01
Agree the policy once
Pick which identifiers the client wants removed: name and contact only, or employers and age as well. Each is a separate switch.
Blind CV software for recruitersAnonymise CVs by policy, not by hand.
Send clients anonymised CVs without hand-redacting each one. ConnectIQ removes names, contact details, employers and age from the header and the prose, keeps the identified version for your files, and checks the blind CV before anything leaves the agency.
name-blind CVsrender-time redactionchecked, not certified
redacted
Senior Marketing Manager
redacted
Profile
Senior Marketing Manager at Thornbury & Co, owning a £1.2m annual budget and a team of six across content, CRM and performance.
Experience
Thornbury & CoMar 2021 — Present
Applied at render and export — PDF and DOCX
Redaction policy
The unredacted record stays yours. The export follows the policy.
What it removes
An anonymised CV that is anonymous in the prose too.
Hand redaction catches the header and misses the third bullet of the 2019 role. Each of these is applied everywhere it appears.
- Name
- 'Candidate' in the header and 'the candidate' inside the prose, possessives included, along with email addresses and links built from the name.
- Contact details
- Email, phone and links removed from the contact line and anywhere they appear in the text.
- Employers
- Replaced with a sector description such as 'Food & beverage business', inside bullet points as well as the job headings, when the client wants employers hidden.
- Age and date of birth
- Removed wherever they appear in the text. Graduation years are left as written, so check them when the client wants age hidden.
- Referees
- Named referees replaced with 'Available on request'.
- Monogram
- The initials slot some templates use is hidden, so the header gives nothing away.
An anonymised CV example
The same CV, identified and name-blind.
A fictional candidate, shown the way each version comes out of ConnectIQ with name, contact and employer hidden. The evidence the client screens on survives; the identifiers do not.
Identified CV
- Priya Shah · Leeds LS6 · 07700 900123 · [email protected]
- Priya is a chartered management accountant with eight years in FMCG.
- Finance Business Partner, Hartwell Foods, 2021 to present
- Cut month-end close from nine days to five across three sites.
Name-blind CV example
- Candidate
- the candidate is a chartered management accountant with eight years in FMCG.
- Finance Business Partner, Food & beverage business, 2021 to present
- Cut month-end close from nine days to five across three sites.
An anonymous CV that strips every employer to "Company A" gets rejected for having no context, so hidden employers become a sector description instead, and only when the client asks for it.
How a blind CV is produced
Four steps, the same for every candidate on the shortlist.
02
Render the blind version
Anonymisation is applied when the document is rendered, never stored, so the identified CV stays intact for your own files.
03
Read the check
Before export or sharing, a scan lists anything that still looks identifying. Short or ambiguous names are reported rather than guessed.
04
Send it
Export PDF or Word, or share a branded link. A share link is not created while warnings stand, unless you acknowledge that exact document.
CV redaction software you can check
Pattern matching handles structured fields reliably and prose probabilistically: a tool that redacts every "Mark" also destroys "market analysis". So confident matches are removed, ambiguous ones are listed for you to decide, and nothing is described as guaranteed. It is checked redaction, not a compliance certificate.
Name-blind recruitment, applied consistently
Blind recruitment only works if every candidate on the shortlist is treated the same way. A written policy applied by the software is consistent where hand edits are not, and the client compares candidates on evidence rather than on who was redacted more carefully.
Blind CVs and GDPR
Sending a client less personal data at first stage is data minimisation as well as fair hiring. The identified record stays with you until an interview is arranged. CV GDPR for recruitment agencies
Further reading
How to anonymise a CV properly, field by field.
The guide covers the identifiers that leak anyway, how to generalise employers without stripping context, and a two-minute check before sending. Speccing a candidate to a client who has not asked for them? Start from a blind profile.
Blind CV questions
Anonymised CVs, answered.
Blind-CV controls are included from Starter, £15 a month for 100 CVs.
Test a real CVWhat is a blind CV?
A CV with the candidate's name and other identifying details removed, so the first sift is made on evidence rather than on assumptions drawn from a name, an address or a graduation year. It is also called an anonymised, anonymous or name-blind CV.
How do I anonymise a CV?
Remove the name, contact details, address, photo and date of birth; search the prose for the name and its short forms; generalise employers where the client agrees; drop the graduation year; and check the file name and document properties. ConnectIQ applies the name, contact, employer, age and referee settings at render time and then lists anything that still looks identifying; the graduation year and file name are yours to check. The blind CV guide covers each field.
What does ConnectIQ remove from a CV?
Name (replaced with 'Candidate'), contact details, links, the initials monogram, employer names (replaced with a generic description, including mentions inside bullets), age and date of birth, and named referees. Each is a separate setting, so you match what the client asked for.
Is the anonymisation guaranteed or GDPR-certified?
No, and no pattern-based tool can honestly claim that. Confident matches are removed; short or ambiguous names are kept and reported rather than guessed, and you review the list before anything is sent. It is checked redaction, not a compliance certificate.
Do I lose the original CV?
No. Anonymisation is applied when the document is rendered, never stored, so the same approved record produces an identified version for your files and a blind version for the client.
Which plans include blind CVs?
Starter (£15 a month for 100 CVs) and above. The free conversion does not include anonymisation.
What is name-blind recruitment?
A hiring process that hides candidates' names, and usually other identifying details, until a shortlist has been made on evidence. The UK Civil Service committed to it in 2015 for roles below the Senior Civil Service, and many employers now ask agencies for blind CVs as standard.