I've been in hiring positions several times over the course of my life. The first thing that always stood out, was overkill. I don't need to know about your childhood pets and kindergarten classes. Who can agree?
Schemes
Awkward Season 2 GIF by The OfficeGiphy"When their job title says "entrepreneur" and their description just screams pyramid scheme."
BECAUSE HE LISTED THE BAR ON HIS RESUME...
"So not a recruiter, but I was helping my then manager go over resumes. We googled one dude, and the first thing that pops up is an article about someone getting tried for manslaughter or homicide for selling bad (hard drugs contaminated with something) drugs at the bar he worked at as a bartender, complete with extensive interviews from coworkers saying they were pretty sure he'd sold contaminated drugs purposely. And we know it was the same dude, BECAUSE HE LISTED THE BAR ON HIS RESUME."
"big daddy"
"A very unprofessional email is definitely one. You see some insane emails. I knew someone who got an email address that had "big daddy" in it. For anyone who needs a professional email address, personally I find any combination of your first, middle, last names, initials, and birthdate are all acceptable. In fact any numbers but 420, 69, etc. And 123 is fine."
Recognition
"We saw a guy apply for a masters degree internship in a scientific lab saying on the last page of his resume that he had invented the seventh law of magnetism or something like that followed by a nonsense description of what it was. The rest of the resume was absolutely fine, and we reminded ourselves that it is always crucial to read a resume to the end before making any decision. And a piece of advice for anyone who applies somewhere and think they have an unrecognized discovery worth a Nobel prize: have it recognized before you put it on your resume."
Smile!
Crazy Eyes Smile GIF by CBeebies HQGiphy"Depending on the job, when they include all their social media accounts and a headshot."
- ryanzbt
It's like people are drunk or high when they throw these resumes together and they're still blitzed when they send their CV's along. Big Daddy? I mean really? And enough with the glamour shots, you're not cute.
Marked Up
Cat Ok GIF by Bu2maGiphy"When my partner was a manager he once received a resume with a watermark tiger as the background. How he didn't hire them on the spot, I'll never know."
"shoelacing diploma"
"My father-in-law was once involved in a hiring process and saw a resume he threw out very quickly. Not only was it chronological instead of antichronological (not a red flag per se, but not very practical either). The first (and oldest) achievement the applicant put on it was her "shoelacing diploma." Yes, the thing we get in kindergarten when you have learned to tie your shoes. According to the applicant, it proved that she was a go-getter. To him, it proved that she lacked common sense."
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to detail as 5/5...
"Not in HR but I was recruiting nurses a few months back and had one resume that had a cover page with a large (approx A5 equiv) centred photo. I'm not fond of these in healthcare resumes. Then on the first page of the resume was a scale where she ranked herself out of 5."
"She rated her communication and attention to detail as 5/5 but her teamwork as 2/5. I didn't like the scoring and even worse I didn't like the low teamwork score where she applied for a ward nursing job. To top it off it was riddled with grammatical, spelling and presentation errors. Clearly attention to detail wasn't a 5/5."
Pimp69...
"I used to run training program, and we had about 4000 applicants for 200 positions each year. Bad grammar and spelling automatically got a resume thrown out, because the job required so much writing. Also, get the name of the agency correct! I had one applicant, who claimed she was a PhD candidate, talk about the Health and Human Cervixes. WTF? Inappropriate email. One guy had something like Pimp69 for his email. He listed a website of his, and it had a rear nude. Dude. Just what?"
Backlog...
Book Typography GIFGiphy"I once had someone hand in a resume with 6 whole pages of job history, each one described with a paragraph of detail about the skills she'd learned and what the role involved. There must have 20 jobs on there? At least. She had also put the dates she started and left each job.... the longest was four months face palm."
"google architect"
"As someone who went through the ringers in the architecture field and now part of the hiring process. My advice is to keep resumes to one page. We really don't have time to go through two pages of awards and merits. And portfolios that are above 10 pages really are not necessary."
"We have gotten 30-40 page portfolios that are incomplete and look ugly. I rather see 5-10 good pages and a solid one page resumes. It automatically signals fluff to us, especially when the portfolio lacks substance. Through my career I have always done 1 page resume, 2 page portfolios, and letters of recommendation."
"Then on my resume or in emails I give a link to my full portfolio, and full website about my merits. Also as of lately this whole "google architect" is real. For example , we have seen a latest trend in work not being original. Almost blatant copies."
- omnigear
TMI
"Was recruiting a while back for a couple of positions in my company. Got one cv that was 18 pages long detailing in minute detail everything this guy had done at previous jobs. Another included a 75 page portfolio. Suffice to say neither got an interview. One of the guys that got the job brought a short portfolio of a few pages with plenty of pictures to the interview. Far more appropriate."
Pants on Fire
"Had to check a few resumes for our vacant position. My biggest problem is lying:
- Candidate says they have a lot of experience with a certain technology, but when asked, doesn't know anything.
- Dates of employment or education don't match up. Had a guy claiming he had 4 jobs at the same time.
- Experience doesn't add up: don't claim you have 10 years of experience with a framework created 5 years ago." - DrDonut21
Words
"Not HR, but recruited many times. Poor grammar and spelling. No relevant experience. Inconsistent fonts and layout. Too long. A well worded resume should convey enough in two pages to elicit an interview."
Short Stints
"Having a 4 month stint on your resume only once is fine as long as you're up front about it. I worked at a company for a short period of time but left because the CEO was a psycho who created a toxic atmosphere. I called a recruiter who told me to leave it on my resume and be up front about it if I was asked. I'm at a brilliant company now but it's up to the people hiring to understand that sometimes jobs don't work out, which is okay."
Shredder
"One of my first Reddit arguments was with someone who said you should show up to a business you're interested in working at and hand deliver your resume. I worked front desk reception at the time, and I said that would only result in me putting your resume through the shredder, that we have very specific ways we hire for jobs and if you can't follow those basic directions, you're definitely not going to be hired. He said if that's how companies felt and they didn't give him the respect he deserves, he wouldn't want to work for that company anyway. 🤷♀️"
For the Company
"This is why my company doesn't use HR for hiring. H.R. doesn't work with the employees, the managers do. H.R. will weed out perfect applicants over the silliest things and give preference to people for things totally unrelated to the job. Our managers get the resumes and applications and they choose who to interview."
"HR then conducts background checks and verifications. Their decisions can be over-ruled by upper management. When our company started using an HR staff to do all the hiring, we ran into a horrible staffing shortage and what new hires we did get were unworkable."
"The company's profits dropped and long reliable employees quit because of the bureaucracy that an HR office created. The owner fired half the HR staff and limited the remaining HR staff to compliance issues and payroll paperwork. Our managers do all the recruiting and hiring. Employees are happy and the company is thriving again."
- Brazo33
No Notice
"I left a law enforcement job with no notice due to my supervisor breaking a court order and doing something illegal. I tried to notify his superiors but nobody cared. Finding a new job in the same field has proven challenging, other agencies don't seem to care about why I left, only that I left a job after 8.5 years with no notice."
Poor Fido
What Is It Reaction GIF by Nebraska Humane SocietyGiphy"Saw this once work experience- dog walking Reason for leaving - the dog died."
A Good Laugh
"A guy I knew some 20 years ago sent in a job application on paper he had previously used for another purpose. The company wrote back to say "while we applaud your commitment to the environment, we suggest you do not in future use recycled paper for this purpose" which was considerate of them. I laughed at him."
How to piece together a resume. How to properly and simply apply for work. These should be classes in elementary school. Good luck people.
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It is helpful to have extra, fascinating skills in life. That's what makes us all more interesting and fuller humans but you don't need to least every special skill. If you're applying to be a supermarket clerk, maybe don't mention you can name all of the world's capitols or that you can assist in the birth of cows. Let that be a surprise for parties later.
I think...
deep thought think GIF by YultronGiphyDescribed themselves as a "thought leader" for anime.
Visuals
I was shortlisting resumes for my boss, and came across one that was absolute freaking gold.
The position was for a tape operator at a television station.
The guy was an artist, I think. And his resume was a 31 page visual representation of his journey through life. Each page contained a moment in time that had shaped him into who he was as a man, as one of the Earth Mother's children, and as an artist.
There were pictures of his art, and it wasn't great.
Edit: there also wasn't a cover letter, or a contact email. And there was a lot of "the earth mother birthed me from her glistening bowels" kind of stuff.
To this day I don't know if he was serious... or if he was freaking with us and submitted it to get his application numbers up to meet his mutual obligation requirement for JobSeeker.
Smile
Not as bad as some of the ones here, but I once had a guy hand me a resume with smiley faces on it. Like the generic Microsoft version of 🙂 they were typed right in next to his previous experience. Like "cashier at Walmart 🙂." It wasn't actually Walmart. I just used that as an example because the experience that he listed was similar. It definitely wasn't a trademark. He also had it on one of his skills. something like "Good communicater 🙂" (yes, the resume was also filled with spelling mistakes)
Old McDonald?
speak jimmy fallon GIF by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy FallonGiphyThe candidate proudly listed that they had (presumably self-) published a book of erotic poetry about a type of farm animal. They were applying for a professional office job that had absolutely nothing to do with poetry, or farm animals, or erotica.
Artistry
One candidate wrote "The lost art of letter writing" as an additional qualification.
Another submitted a hand drawn comic book. It was quite entertaining and well done.
A guy I interviewed once sent me a hand written thank you card. It definitely made him memorable, but not a qualification for the job, but I guess it could be for some job.
Now some of these people had to be drunk when they put those resumes together. At least I hope they were. Does no one ask for advice or research these situations before heading out into the professional world? I shudder to guess what else we're going to hear. Let's get at it...
Learn the other 60%...
I am going to spin this around. What wasn't written.
I interviewed a candidate and it turned out his one of his parents was Chinese and the other Indian. His English was fine and he claimed to be fluent in Mandarin and Hindi. It was pretty clear he wasn't getting the job (just didn't have the skillset needed) but I liked him so I mentioned "right the fact you can speak to about 40% of the human race might be something you want to put on your resume for next time instead of your love of baseball."
"Lusty"
My team was hiring and I met this woman at a party who sounded like she had the experience to do that job. I told her to send her resume to the hiring manager (small start up, easy to bypass recruiting). She did the next day.
The hiring manager came over to my desk with her resume printed out laughing. Apparently her nickname is Lusty.
OK fine whatever if you keep that in your personal life. But no, right at the top of the resume was Jane "Lusty" Doe. And her email address was lustylady@whatever or something similar. To cap it off, he Google'd her name and found her personal website where she had posted something about job hunting and what she was looking for: "
I really just want a job where I can put in minimal effort and not have any responsibilities." OK I mean. that's fine if you're looking to work at a gas station or something. This was a tech job paying in the high five figures. She had the skills, but that tainted it all and we never even did a phone screen.
After that I'll only recommend people who I've worked with in the past or that I've at least known for a long time. Was pretty embarrassing but we laugh about it now.
No Princes
Season 9 Nbc GIF by The OfficeGiphyNot in HR, but had to hire a couple people in the past. One of the applicants included that he was on his high school's homecoming court on his resume. Obviously, I didn't hire him. Dude wasn't even king.
Show off...
Once got a resume where they put down "stump removal with a chainsaw" as a special skill.
They were applying to be a cashier at a grocery store.
I've gotten some great gigs that way.
At least two of my fave clients were people who had interviewed me for something else and got excited about a different service/skill I've had to offer. I'm shameless about self-promotion because it pays off.
Now Bend & Snap
legally blonde smile GIFGiphyI actually had someone pull an Elle Woods and spray perfume on their resume. It did not get them an interview or into law school lol.
Rule #2... just stick with the facts. Keep it simple. Nobody likes a braggart. And most people hiring are already busy, if they want to read a novel they'll do it at home. And honestly, some of the things we can do extra, aren't all that interesting. Again... the facts.
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