. The summary is specific to this role, not a paragraph that could describe anyone.
7. The file name follows the agency’s convention.
It takes two or three minutes, and it is the part that needs the person who had the conversation.
How to keep quality up
– One owner for templates. One person maintains the template for each client and approves changes. Local copies are where inconsistency creeps in.
– A written redaction list per client. “Blind” means different things to different clients. Agree it once and store it with the template.
– Spot checks. A second person reviews one CV in ten each week against the checklist above.
– Log client comments. If a client flags a formatting or redaction problem, record it and fix the template or the checklist, not only the one CV.
– Review templates quarterly. Clients rebrand and change requirements; templates should follow.
The obvious objection
“Clients will notice if the CV isn’t hand-crafted.” What clients notice is when the second CV of the week looks different from the first, or when the summary could have been written about anyone. Consistency and a sharp summary do more for the agency’s brand than a consultant’s evening in Word.
If your agency has this rule, try one week without it. Keep the summary and the final check, hand off the layout, and count the hours.
Alexander Rocket is co-founder of FormaCV (https://www.google.com/url?q=https://formacv.ai&source=gmail&ust=1790893382071000&sa=E), which makes CV formatting and anonymisation software for recruitment agencies.
