Less than a third of jobseekers always tailor their CV when applying for every new vacancy, according to online recruitment agency webrecruit’s Jobseeker Survey.

However, jobseekers were overall more likely to customise cover letters, with 60% of respondents preparing a new version for each application.

Phil Roebuck, chief executive of webrecruit, says: “This [32%] statistic is especially concerning considering just how fierce the competition is for jobs.

“For example, a vacancy for a PA role in London received over 230 applications in just one week; a sales and marketing assistant role saw over 700 responses. When you’re manually screening this volume of interest, you need applications to be tailored to get the employer’s interest.”