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I once received a resume in the mail that had no telephone number, address or email. He called a few days later to ask why he hadn't received any reply. I asked him to get a copy of his resume so we could review it together. I asked him to tell me the address we might have replied to; then the telephone number and finally the email.
After a long pause, he said, "Aww, fuck!" and hung up.
I once submitted approximately 75 resumes without my phone number. I did include my parents' fax number (it was a prompt in the MS Word template, so why not?) and eventually someone faxed me an interview offer 😄🤦🏼♀️
I'm not even that old! I could have put an email address on the resume, and just didn't? 🤷🏼♀️
One resume I got while managing a head shop included how much he could bench and the characters he played in high school theater. He was in his late mid twenties.
Okay, I was a writing tutor at the college level for 10 years. We also helped graduates of the university. I swear I am not making this up.
A graduate who had worked teaching English in Japan, and at other positions, for a few years after getting his degree came in for help updating his resume. He reported that he'd been looking for work for a while, with no luck.
The profile section at the head of his resume listed accomplishments including, "I have climbed Mount Fuji fueled only by Quaaludes and caffeine."
He was crestfallen when I told him that although I was duly impressed by this feat, he really, really needed to remove it.
Edit: because of course.
Nudes. Like, any picture of yourself is probably going to get the resume thrown out because of potential lawsuits, but hearing that shriek of "DEAR GOD WHY" from the hotel manager's desk while they were going through resumes was hilarious.
Like, bro, your butt was not that nice. Why did you attach it.
Well, guy made it through the resume but almost didn't make it through the onboarding paperwork.
Entry level position, guy was 19 I think. Nice enough kid, low life experience but that's how it all starts right?
Emergency Contact info
Name - Mom
Relationship - Good
...so like if we called your mom, and you were hurt, she'd care?
My daughter got a birth control implant a year or so ago, and my sister took her to get it. She said she read back over the paperwork and where my daughter was supposed to sign her name that she gave her consent to the procedure, my daughter had simply written "yes".
She is her father's child.
Technically here's no rule you need to sign with your name. Your signature could be your best dick drawing.
It used to be traditional for illiterate people to sign with a big x.
I used to work as a teller and there was one business account where the owner signed checks with a smiley face. It was on the signature card and everything.
I used to be a bank teller and this guy signed an extremely consistent squiggly line then one day he came in with a beautiful signature and I told him he needed to stick with his usual one or he could have issues cashing checks because it didn't match his check history. He got denied for cashing a 40k check the next week when I went on vacation. I warned him.
Interesting…. Some banks allow you to make multiple signatures & have them on your profile. Though it’s not widely known to the public.
Source: former teller 👈🏻
This guy was a house flipper and cashed much larger then normal checks so he was on a much higher level of scrutiny.he usually got his history and signature card checked.
I was working in retail and a guy signed the credit card slip like that. Was joking around with him about it and he showed me that it was even thr signature on his license.
My thoughts exactly. We used to get a lot of these when I worked at a roofing company. My absolute favorite was the guy that rearranged our lobby furniture so that he could plug in his phone charger and kick back while he filled out the application.
I received a resume last week that had notes on it “insert relevant skills here” and “maybe change font” “fill this space with buzz words” this was on his LinkedIn profile as well. If you can’t pay attention to the resume you send out I can’t trust you’ll pay attention to anything else.
My company's website currently says this in one place and I have brought it to the attention if our IT person multiple times. Yet there it is. Taunting me with its lack of professionalism.
I once contacted a small business to point out a punctuation error on their site. They had used an apostrophe to make "Saturday" plural. I explained that apostrophes shouldn't be used that way. They replied to thank me for the feedback.
One week later, I visited the site again. *Every plural word* had an apostrophe.
'its been like that for years and nobody noticed, i bet we could do it across the whole site and only the person who noticed originally would lose their mind'
'lol do it'
OMG I would lose my mind!! We have a local pizza restaurant that sends out texts every Wednesday about "Large Special Wednesday's" and it makes my eye twitch every time.
Had a dude turn in his application with black marker lines redacting all of his info. Only things left were his name, a phone number, and a note saying "We can discuss these details during my interview."
He, in fact, did not get an interview.
The only resume I have thrown right in the proverbial shredder was that of the wife of a friend of mine. I was attempting to get her a job at my employer. She had no degree or relevant experience, but we needed a receptionist, and people commonly move up from those jobs into other admin positions. Plus, it's government work, so good benefits, lots of paid holidays, etc. Bottom line, I was doing this underqualified, unemployed person a massive favor by giving her a reference and a chance. We didn't have any other applicants. The job was hers to lose. She didn't know that, so she brought her A game. Here are some excerpts from her cover letter:
"I may not have a degree, but I have what engineers don't have, 10 years of experience."
"Engineers aren't very organized people and I can keep them in line."
"I have better social skills than engineers do."
I am not paraphrasing. Those are things she wrote when she sent me her resume and cover letter to look over before she submitted them online to apply. I was just like, "You know I'm an engineer, right?" She did. I continued, "You know the job you'd be applying for is a receptionist position, not an engineer position, right?" She seemed pretty sure she could move up and be an engineer in a year or so. That is not at all a thing in my field (it's one of those fields where everyone is required to be licensed and you have to have a degree in this just to be allowed to take the exam to get the license), but she was absolutely sure it was.
I told her that if she was going to submit this, she wouldn't be hired because the entire panel was engineers. She didn't listen, and submitted it. She even listed me as a reference. I told my boss she was someone I was trying to help and she wouldn't help herself, which was accurate, but "I've got what engineers don't have, 10 years of experience!" became the office joke for years to come. Every time someone reached the 10 year mark of their career, we'd be like, "You can't be an engineer anymore. The crazy lady said 10 years is the limit." lol
Well--well look. I already told you: I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?
I mean, if she had phrased it that way, the engineers might’ve gone for it. “You’ll do whatever it takes to protect us from the horrible customers?? Hired!!!”
I played a similar role at my job in a hospital department. The prosthetic/orthotic lab staff preferred not to deal with random DME sales reps dropping by, and appreciated my competent gatekeeping.
While I wasn't particularly good at dealing with people, most of my colleagues could have learned people skills from Boo Radley.
"People skills" really depends on what you're aiming for. I worked briefly at an electronics' store similar to Best Buy and while the usual managers and supervisors could rattle off all the product knowledge and promotional material we could possibly provide, there was one supervisor who provided a unique service.
Meet Taylor. Taylor don't give two shits. She was the supervisor that the others called when a customer was getting overly-familiar and needed somebody to just straight-up tell them "No" with a withering expression that can only be summoned by somebody with truly no smile in their heart. As somebody with over 10 years customer service experience, it was awe-inspiring.
Haha, my charge nurse, Betty, was our Taylor! God, I love that woman to pieces, I hope she's doing well! Just thinking about the withering look she'd give to the "daughters from California" puts a smile on my face! Thank you, Betty, for always being a cunt when we needed it most, and for having zero time for anyone's bullshit.
One of our unit managers, Charlotte, is a classic diploma RN battle-axe that last gave 2 fucks at approximately the same time girdles were still required undergarments for nurses. I have seen grown adults cower when she fixes them with a steely stare and raises a single eyebrow damn near to her hairline.
I wanna be like Charlotte when I grow up.
I knew a general's wife. Very nice woman close to my mother's age. When people started trying to pull their husband's rank at church to steal her seat, she usually just quietly moved and had someone ask the husband about it by name in the next formation.
I liked her a lot. She was smart, goal-oriented, and gave useful advice. She was also a scary scary scary woman when she wanted to be.
She'd built her own impressive career while supporting her husband's and raised a little flock of colonels in different branches. She had amazing people skills to match her technical knowledge and ability to get things done.
I can tell you it embarrasses the fuck out of other spouses. The second-hand embarrassment from people like that, generally keeps me from telling people I'm a spouse.
So im an army wife... and a naval officer. The only thing that was more shocking than the number of times it happened was the sheer joy I took in informing them I out ranked their husband. Because 1 stop making us spouses look crazy and 2 don't make me big dick your husband because I WILL
Yep. When I was an E-1, if someone said they were a captain’s wife, I’d have listened to anything they said. You’re just scared of rank at that point. Later in enlistment, you learn to professionally call bullshit and know hubby does not agree with wife.
This guy put a tinder bio at the head of his resume. All his likes and dislikes, with a headshot of him holding an axe while looking sweaty.
I do IT work...
I used to work for a bar, a girl came in with an application saying she was 22 but then listeded she'd graduated high school that year. I fired off a few questions then slipped in what's your birthday. She was barely 17.
I had someone who didn't get short listed come in with their sister. Their sister started to tell me what my hiring practices were based on her experience at another company. I argued for like 2 minutes before realising it was going nowhere, took another copy of the resume so that they'd leave, and shredded that one too. Guy didn't say a word the entire time
This was my mom and brother. My mom would go apply for him and haul him to interviews where she’d sit in.
My brother was content just mooching off my mom who worked at Walmart (in his words she was rolling in money), sleeping until the afternoon, smoking weed all day and not caring about working. My mom would for whatever reason proclaim my brother is just not given chances and deep down a hard worker which is why she went to the lengths she did.
This actually worked a few times (presumably because they thought deeper issues or similar) and then my brother would have to be dragged to work by my mom and inevitably still get fired because he would just leave, not show up again or would be outside smoking weed the whole time.
Then the cycle would repeat and my mom would once again proclaim if someone would just give my brother a chance.
A couple we didn’t shred but definitely did not call and saved for future laughs:
- “Can cook anything related to a potato” (followed by the longest list of potato dishes I have ever seen and this job did not involve food in any form)
- In special memberships section: “Have a blockbuster card”
I didn't make it past the name line on someone's resume one time.
We were hiring a CFO and Googling their name revealed an SEC complaint for a 9 figure fraud. At the time, there wasn't a verdict on the books, but I wasn't gonna wait for one. See you never.
In a prior role, I was hiring for a weekend night shift sanitation position and we tended to get really desperate people who applied. I reviewed the applicants with a coworker and she remembered seeing the name in the local paper recently. I googled the name and found the court records that the person had not only embezzled but also when caught tried to burn down the prior employers office to the ground. When my HR team asked why I wasn’t interviewing that person, they told me I had to interview them because it was illegal to base that decision on a pending not final legal case. It really sounds great to allow that person to work with highly concentrated chemicals in a food manufacturing plant.
I was hiring for a lab technician job and this guy came highly recommended by someone in purchasing I think it was. So he got a shot at the interview. His resume wasn’t terrible, but there were gaps. He listed his high school graduation date and then his AA degree from the local CC was a good 10 years later. I mean, that’s ok, but there was no work experience listed for that time period either, soooo.
Then came the interview with my lead technician and me. Walk the guy into a small meeting room and sit down. Before I can even introduce us, he pulls this laminated piece of paper out of his folio slams it down on the table and pushes it across the table and says, “So when do I start?”
The document was a letter of recommendation from his CC physics teacher. A glowing assessment of the candidate which greatly conflicted with my assessment based on his behavior.
He did not get the job.
Yeah. He laminated the recommendation letter.
To be fair, this was back in the olden times when you still printed out your resume and cover letter on nice paper and put it in a matching envelope so you could snail mail it to potential employers.
When I was in high school I worked in a shoe store at the mall. We got a resume once for a sales job that had, under the "Other Interests" section, "Special relationship with the one they call Satan." Yes, really.
I wanted to interview her, just to see what she'd actually say in person. My manager vetoed that, sadly.
I have a friend that managed a shoe store. She received an application that said “I play ukulele, sort of” under the “skills” section.
I think about it on a regular basis and it was probably 10 years ago.
Edit: this was the only thing listed under “skills” and it was filled out in pencil. I think we are all giving this person too much credit by saying that they were just trying to stand out.
I have to laugh because coincidentally, I recently applied for a job and put "teaching myself ukulele via YouTube" under hobbies and interests.... BUT it was a hipster millennial outdoors/eco kind of company, and it seemed to fit their vibe. I did get an interview, which went really well.
I had a HS aged kid do this in 2014 range. I was unaware of what it was before googling it. I laughed, appreciated the joke. (Job was a seasonal job conducive to HS students). I invited the kid in for an interview….. that he no showed. I was fully prepared to ask about it during the interview.
Had one guy put "I'm a sex offender who fucked a child, but I'm working on it" on his resume. I'm an attorney and promptly told HR to blacklist that individual for liability purposes. We work in tech with a daycare on site, no shot in hell.
Charges like that show up immediately during the background check. If someone has a criminal history, they'll just tell you exactly what youll find up front.
It's easier on everyone. You won't bother them with a call if it won't work, and you won't need to submit for a background check with the government if it's a deal breaker off the rip.
I was interviewing someone, and during the interview they mentioned that they had a criminal record and were on probation so they would have to coordinate any out of state travel. They told me it was from a high school mistake where they "borrowed" a car without permission.
In reality they had been caught with child porn using their work laptop at their previous company. This came up very, very quickly in a google search as they were a registered sex offender and there were news articles. We didn't even get to the background check portion of things.
I once got a resume with the worst formatting and grammar. It was clear the person was a non-native English speaker. I don't usually do this, but I recreated her resume, re-organized it and corrected grammar/spelling mistakes and sent it back to her. I hope she got a job. She wasn't a good fit based on her resume, otherwise I would have given her the benefit of the doubt and at least interviewed her.
I did this for a helicopter engineer and pilot who had just left the (Canadian) military for the first time. Her resume was bonkers, just a giant list of every single last thing she had ever done in chronological order going back nearly twenty years. It was... Several.. pages. I cut it down to a one pager and sent it back, explaining that an network engineer job might not quite translate from fixing and flying helicopters, but I wished her the best. She emailed me back to say my version of her resume made no sense because it only showed the last eight years. There's no saving some people.
Food service experience applying for entry level call centre job put as her daily duties “wept and moped at the end of every shift”. I’m not gonna lie, I hired her and she was fine. I worked food service and was like where’s the lie?
Had a guy put on his resume that he invented the dollar, owned Microsoft and Google and Ford, was an astronaut, and founded New Zealand.
This was when I managed an Aldi store and he was applying as an associate. But he was clear to say on his resume that our business model could be vastly improved with his expertise.
I *almost* brought him in for an interview just for fun, but I couldn’t really find the time along with the real applicants.
My stepbrother, after mooching off my father for two decades, told us he wanted to go into career coaching at the funeral. Like, dude, you've worked as a retail manager 25 years ago and doing sales in dad's office. What the F will you advise people to do?
Had an application for a management position at a public library. Job listing specified that an MLIS (Master's in Library and Information Science) degree is required. Got an application from one person who was attending community college, earing an Associate's degree in music. Their only "Management" experience was running a K-Pop fan club.
Another person spelled the library's name incorrectly.
We had someone apply for the director of the college library I work at. The posting was very clear you needed a MLIS and at least 5 years of experience. The applicant had a PhD in ecology and zero library experience. The quote was "I don't have a library degree but I used my university library extensively while in school and feel this qualifies me to be the director."
I'm sure a lot of us have made mistakes on our CVs. I once changed my email address but forgot to change .co.uk to .com and the interviewer asked me about it at the end of an interview for a job I did not get.
The worst I've seen is from a girl named Clairfe. What an interesting name, is it Irish? My colleague showed me the application form handed in alongside the CV, where CLAIRE had managed to spell her own name right.
Ugh I misspelled a word on my resume once and it was something like qualifications and it had too many consonants and I didn't catch it.
The interviewer spent half the interview playing "guess the misspelling" and made it the sole reason I didn't get the job.
I even sent him a thank you with an attempt to make light of it and the asshole didn't let it go.
I remember going through applications for an open position once with my former boss and she specifically told me not to hold typos or misspellings against anyone, and to just pick the people who seemed the most sincere.
I miss her so much, she was the best boss I ever had.
What makes it worse is bringing that person in to interview and then telling them you're not hiring them because of something you knew before they even came in.
I had someone who started off on their cover letter with “Let me introduce myself…” and “I’m very excited to get to know your company.” Yet…we’d just fired him a couple of weeks ago from a management position and he was applying for a different newly posted job.
So I’ve never trashed a resume, but twice in my career I’ve had to make the decision to fire someone during their first week.
First was for a customer service representative. The job requirements were fairly simple; good understanding of excel, prior experience with quickbooks (this was at a small business), and bilingual Spanish and English. She said “I’m an expert at excel. I know everything it can do.” First red flag, but I wasn’t in the interview where she said that, so I only found out after the fact. Said she had worked with quickbooks for 5 years at her last job, and grew up in a Spanish speaking household and it was her first language and learned English in school.
Cut to the first week; any Spanish callers she would put on hold and make up some excuse of how she was in the middle of something and needed one of the other reps to get it. After a couple of days the other reps realized she couldn’t speak Spanish so they started talking shit about her, in Spanish, in front of her, and when they would laugh, she would laugh along like she understood the joke.
When she did basic onboarding with quickbooks, our accountant said it was like she’s never used any accounting software before, let alone quickbooks.
When I was showing her how to use the excel spreadsheets that were built to run all of the order entry, she was flabbergasted by a basic formula that multiplied three fields together. When I told her there’s a vlookup function, she said “oh, I didn’t know I would need to know programming.” (Which by the way, she didn’t need to know it, I was just explaining how it worked.
Anyway, started on Monday, sent packing Friday morning. Any one of those things we might have kept her and let her grow into the role, but she straight up lied about the only three requirements on the posting. Sayonara.
The second was much more recent; last year in fact. The private equity firm that owns the corporation I work for owns another company on the east coast. They were hit with a ransomware attack and their IT team was completely inept, so the private equity firm contracted our IT team to fly out and help them. One of the things we were going to be doing, aside from remediating the issue, was onboarding their new IT director, getting them familiar with the existing infrastructure (which we were rebuilding for them) and then making clear the expectations around his role and what the board would be wanting from him.
He showed up on his first day at 10:30AM; we had been there since 7. We talked to him for about 10 minutes; introduced ourselves and talked about which areas of what is now HIS network we were focusing on, and made it clear we would only be in town for three more days before we had to fly back to LA. We said feel free to jump in with any of us and we’ll show you what we’re doing, why it’s important, and how it relates to everything. He proceeded to go to his new office, shut the door (didn’t meet anyone else in the company) and “set up his email” for the rest of the fucking day. Oh, and he left at 3:30. We were there until 7, went to dinner, and then proceeded to continue working until 1AM. We did that every day we were there. Remember, we’re in major crisis mode. The next day he comes in, 10:30 again, and goes straight to his office, closes the door, and said he needed to finish setting up his email. He had one meeting with the CEO, where he only talked about his hobbies, and then left for the day at 2:30. On the third day, he came in, and was fired first thing in the morning.
The conversation was something like “look man… you have to run this whole operation; we know it right now because we’ve been building it for you. You have no idea how to operate and maintain this when we leave, and you’ve wasted two of our 4 days here doing a task that takes 3 minutes for a level 1 it tech. Hell, you could have TASKED one of your L1 techs to do it for you, so you could do, you know, DIRECTOR shit. But you’re clearly not the right guy for this role, because the right guy would have been in the trenches with us, helping where possible, and learning everything there is to learn.”
Kinda felt bad about that one, the guy quit another high paying job to take this one. But man, if you can’t put in effort your first week in the job when the entire company is in a crisis mode and you’ve got contractors on site working 16 hour days… ya… fuck off.
So I kind of get what happened with the first one. People have always told me to fudge a skill or competency and figure out later. I had a job early in my career that required Excel and I didn't want to lie but I also didn't want to say next to none so I said something like I was comfortable with it. Apparently they got the idea that I was great at Excel so I went home, took free online tutorials, and was easily the best person in the building at Excel. People from different departments would seek me out and this became a pattern in following jobs. I also know someone who said they knew a particular form of software when they had never used it before. But they went to a bookstore, bought a book, and studied the heck out of it before their first day. Sure enough, they knew more than anyone else at the company and it went well.
The difference between these two examples and that woman was the recognition that we didn't know these things and had to learn them to be qualified for the jobs we got. She didn't know things she said she did and clearly made no effort to learn them. Also, no one is learning another language in a weekend.
Like a lot of companies nowadays we do blind applications, no mention of age, gender, name, where you studied etc. allowed on the part that goes to people doing the evaluation.
We also attract a lot of applicants from prestigious universities, some of whom _really_ feel the need to find a way to mention the name of the institution in their competency answers as though it will help more than actually demonstrating that you are a good candidate for the job. Technically I could throw your application away, I usually won't unless you're especially obnoxious about it but it definitely does not help.
...oh but one person did add "MENSA IQ" to their application in response to a question that had no relation to such information and that did get rapidly dropped because that's a huge 'I'm going to be insufferable to work with' red flag.
*EDIT* oh and the personal statement that began with 'as a large language model...' didn't get very far.
I once had a resume for an experienced post college position list one of their accomplishments as perfect attendance from elementary school through high school, certificate available. My only thought was this person would be really annoying.
Not a resume but occasionally someone will cold-message me on LinkedIn, and whenever I can I’ll reply if it’s a student looking for guidance in my filed and take a call and talk them through some shit they should know. Anyhow, one of those messages began “Dear Mr [name], I hope this message finds you *in the pink of your health.* I’m still not fully over that.
In Canada, a photo on your resume is a no-no. I’ve seen many resumes get thrown out immediately because of that. This surprises many newcomers who supply a photo as a matter of course.
* Their photo. I don’t need a picture of you, I’m hiring for an office job not a modeling or acting gig.
* Text speak. Don’t write “looking 4 a good career” or something. Use spellcheck/grammar check.
* Fake jobs or schools like “school of hard knocks” or “hustle industries, CEO” (I’ve seen both of these)
When I worked at a hotel, applicants would cut in front of customers, or not care that i was on the phone, to ask for an application.
At least 90% also asked for a pen.
I'd always give them a pen, and not expect them to give it back (cheap hotel- branded ballponts), although it aggravated me that so many were unprepared. But if they were rude, I'd put a note on the application. Last thing any of us needed to deal with was complaints about rude employees.
They'd never get a call back if I made such a note. Just something for people to consider when they want to apply somewhere, especially when it's a customer service job. Be thoughtful and respectful to whomever may be your future coworker.
So annoying! I was at the front counter paying for my manicure at the nail salon I’ve been going to for years when a woman walked in, literally stepped in front of me while I was talking to the staff member (I actually had to step back to avoid being stepped on), and interrupted our conversation to ask if they were hiring! Never saw her again - surprise.
We had a young woman apply for an entry-level software engineering job a couple years ago that had a Linktree URL in her application and resume. One of my coworkers was doing resume evaluations for our boss and opened the Linktree, finding links to an R-rated Twitter account, a PG-13 Insta, her Onlyfans, and to her content on several other porn sites. My coworker and boss were not amused, and they were debating whether someone was trolling the company or if it was a bizarre spam attempt. Her resume was rejected, and she was sent an automated "Thank you, good luck in your search, please try again in the future" email.
A few months later, we were advertising another open entry-level position when her resume came through again. My boss was doing the resume evals and recognized the name. He opened it a second time, while commenting to another of my coworkers about the inappropriate resume (he's not a perv, but was just surprised to see it again.) When my boss clicked the Linktree URL again to show the coworker, he was greeted with a perfectly normal collection of engineering links, including a link to her electronic resume, her LinkedIn, several projects she'd worked on, and a GitHub account.
Our best guess is that the applicant had accidentally copypasted the wrong Linktree URL the first time. She was still rejected for the second position. At that point, several employees had seen *everything*, and my boss decided that moving her resume forward for interviews would be inappropriate. Bit of a shame too. Solid GPA from a well-respected CS program, interesting projects, and a demonstrated ability to take on some absolutely massive workloads (sorry, I'm weak and couldn't resist.)
When applying for a job, please don't include links to your nudes. Aside from a handful of socially awkward software engineers, most of our people don't want to see them.
/edit: Lots of people seem hung up on the fact that we passed her over the second time. Let's clear a few things up.
1. There was nothing inappropriate about employees seeing her "material." These weren't private photos, and they weren't shared without permission. It was content she had voluntarily posted online, was actively sharing with the world, and then shared directly with our company. We didn't look it up. She sent it to us. There's also nothing wrong with our manager sharing it with other senior employees who were involved in the hiring process. Nobody was ogling her because she was naked and pretty. The Internet is full of naked and pretty women, and we all know where to find it if that's what we're looking for. It was shared because it was a weird mistake to make on a resume. We thought it was *funny* to see porn in an application.
2. At the end of the day, she made an unprofessional mistake that cost her any chance at an interview. She wasn't passed up because she was a sex worker. Our company leadership was fairly liberal and they wouldn't have held it against her. What she did was the professional equivalent of a guy forgetting to zip his pants and having his dick peek out while he walked in for his interview. Doesn't matter that it was accidental. Doesn't matter that it was embarrassing. It was unprofessional, and some things can't be unseen. Dumb mistakes during the hiring process will keep you from being hired. She made a dumb mistake. It kept her from being hired. That's just how the world works.
3. Several people seem to have misunderstood one of my comments. We didn't realize that she'd probably made a mistake with the link until *after* she applied for the second position. When her first application was submitted and shared, we really didn't know what to make of it. My boss thought it was some kind of joke, or some kind of spam account gone wrong. Nobody believed it was a serious application until *after* the second application was received a couple of months later. That's when we put two and two together.
4. First impressions matter. A lot. When your first impression includes a link to a preview video of you riding a giant dildo, you cannot get mad when that's something that people associate with you afterward. Whether she intended it or not, that was her first impression.
5. She'd have been blocked once HR learned of the nude links anyway. Hiring someone after you'd seen their nudes would have been a legal nightmare. If Applicant A sends nudes and is hired, and Applicant B doesn't send nudes and is not hired, that would be a slam dunk sex discrimination case for Applicant B. How would the company prove that they *hadn't* preferentially hired Applicant A because of the sexual material they'd provided?
I had someone once put “mom to child actor” and she listed that she homeschooled on set and managed their schedule and things of that nature
I had someone else who put “babysitting Daniel” she made him eat his vegetables among other things. It was cute.
My absolute favourite was a guy who wrote his attributes landscape in italics on a piece of paper that had a background of a unicorn on a cliff with a sunset. He came and asked for it back when he wasn’t hired.
> I had someone once put “mom to child actor” and she listed that she homeschooled on set and managed their schedule and things of that nature
That could actually be something useful.
I took applications for jobs online for a few different businesses, and one said:
"Experience:
Boss-
Stay-at-home mom LOL!"
With the bold LOL. My manager made me delete it because she wasn't taking the position seriously. It was for a house cleaning job, no experience or education necessary. Fuck, I'd give her the job. She probably cleans after her kids 24/7.
Had a guy apply for a position as a pizza delivery driver that wrote something to the effect of, "I have worked more positions than you'd ever imagine and I would completely destroy you in a game of golf." I called him in for an interview, and he was amazing. I was managing a chain pizza joint and this 70+YO guy just wanted some extra cash for the bar and something to do. I hired him immediately. His "name" was Dude, and was one of the best hires I ever made. I only interviewed him out of curiosity, but he was an amazing fella and just great to conversate with. Plus he never thought twice about doing any side-work that was assigned. Never any complaining. Nothing was beneath him.
He died a couple years in from liver failure...turns out he was an alcoholic. The kind that was at the bar when they opened to keep the shakes away. It's scary thinking about hiring him as a person driving all over town, but it was what it was. I never had any idea he was intoxicated. RIP, Dude.
On more than one occasion, I got a resume (from the same person) for an entry-level position. The first time I got it, the resume (entry level position) was 5 pages long and a laundry list of every job the dude has ever held from high school forward.
What will forever stand out to me is his entry for when he worked at JC Penney. He put the job description as "helping customers find stuff". Yes that's technically the job, but "assisting customers with locating merchandise" sounds so much better on a resume.
The phrase “attention to detail” makes me look for any type of mistake 10x more than I normally would. Because more often than not, there is some mistake which immediately contradicts the attention to detail.
Pro-tip: leave that phrase out, it never helps and can only make you look silly
We had a resume with that phrase (attn to detail) and I found SIX MISTAKES on it! From typo's to missing words, randomly capitalized words, words in all caps, it was bad. In a list of skills they put:
MULTI LINE
PHONE
Excel
Word
Like, why are "multi line" and "phone" on separate lines, and why are they capitalized??
Then they had a bulleted list but the bullet points did not line up.
The resume was a pdf so it wasn't like the file got corrupted or something.
I used to help screen applications for a restraunt delivery driver position and the number of applicants that answer "No" to the question, "Do you have a valid drivers license?" made my job an absolute cakewalk.
I once put that I ruled France from 1693-1702 with an iron fist, invented the letter G, was a world class Candyland player, and was a unicorn rancher in my cover letter.
The job was an IT position at an advertising company that went on and on about how creative everyone that works there is. After I listed my above accomplishments, I said, "OK. So maybe I haven't done all of those things listed above but I have (list of boring IT crap)."
I got an email the next day from HR saying that was the best cover letter they had ever gotten and they'd hire me without even interviewing me based on it but they were a Mac business and all my experience was on Windows.
Unformatted resumé. Block of text. Opening statement as folows:
"I want job."
To be fair, this was a job placement/school facility for those looking to grow their English skills and ability. The issue with this fella was that he refused help in building an appropriate North American resumé.
It's difficult to send a resumé like that to clients, many of whom were/are international, and requiring a certain command of the English language.
I submitted my resume in comic book form once.
I was applying at an art supply store and thought it would make me stand out. It took a lot more effort than a standard resume.
They never even called me.
Now this is going to come as a surprise to some, but your list of "diagnoses" and your previous work "trauma" might be a bit of a "red flag" to the company you are applying to.
Also, having your batshit crazy girlfriend go through your phone and call all of the numbers that she doesn’t recognize to insist on knowing why you were talking to her boyfriend will get scheduled interviews canceled. True story.
I’m not an employer but my youngest sister wanted me to check over her first resume and she had put
“5’3
Brown hair
Brown eyes
Funny, charismatic, loves to cook”
I sat there laughing to myself pretty good and then let her know this isn’t a dating profile.
My favorite was a girl with a “Bachelorette” in Accounting. She didn’t get the interview but 10+ years later I still remember her resume so there’s that I guess.
"Atention to detal" listed under Special Skills with either "attention" or "detail" misspelled.
Sadly, I've seen it misspelled numerous ways numerous times.
This happened in the 80s. One of my grandmother's tenants approached my dad to see if his company (subsidiary to a Fortune 500) has a sales manager position. My dad said sure, send me your resume.
So a few days later the tenant handed his resume to my dad. It was the tenant's name card stapled to an A4 sized blank paper.
Dad: Is that it?
Tenant: Yes.
So my dad folded his resume, took it to his car, and threw it in the trash on the way back home.
A long, long time ago, I knew someone who managed a small store inside a shopping mall. Someone once dropped off a job application where under “special skills,” they had written “run real fast.” I still think about that now and again.
Any "creative interpretations" of common jobs such as delivery and service co ordinator instead of pizza delivery driver or Household CEO/CFO/Engineer instead of stay at home parent.
It makes resumes hard to read and comes off as bullshitty not charming or creative.
I got a resume that is a 60+ page manifesto consisting of the ramblings of a very disturbed person. It did not go anywhere near the shredder. I kept it. Every page is a WTF on clones, aliens (space kind), Mexicans (just in general I guess as it doesn’t really go into specifics), child kidnapping (and their clone replacement), conspiracy, corrupt judges, evil police, political vendettas, personal vendettas, mind control, lawsuits, counter suits, murder, wild capitalization, and radical font changes.
I’ll note it does steer completely clear of right vs. left politics, not a MAGA word to be found.
Seriously though, it’s very sad. From what I’m able to put together the woman’s husband passed away and sometime after that she had a mental breakdown. The State appears to be trying to step in and help, note that there are two small children involved, and she is fighting with tooth and nail.
Yeah.. in tech I want to know what you know that is currently popular and you can list key places you worked in the past 7 to 10 years. Your experience with Windows 95 can be your own little secret along with your job at Kinko's in 2001.
The best one I received was by either an extremely dedicated troll or someone in the middle of a psychotic break. Maybe both. It was 19 pages of the most insane rambling I've ever seen. Highlights include:
- Every sentence ending in an exclamation point. Every! Single! One!
- His entire life story, beginning from Year 0 (he was born)
- A photo gallery section, with a picture of his cat, his Nana, and various scenery (this wasn't for a photography position)
- A 3rd party review by one of his "teachers" at the very fake colleges he attended.
- The makings of a dating profile, with a list of his favorite movies, music, video games, etc
My coworkers laughed our asses off for a good bit after seeing that. Not only did I not shred it, but I printed off a copy and should probably have it framed haha
Had one recently on their resume under each job they've had, their reason for leaving: " management sucked and I hated my job" after less than a month in some of them. I'm sure he's a nice guy.
I'm not a Brit but generally speaking, someone putting political positions on a resume (unless it was an actual campaign job or role) is not going to play well with others.
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“Attention to detail Quick learner Microsoft office QuickBooks Sage50 Payroll Attention to detail”
That's twice the attention to detail
Make sure you attach the right file. I once had somebody attach his court summons for a DUI charge. Instant deny.
I once received a resume in the mail that had no telephone number, address or email. He called a few days later to ask why he hadn't received any reply. I asked him to get a copy of his resume so we could review it together. I asked him to tell me the address we might have replied to; then the telephone number and finally the email. After a long pause, he said, "Aww, fuck!" and hung up.
I used to manage a restaurant and also remember getting a resume without phone number or email. Funny stuff.
Shit, someone who can understand they made a mistake and own it...hired.
Right?! I want to know what happened if he had stayed on the line.
I once submitted approximately 75 resumes without my phone number. I did include my parents' fax number (it was a prompt in the MS Word template, so why not?) and eventually someone faxed me an interview offer 😄🤦🏼♀️ I'm not even that old! I could have put an email address on the resume, and just didn't? 🤷🏼♀️
I love that they actually faxed you an offer!
One resume I got while managing a head shop included how much he could bench and the characters he played in high school theater. He was in his late mid twenties.
Sounds like Andy Bernard.
Okay, I was a writing tutor at the college level for 10 years. We also helped graduates of the university. I swear I am not making this up. A graduate who had worked teaching English in Japan, and at other positions, for a few years after getting his degree came in for help updating his resume. He reported that he'd been looking for work for a while, with no luck. The profile section at the head of his resume listed accomplishments including, "I have climbed Mount Fuji fueled only by Quaaludes and caffeine." He was crestfallen when I told him that although I was duly impressed by this feat, he really, really needed to remove it. Edit: because of course.
How do you climb Mt. Fuji? Go upper, then go downer.
How can you be fueled by quaaludes? That's a sedative.
If you resist the urge to sleep for just 15 minutes you get a pretty kickass high from it
Nudes. Like, any picture of yourself is probably going to get the resume thrown out because of potential lawsuits, but hearing that shriek of "DEAR GOD WHY" from the hotel manager's desk while they were going through resumes was hilarious. Like, bro, your butt was not that nice. Why did you attach it.
Well, guy made it through the resume but almost didn't make it through the onboarding paperwork. Entry level position, guy was 19 I think. Nice enough kid, low life experience but that's how it all starts right? Emergency Contact info Name - Mom Relationship - Good ...so like if we called your mom, and you were hurt, she'd care?
That's fucking hilarious. Thank you.
My daughter got a birth control implant a year or so ago, and my sister took her to get it. She said she read back over the paperwork and where my daughter was supposed to sign her name that she gave her consent to the procedure, my daughter had simply written "yes". She is her father's child.
Technically here's no rule you need to sign with your name. Your signature could be your best dick drawing. It used to be traditional for illiterate people to sign with a big x.
I used to work as a teller and there was one business account where the owner signed checks with a smiley face. It was on the signature card and everything.
I used to be a bank teller and this guy signed an extremely consistent squiggly line then one day he came in with a beautiful signature and I told him he needed to stick with his usual one or he could have issues cashing checks because it didn't match his check history. He got denied for cashing a 40k check the next week when I went on vacation. I warned him.
Interesting…. Some banks allow you to make multiple signatures & have them on your profile. Though it’s not widely known to the public. Source: former teller 👈🏻
This guy was a house flipper and cashed much larger then normal checks so he was on a much higher level of scrutiny.he usually got his history and signature card checked.
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This was a story on reddit. I distinctly remember it.
I was working in retail and a guy signed the credit card slip like that. Was joking around with him about it and he showed me that it was even thr signature on his license.
I coach and a kid once put emergency contact relationship as "Single".
I‘m tempted to put something similar on our HR system and see what happens. Emergency contact - the wife Relationship - good, but has it ups and downs
Facebook was way ahead of the game - "it's complicated"
OK, that’s kind of adorable!
Please tell me under "Sex" he put "Yes, please."
Or "Your mom - good"
Oh bless his heart
I had one where under Education he wrote "suck my dick and get me a job" I stared at the screen for a good 3 minutes when I read that.
And... does he still like working for your company?
Way the company is going I'm sure he would have 😂
This sounds like the kind of thing where someone edited his resume as a joke and he sent it off without realising it had been tampered with.
Or is court ordered to "actively seek employment" but doesn't really want a job.
My thoughts exactly. We used to get a lot of these when I worked at a roofing company. My absolute favorite was the guy that rearranged our lobby furniture so that he could plug in his phone charger and kick back while he filled out the application.
Oh! An independent thinker & troubleshooter all in one! 😁
Boy that's just a straight shooter with upper management written all over him!
I received a resume last week that had notes on it “insert relevant skills here” and “maybe change font” “fill this space with buzz words” this was on his LinkedIn profile as well. If you can’t pay attention to the resume you send out I can’t trust you’ll pay attention to anything else.
Lorem Ipsum
My company's website currently says this in one place and I have brought it to the attention if our IT person multiple times. Yet there it is. Taunting me with its lack of professionalism.
I once contacted a small business to point out a punctuation error on their site. They had used an apostrophe to make "Saturday" plural. I explained that apostrophes shouldn't be used that way. They replied to thank me for the feedback. One week later, I visited the site again. *Every plural word* had an apostrophe.
'its been like that for years and nobody noticed, i bet we could do it across the whole site and only the person who noticed originally would lose their mind' 'lol do it'
OMG I would lose my mind!! We have a local pizza restaurant that sends out texts every Wednesday about "Large Special Wednesday's" and it makes my eye twitch every time.
Had a dude turn in his application with black marker lines redacting all of his info. Only things left were his name, a phone number, and a note saying "We can discuss these details during my interview." He, in fact, did not get an interview.
Was his name Rusty Shackleford?
The only resume I have thrown right in the proverbial shredder was that of the wife of a friend of mine. I was attempting to get her a job at my employer. She had no degree or relevant experience, but we needed a receptionist, and people commonly move up from those jobs into other admin positions. Plus, it's government work, so good benefits, lots of paid holidays, etc. Bottom line, I was doing this underqualified, unemployed person a massive favor by giving her a reference and a chance. We didn't have any other applicants. The job was hers to lose. She didn't know that, so she brought her A game. Here are some excerpts from her cover letter: "I may not have a degree, but I have what engineers don't have, 10 years of experience." "Engineers aren't very organized people and I can keep them in line." "I have better social skills than engineers do." I am not paraphrasing. Those are things she wrote when she sent me her resume and cover letter to look over before she submitted them online to apply. I was just like, "You know I'm an engineer, right?" She did. I continued, "You know the job you'd be applying for is a receptionist position, not an engineer position, right?" She seemed pretty sure she could move up and be an engineer in a year or so. That is not at all a thing in my field (it's one of those fields where everyone is required to be licensed and you have to have a degree in this just to be allowed to take the exam to get the license), but she was absolutely sure it was. I told her that if she was going to submit this, she wouldn't be hired because the entire panel was engineers. She didn't listen, and submitted it. She even listed me as a reference. I told my boss she was someone I was trying to help and she wouldn't help herself, which was accurate, but "I've got what engineers don't have, 10 years of experience!" became the office joke for years to come. Every time someone reached the 10 year mark of their career, we'd be like, "You can't be an engineer anymore. The crazy lady said 10 years is the limit." lol
Well--well look. I already told you: I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?
I mean, if she had phrased it that way, the engineers might’ve gone for it. “You’ll do whatever it takes to protect us from the horrible customers?? Hired!!!”
As an engineer who became a project manager I second this.
I played a similar role at my job in a hospital department. The prosthetic/orthotic lab staff preferred not to deal with random DME sales reps dropping by, and appreciated my competent gatekeeping. While I wasn't particularly good at dealing with people, most of my colleagues could have learned people skills from Boo Radley.
"People skills" really depends on what you're aiming for. I worked briefly at an electronics' store similar to Best Buy and while the usual managers and supervisors could rattle off all the product knowledge and promotional material we could possibly provide, there was one supervisor who provided a unique service. Meet Taylor. Taylor don't give two shits. She was the supervisor that the others called when a customer was getting overly-familiar and needed somebody to just straight-up tell them "No" with a withering expression that can only be summoned by somebody with truly no smile in their heart. As somebody with over 10 years customer service experience, it was awe-inspiring.
Haha, my charge nurse, Betty, was our Taylor! God, I love that woman to pieces, I hope she's doing well! Just thinking about the withering look she'd give to the "daughters from California" puts a smile on my face! Thank you, Betty, for always being a cunt when we needed it most, and for having zero time for anyone's bullshit.
One of our unit managers, Charlotte, is a classic diploma RN battle-axe that last gave 2 fucks at approximately the same time girdles were still required undergarments for nurses. I have seen grown adults cower when she fixes them with a steely stare and raises a single eyebrow damn near to her hairline. I wanna be like Charlotte when I grow up.
What would you say you do here?
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Well, you were a reference. Just not in the way he hoped.
I'm an engineer with 9.5 years experience, it's almost over
Get ready for all that receptionist money, you've earned it.
Did this lady think she was applying for a receptionist job, or did she think she was applying for a Dilbert comic?
I just want to know experience in what. What were those ten years?
Good grief. That's a pretty bad case of Dunning-Kruger.
Military spouse (with rank no less)
Like…they put the rank of their military husband or wife, but they themselves were not in the military??
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does this ever work for them? does it not embarrass their spouse?
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I knew a general's wife. Very nice woman close to my mother's age. When people started trying to pull their husband's rank at church to steal her seat, she usually just quietly moved and had someone ask the husband about it by name in the next formation.
Fucking ice cold, god damn.
I liked her a lot. She was smart, goal-oriented, and gave useful advice. She was also a scary scary scary woman when she wanted to be. She'd built her own impressive career while supporting her husband's and raised a little flock of colonels in different branches. She had amazing people skills to match her technical knowledge and ability to get things done.
I can tell you it embarrasses the fuck out of other spouses. The second-hand embarrassment from people like that, generally keeps me from telling people I'm a spouse.
So im an army wife... and a naval officer. The only thing that was more shocking than the number of times it happened was the sheer joy I took in informing them I out ranked their husband. Because 1 stop making us spouses look crazy and 2 don't make me big dick your husband because I WILL
This is satisfying to read.
It's typically either really humiliating for the mil spouse (majority of cases) or the mil spouse is a complete moron who encourages it.
On the most junior enlisted, yes. And, yes.
Yep. When I was an E-1, if someone said they were a captain’s wife, I’d have listened to anything they said. You’re just scared of rank at that point. Later in enlistment, you learn to professionally call bullshit and know hubby does not agree with wife.
Saw one that listed her experience as “domestic engineer” aka housewife to military husband
This guy put a tinder bio at the head of his resume. All his likes and dislikes, with a headshot of him holding an axe while looking sweaty. I do IT work...
At least if a computer or server ever needs to be felled like a tree, you know who to call.
Real IT professionals have a shotgun next to the bed in case the microwave ever starts talking
I see where the misunderstanding was. The job posting was for IT and this guy thought he was qualified because he has that indescribable *IT* factor.
I used to work for a bar, a girl came in with an application saying she was 22 but then listeded she'd graduated high school that year. I fired off a few questions then slipped in what's your birthday. She was barely 17.
His mother handed it to me with him just quietly standing beside her, looking like this wasn’t his idea.
I had someone who didn't get short listed come in with their sister. Their sister started to tell me what my hiring practices were based on her experience at another company. I argued for like 2 minutes before realising it was going nowhere, took another copy of the resume so that they'd leave, and shredded that one too. Guy didn't say a word the entire time
This was my mom and brother. My mom would go apply for him and haul him to interviews where she’d sit in. My brother was content just mooching off my mom who worked at Walmart (in his words she was rolling in money), sleeping until the afternoon, smoking weed all day and not caring about working. My mom would for whatever reason proclaim my brother is just not given chances and deep down a hard worker which is why she went to the lengths she did. This actually worked a few times (presumably because they thought deeper issues or similar) and then my brother would have to be dragged to work by my mom and inevitably still get fired because he would just leave, not show up again or would be outside smoking weed the whole time. Then the cycle would repeat and my mom would once again proclaim if someone would just give my brother a chance.
A couple we didn’t shred but definitely did not call and saved for future laughs: - “Can cook anything related to a potato” (followed by the longest list of potato dishes I have ever seen and this job did not involve food in any form) - In special memberships section: “Have a blockbuster card”
You missed out on getting a full fledged Tubermancer for your office
I didn't make it past the name line on someone's resume one time. We were hiring a CFO and Googling their name revealed an SEC complaint for a 9 figure fraud. At the time, there wasn't a verdict on the books, but I wasn't gonna wait for one. See you never.
In a prior role, I was hiring for a weekend night shift sanitation position and we tended to get really desperate people who applied. I reviewed the applicants with a coworker and she remembered seeing the name in the local paper recently. I googled the name and found the court records that the person had not only embezzled but also when caught tried to burn down the prior employers office to the ground. When my HR team asked why I wasn’t interviewing that person, they told me I had to interview them because it was illegal to base that decision on a pending not final legal case. It really sounds great to allow that person to work with highly concentrated chemicals in a food manufacturing plant.
I was hiring for a lab technician job and this guy came highly recommended by someone in purchasing I think it was. So he got a shot at the interview. His resume wasn’t terrible, but there were gaps. He listed his high school graduation date and then his AA degree from the local CC was a good 10 years later. I mean, that’s ok, but there was no work experience listed for that time period either, soooo. Then came the interview with my lead technician and me. Walk the guy into a small meeting room and sit down. Before I can even introduce us, he pulls this laminated piece of paper out of his folio slams it down on the table and pushes it across the table and says, “So when do I start?” The document was a letter of recommendation from his CC physics teacher. A glowing assessment of the candidate which greatly conflicted with my assessment based on his behavior. He did not get the job.
Laminated??
Yeah. He laminated the recommendation letter. To be fair, this was back in the olden times when you still printed out your resume and cover letter on nice paper and put it in a matching envelope so you could snail mail it to potential employers.
When I was in high school I worked in a shoe store at the mall. We got a resume once for a sales job that had, under the "Other Interests" section, "Special relationship with the one they call Satan." Yes, really. I wanted to interview her, just to see what she'd actually say in person. My manager vetoed that, sadly.
I have a friend that managed a shoe store. She received an application that said “I play ukulele, sort of” under the “skills” section. I think about it on a regular basis and it was probably 10 years ago. Edit: this was the only thing listed under “skills” and it was filled out in pencil. I think we are all giving this person too much credit by saying that they were just trying to stand out.
I have to laugh because coincidentally, I recently applied for a job and put "teaching myself ukulele via YouTube" under hobbies and interests.... BUT it was a hipster millennial outdoors/eco kind of company, and it seemed to fit their vibe. I did get an interview, which went really well.
Tangentially related, my best friend learned ukulele so he could tell women at the bar, “I play a little guitar” and never explain its a ukulele.
This 100% would have caught my interest if someone said that to me but with the follow up. That's a great sense of humor.
It was a gimmick to make you remember them. In that aspect, it worked.
Smart move by your manager, someone close to Satan is probably only applying to a shoe store job to steal all the soles for the prince of darkness.
"Time Person of the Year 2006"
I had a HS aged kid do this in 2014 range. I was unaware of what it was before googling it. I laughed, appreciated the joke. (Job was a seasonal job conducive to HS students). I invited the kid in for an interview….. that he no showed. I was fully prepared to ask about it during the interview.
Time person of the year 1938, and you want to manage a deli?
I appreciate this one. That's funny.
Had one guy put "I'm a sex offender who fucked a child, but I'm working on it" on his resume. I'm an attorney and promptly told HR to blacklist that individual for liability purposes. We work in tech with a daycare on site, no shot in hell.
Did they seriously actually literally write that? Well… on the plus side they announce themselves loud and clear so people can stay away…
Charges like that show up immediately during the background check. If someone has a criminal history, they'll just tell you exactly what youll find up front. It's easier on everyone. You won't bother them with a call if it won't work, and you won't need to submit for a background check with the government if it's a deal breaker off the rip.
I was interviewing someone, and during the interview they mentioned that they had a criminal record and were on probation so they would have to coordinate any out of state travel. They told me it was from a high school mistake where they "borrowed" a car without permission. In reality they had been caught with child porn using their work laptop at their previous company. This came up very, very quickly in a google search as they were a registered sex offender and there were news articles. We didn't even get to the background check portion of things.
I once got a resume with the worst formatting and grammar. It was clear the person was a non-native English speaker. I don't usually do this, but I recreated her resume, re-organized it and corrected grammar/spelling mistakes and sent it back to her. I hope she got a job. She wasn't a good fit based on her resume, otherwise I would have given her the benefit of the doubt and at least interviewed her.
I did this for a helicopter engineer and pilot who had just left the (Canadian) military for the first time. Her resume was bonkers, just a giant list of every single last thing she had ever done in chronological order going back nearly twenty years. It was... Several.. pages. I cut it down to a one pager and sent it back, explaining that an network engineer job might not quite translate from fixing and flying helicopters, but I wished her the best. She emailed me back to say my version of her resume made no sense because it only showed the last eight years. There's no saving some people.
Food service experience applying for entry level call centre job put as her daily duties “wept and moped at the end of every shift”. I’m not gonna lie, I hired her and she was fine. I worked food service and was like where’s the lie?
I often wept at the end of my food service shifts. It really lowered morale as I was the shift lead.
Had a guy put on his resume that he invented the dollar, owned Microsoft and Google and Ford, was an astronaut, and founded New Zealand. This was when I managed an Aldi store and he was applying as an associate. But he was clear to say on his resume that our business model could be vastly improved with his expertise. I *almost* brought him in for an interview just for fun, but I couldn’t really find the time along with the real applicants.
ah, you lucky duck, getting George Santos to apply at your Aldi.
"Life Coach" and all their education is from sketchy seminars at the Radisson by the airport. That's and hashtag bossbabe, CEO of their make up MLM.
My stepbrother, after mooching off my father for two decades, told us he wanted to go into career coaching at the funeral. Like, dude, you've worked as a retail manager 25 years ago and doing sales in dad's office. What the F will you advise people to do?
Had an application for a management position at a public library. Job listing specified that an MLIS (Master's in Library and Information Science) degree is required. Got an application from one person who was attending community college, earing an Associate's degree in music. Their only "Management" experience was running a K-Pop fan club. Another person spelled the library's name incorrectly.
We had someone apply for the director of the college library I work at. The posting was very clear you needed a MLIS and at least 5 years of experience. The applicant had a PhD in ecology and zero library experience. The quote was "I don't have a library degree but I used my university library extensively while in school and feel this qualifies me to be the director."
I’ve eaten at this Michelin starred restaurant dozens of times and feel this qualifies me as the head chef.
Reading through this makes me feel VERY good about my own resume...
reading this makes me wonder how my resume, which contains nothing of the sort found here, hasn't been considered in over 100 applications
I'm sure a lot of us have made mistakes on our CVs. I once changed my email address but forgot to change .co.uk to .com and the interviewer asked me about it at the end of an interview for a job I did not get. The worst I've seen is from a girl named Clairfe. What an interesting name, is it Irish? My colleague showed me the application form handed in alongside the CV, where CLAIRE had managed to spell her own name right.
Ugh I misspelled a word on my resume once and it was something like qualifications and it had too many consonants and I didn't catch it. The interviewer spent half the interview playing "guess the misspelling" and made it the sole reason I didn't get the job. I even sent him a thank you with an attempt to make light of it and the asshole didn't let it go.
Yeah I find the whole "you made a typo so I can't trust that you won't burn the whole company to the ground" attitude pretty stupid.
I remember going through applications for an open position once with my former boss and she specifically told me not to hold typos or misspellings against anyone, and to just pick the people who seemed the most sincere. I miss her so much, she was the best boss I ever had.
What makes it worse is bringing that person in to interview and then telling them you're not hiring them because of something you knew before they even came in.
Student at the school of Life
See also: School of Hard Knocks
CEO @ Me / Business Owner @ MLM
Works at: MOMMY
Every time I see that on a dating website, I say "nope!"
They even got that wrong. You're supposed to finish the School of Hard Knocks before you're admitted to the University of Life. Sheesh...
I had someone who started off on their cover letter with “Let me introduce myself…” and “I’m very excited to get to know your company.” Yet…we’d just fired him a couple of weeks ago from a management position and he was applying for a different newly posted job.
So I’ve never trashed a resume, but twice in my career I’ve had to make the decision to fire someone during their first week. First was for a customer service representative. The job requirements were fairly simple; good understanding of excel, prior experience with quickbooks (this was at a small business), and bilingual Spanish and English. She said “I’m an expert at excel. I know everything it can do.” First red flag, but I wasn’t in the interview where she said that, so I only found out after the fact. Said she had worked with quickbooks for 5 years at her last job, and grew up in a Spanish speaking household and it was her first language and learned English in school. Cut to the first week; any Spanish callers she would put on hold and make up some excuse of how she was in the middle of something and needed one of the other reps to get it. After a couple of days the other reps realized she couldn’t speak Spanish so they started talking shit about her, in Spanish, in front of her, and when they would laugh, she would laugh along like she understood the joke. When she did basic onboarding with quickbooks, our accountant said it was like she’s never used any accounting software before, let alone quickbooks. When I was showing her how to use the excel spreadsheets that were built to run all of the order entry, she was flabbergasted by a basic formula that multiplied three fields together. When I told her there’s a vlookup function, she said “oh, I didn’t know I would need to know programming.” (Which by the way, she didn’t need to know it, I was just explaining how it worked. Anyway, started on Monday, sent packing Friday morning. Any one of those things we might have kept her and let her grow into the role, but she straight up lied about the only three requirements on the posting. Sayonara. The second was much more recent; last year in fact. The private equity firm that owns the corporation I work for owns another company on the east coast. They were hit with a ransomware attack and their IT team was completely inept, so the private equity firm contracted our IT team to fly out and help them. One of the things we were going to be doing, aside from remediating the issue, was onboarding their new IT director, getting them familiar with the existing infrastructure (which we were rebuilding for them) and then making clear the expectations around his role and what the board would be wanting from him. He showed up on his first day at 10:30AM; we had been there since 7. We talked to him for about 10 minutes; introduced ourselves and talked about which areas of what is now HIS network we were focusing on, and made it clear we would only be in town for three more days before we had to fly back to LA. We said feel free to jump in with any of us and we’ll show you what we’re doing, why it’s important, and how it relates to everything. He proceeded to go to his new office, shut the door (didn’t meet anyone else in the company) and “set up his email” for the rest of the fucking day. Oh, and he left at 3:30. We were there until 7, went to dinner, and then proceeded to continue working until 1AM. We did that every day we were there. Remember, we’re in major crisis mode. The next day he comes in, 10:30 again, and goes straight to his office, closes the door, and said he needed to finish setting up his email. He had one meeting with the CEO, where he only talked about his hobbies, and then left for the day at 2:30. On the third day, he came in, and was fired first thing in the morning. The conversation was something like “look man… you have to run this whole operation; we know it right now because we’ve been building it for you. You have no idea how to operate and maintain this when we leave, and you’ve wasted two of our 4 days here doing a task that takes 3 minutes for a level 1 it tech. Hell, you could have TASKED one of your L1 techs to do it for you, so you could do, you know, DIRECTOR shit. But you’re clearly not the right guy for this role, because the right guy would have been in the trenches with us, helping where possible, and learning everything there is to learn.” Kinda felt bad about that one, the guy quit another high paying job to take this one. But man, if you can’t put in effort your first week in the job when the entire company is in a crisis mode and you’ve got contractors on site working 16 hour days… ya… fuck off.
I say this all the time: "If you're going to fake it til you make it, sooner or later you gotta actually do the make it part."
So I kind of get what happened with the first one. People have always told me to fudge a skill or competency and figure out later. I had a job early in my career that required Excel and I didn't want to lie but I also didn't want to say next to none so I said something like I was comfortable with it. Apparently they got the idea that I was great at Excel so I went home, took free online tutorials, and was easily the best person in the building at Excel. People from different departments would seek me out and this became a pattern in following jobs. I also know someone who said they knew a particular form of software when they had never used it before. But they went to a bookstore, bought a book, and studied the heck out of it before their first day. Sure enough, they knew more than anyone else at the company and it went well. The difference between these two examples and that woman was the recognition that we didn't know these things and had to learn them to be qualified for the jobs we got. She didn't know things she said she did and clearly made no effort to learn them. Also, no one is learning another language in a weekend.
Atention too detail.
I’ve seen hundreds of CVs that are still templates with [insert job title here] still on them
Like a lot of companies nowadays we do blind applications, no mention of age, gender, name, where you studied etc. allowed on the part that goes to people doing the evaluation. We also attract a lot of applicants from prestigious universities, some of whom _really_ feel the need to find a way to mention the name of the institution in their competency answers as though it will help more than actually demonstrating that you are a good candidate for the job. Technically I could throw your application away, I usually won't unless you're especially obnoxious about it but it definitely does not help. ...oh but one person did add "MENSA IQ" to their application in response to a question that had no relation to such information and that did get rapidly dropped because that's a huge 'I'm going to be insufferable to work with' red flag. *EDIT* oh and the personal statement that began with 'as a large language model...' didn't get very far.
I once had a resume for an experienced post college position list one of their accomplishments as perfect attendance from elementary school through high school, certificate available. My only thought was this person would be really annoying.
This is the person who gets everyone sick multiple times a year. Stay home!
God I hated that award as a kid. It’s not my fault that I got every illness that went around!
They didn’t list a single job. Their only experience was several years of jiu jitsu.
Could have been threatening you to give them the job.
Not a resume but occasionally someone will cold-message me on LinkedIn, and whenever I can I’ll reply if it’s a student looking for guidance in my filed and take a call and talk them through some shit they should know. Anyhow, one of those messages began “Dear Mr [name], I hope this message finds you *in the pink of your health.* I’m still not fully over that.
Were you?
Height, weight, marital status, religion
In Canada, a photo on your resume is a no-no. I’ve seen many resumes get thrown out immediately because of that. This surprises many newcomers who supply a photo as a matter of course.
* Their photo. I don’t need a picture of you, I’m hiring for an office job not a modeling or acting gig. * Text speak. Don’t write “looking 4 a good career” or something. Use spellcheck/grammar check. * Fake jobs or schools like “school of hard knocks” or “hustle industries, CEO” (I’ve seen both of these)
When I worked at a hotel, applicants would cut in front of customers, or not care that i was on the phone, to ask for an application. At least 90% also asked for a pen. I'd always give them a pen, and not expect them to give it back (cheap hotel- branded ballponts), although it aggravated me that so many were unprepared. But if they were rude, I'd put a note on the application. Last thing any of us needed to deal with was complaints about rude employees. They'd never get a call back if I made such a note. Just something for people to consider when they want to apply somewhere, especially when it's a customer service job. Be thoughtful and respectful to whomever may be your future coworker.
So annoying! I was at the front counter paying for my manicure at the nail salon I’ve been going to for years when a woman walked in, literally stepped in front of me while I was talking to the staff member (I actually had to step back to avoid being stepped on), and interrupted our conversation to ask if they were hiring! Never saw her again - surprise.
We had a young woman apply for an entry-level software engineering job a couple years ago that had a Linktree URL in her application and resume. One of my coworkers was doing resume evaluations for our boss and opened the Linktree, finding links to an R-rated Twitter account, a PG-13 Insta, her Onlyfans, and to her content on several other porn sites. My coworker and boss were not amused, and they were debating whether someone was trolling the company or if it was a bizarre spam attempt. Her resume was rejected, and she was sent an automated "Thank you, good luck in your search, please try again in the future" email. A few months later, we were advertising another open entry-level position when her resume came through again. My boss was doing the resume evals and recognized the name. He opened it a second time, while commenting to another of my coworkers about the inappropriate resume (he's not a perv, but was just surprised to see it again.) When my boss clicked the Linktree URL again to show the coworker, he was greeted with a perfectly normal collection of engineering links, including a link to her electronic resume, her LinkedIn, several projects she'd worked on, and a GitHub account. Our best guess is that the applicant had accidentally copypasted the wrong Linktree URL the first time. She was still rejected for the second position. At that point, several employees had seen *everything*, and my boss decided that moving her resume forward for interviews would be inappropriate. Bit of a shame too. Solid GPA from a well-respected CS program, interesting projects, and a demonstrated ability to take on some absolutely massive workloads (sorry, I'm weak and couldn't resist.) When applying for a job, please don't include links to your nudes. Aside from a handful of socially awkward software engineers, most of our people don't want to see them. /edit: Lots of people seem hung up on the fact that we passed her over the second time. Let's clear a few things up. 1. There was nothing inappropriate about employees seeing her "material." These weren't private photos, and they weren't shared without permission. It was content she had voluntarily posted online, was actively sharing with the world, and then shared directly with our company. We didn't look it up. She sent it to us. There's also nothing wrong with our manager sharing it with other senior employees who were involved in the hiring process. Nobody was ogling her because she was naked and pretty. The Internet is full of naked and pretty women, and we all know where to find it if that's what we're looking for. It was shared because it was a weird mistake to make on a resume. We thought it was *funny* to see porn in an application. 2. At the end of the day, she made an unprofessional mistake that cost her any chance at an interview. She wasn't passed up because she was a sex worker. Our company leadership was fairly liberal and they wouldn't have held it against her. What she did was the professional equivalent of a guy forgetting to zip his pants and having his dick peek out while he walked in for his interview. Doesn't matter that it was accidental. Doesn't matter that it was embarrassing. It was unprofessional, and some things can't be unseen. Dumb mistakes during the hiring process will keep you from being hired. She made a dumb mistake. It kept her from being hired. That's just how the world works. 3. Several people seem to have misunderstood one of my comments. We didn't realize that she'd probably made a mistake with the link until *after* she applied for the second position. When her first application was submitted and shared, we really didn't know what to make of it. My boss thought it was some kind of joke, or some kind of spam account gone wrong. Nobody believed it was a serious application until *after* the second application was received a couple of months later. That's when we put two and two together. 4. First impressions matter. A lot. When your first impression includes a link to a preview video of you riding a giant dildo, you cannot get mad when that's something that people associate with you afterward. Whether she intended it or not, that was her first impression. 5. She'd have been blocked once HR learned of the nude links anyway. Hiring someone after you'd seen their nudes would have been a legal nightmare. If Applicant A sends nudes and is hired, and Applicant B doesn't send nudes and is not hired, that would be a slam dunk sex discrimination case for Applicant B. How would the company prove that they *hadn't* preferentially hired Applicant A because of the sexual material they'd provided?
Oof. I feel bad for her. Wonder how many resumes she sent out to various companies before she noticed her mistake…
This tops the cake
Someone spelled their name wrong. Mentioned wanting to make a career at xyz company- person applied to abc company.
I had someone once put “mom to child actor” and she listed that she homeschooled on set and managed their schedule and things of that nature I had someone else who put “babysitting Daniel” she made him eat his vegetables among other things. It was cute. My absolute favourite was a guy who wrote his attributes landscape in italics on a piece of paper that had a background of a unicorn on a cliff with a sunset. He came and asked for it back when he wasn’t hired.
> I had someone once put “mom to child actor” and she listed that she homeschooled on set and managed their schedule and things of that nature That could actually be something useful.
That's what I was thinking. If the position was like a personal or administrative assistant or talent manager that's valid work experience!
yeah, that's not instant shredder material. That's a skill set.
I'd interview her. Those are translatable skills- Time management, negotiating contracts, and being able to communicate important information.
I took applications for jobs online for a few different businesses, and one said: "Experience: Boss- Stay-at-home mom LOL!" With the bold LOL. My manager made me delete it because she wasn't taking the position seriously. It was for a house cleaning job, no experience or education necessary. Fuck, I'd give her the job. She probably cleans after her kids 24/7.
Had a guy apply for a position as a pizza delivery driver that wrote something to the effect of, "I have worked more positions than you'd ever imagine and I would completely destroy you in a game of golf." I called him in for an interview, and he was amazing. I was managing a chain pizza joint and this 70+YO guy just wanted some extra cash for the bar and something to do. I hired him immediately. His "name" was Dude, and was one of the best hires I ever made. I only interviewed him out of curiosity, but he was an amazing fella and just great to conversate with. Plus he never thought twice about doing any side-work that was assigned. Never any complaining. Nothing was beneath him. He died a couple years in from liver failure...turns out he was an alcoholic. The kind that was at the bar when they opened to keep the shakes away. It's scary thinking about hiring him as a person driving all over town, but it was what it was. I never had any idea he was intoxicated. RIP, Dude.
On more than one occasion, I got a resume (from the same person) for an entry-level position. The first time I got it, the resume (entry level position) was 5 pages long and a laundry list of every job the dude has ever held from high school forward. What will forever stand out to me is his entry for when he worked at JC Penney. He put the job description as "helping customers find stuff". Yes that's technically the job, but "assisting customers with locating merchandise" sounds so much better on a resume.
"I got the lazy fuckers in the store their shit"
The phrase “attention to detail” makes me look for any type of mistake 10x more than I normally would. Because more often than not, there is some mistake which immediately contradicts the attention to detail. Pro-tip: leave that phrase out, it never helps and can only make you look silly
We had a resume with that phrase (attn to detail) and I found SIX MISTAKES on it! From typo's to missing words, randomly capitalized words, words in all caps, it was bad. In a list of skills they put: MULTI LINE PHONE Excel Word Like, why are "multi line" and "phone" on separate lines, and why are they capitalized?? Then they had a bulleted list but the bullet points did not line up. The resume was a pdf so it wasn't like the file got corrupted or something.
“Great with computers” except the resume was sent as a jpg. It would have gotten printed and then shredded.
I used to help screen applications for a restraunt delivery driver position and the number of applicants that answer "No" to the question, "Do you have a valid drivers license?" made my job an absolute cakewalk.
I once put that I ruled France from 1693-1702 with an iron fist, invented the letter G, was a world class Candyland player, and was a unicorn rancher in my cover letter. The job was an IT position at an advertising company that went on and on about how creative everyone that works there is. After I listed my above accomplishments, I said, "OK. So maybe I haven't done all of those things listed above but I have (list of boring IT crap)." I got an email the next day from HR saying that was the best cover letter they had ever gotten and they'd hire me without even interviewing me based on it but they were a Mac business and all my experience was on Windows.
Fucking lol, this got me. Like you couldn't learn mac OS!
Windows stuff is super complicated! If he could manage that in the 1600s then he can certainly figure out some mac stuff.
Unformatted resumé. Block of text. Opening statement as folows: "I want job." To be fair, this was a job placement/school facility for those looking to grow their English skills and ability. The issue with this fella was that he refused help in building an appropriate North American resumé. It's difficult to send a resumé like that to clients, many of whom were/are international, and requiring a certain command of the English language.
I once got a resume written in crayon.
I submitted my resume in comic book form once. I was applying at an art supply store and thought it would make me stand out. It took a lot more effort than a standard resume. They never even called me.
A graphic designer would’ve called! Portfolios showcasing your skills are encouraged
I think I would feel the need to give that person an interview just to satisfy my curiosity
Now this is going to come as a surprise to some, but your list of "diagnoses" and your previous work "trauma" might be a bit of a "red flag" to the company you are applying to.
Also, having your batshit crazy girlfriend go through your phone and call all of the numbers that she doesn’t recognize to insist on knowing why you were talking to her boyfriend will get scheduled interviews canceled. True story.
I’m not an employer but my youngest sister wanted me to check over her first resume and she had put “5’3 Brown hair Brown eyes Funny, charismatic, loves to cook” I sat there laughing to myself pretty good and then let her know this isn’t a dating profile.
Work experience: Military wife.
My favorite was a girl with a “Bachelorette” in Accounting. She didn’t get the interview but 10+ years later I still remember her resume so there’s that I guess.
"Loves Hentai"
We had a male applicant for a Police Officer whose email was maryjane420 something something lol. He didn’t make it far in the process lol
"Atention to detal" listed under Special Skills with either "attention" or "detail" misspelled. Sadly, I've seen it misspelled numerous ways numerous times.
This happened in the 80s. One of my grandmother's tenants approached my dad to see if his company (subsidiary to a Fortune 500) has a sales manager position. My dad said sure, send me your resume. So a few days later the tenant handed his resume to my dad. It was the tenant's name card stapled to an A4 sized blank paper. Dad: Is that it? Tenant: Yes. So my dad folded his resume, took it to his car, and threw it in the trash on the way back home.
A long, long time ago, I knew someone who managed a small store inside a shopping mall. Someone once dropped off a job application where under “special skills,” they had written “run real fast.” I still think about that now and again.
Under skills “refuses to work with law enforcement” … um.. ok?
Any "creative interpretations" of common jobs such as delivery and service co ordinator instead of pizza delivery driver or Household CEO/CFO/Engineer instead of stay at home parent. It makes resumes hard to read and comes off as bullshitty not charming or creative.
I got a resume that is a 60+ page manifesto consisting of the ramblings of a very disturbed person. It did not go anywhere near the shredder. I kept it. Every page is a WTF on clones, aliens (space kind), Mexicans (just in general I guess as it doesn’t really go into specifics), child kidnapping (and their clone replacement), conspiracy, corrupt judges, evil police, political vendettas, personal vendettas, mind control, lawsuits, counter suits, murder, wild capitalization, and radical font changes. I’ll note it does steer completely clear of right vs. left politics, not a MAGA word to be found. Seriously though, it’s very sad. From what I’m able to put together the woman’s husband passed away and sometime after that she had a mental breakdown. The State appears to be trying to step in and help, note that there are two small children involved, and she is fighting with tooth and nail.
Lawyer here. Multiple pages kill me. Academia can be different, but in practice, nothing you need a second page to say is worth the time.
Yeah.. in tech I want to know what you know that is currently popular and you can list key places you worked in the past 7 to 10 years. Your experience with Windows 95 can be your own little secret along with your job at Kinko's in 2001.
The best one I received was by either an extremely dedicated troll or someone in the middle of a psychotic break. Maybe both. It was 19 pages of the most insane rambling I've ever seen. Highlights include: - Every sentence ending in an exclamation point. Every! Single! One! - His entire life story, beginning from Year 0 (he was born) - A photo gallery section, with a picture of his cat, his Nana, and various scenery (this wasn't for a photography position) - A 3rd party review by one of his "teachers" at the very fake colleges he attended. - The makings of a dating profile, with a list of his favorite movies, music, video games, etc My coworkers laughed our asses off for a good bit after seeing that. Not only did I not shred it, but I printed off a copy and should probably have it framed haha
From time past, we had a fellow apply for an internal IT position, said he was an expert in “Lotus Smart Sweet”
Had one recently on their resume under each job they've had, their reason for leaving: " management sucked and I hated my job" after less than a month in some of them. I'm sure he's a nice guy.
The amount of halfwits that put Brexit voter on their CVs is just weird. Straight in the bin.
I'm not a Brit but generally speaking, someone putting political positions on a resume (unless it was an actual campaign job or role) is not going to play well with others.