I've never been honest on a resume, well except for this job. And that's because I had to give writing samples. So there is an idea, demand proof, in real time.
Bilingual
Talk Talking GIF by WikipediaGiphy"I got an insultingly small raise for speaking a 2nd language, and since none of my bosses spoke Spanish, they never figured out that my skill level was comparable to that of a toddler. All of our Hispanic customers found it adorable."
The Database...
"Not me but I remember seeing someone who clearly did. I got hired as a contractor for a major brand pretty much everyone has heard of. They had a lean fiscal year and laid off a large portion of their front office people. Me and anther person were hired to help fill in some holes left by the people let go."
"On our first day we were being shown some basic tasks and how to work with the database. I had a notebook with me and was taking some notes and asking a lot of questions. The other person looked like they saw a ghost. By the time we came back from lunch the other person miraculously got a better job offer and left never to return."
On the Assembeley
"I worked on an assembly line making oilfield tools, told them I had oilfield experience. Got sent to an offshore oil rig a few months later. Turns out you're just picking up heavy crap and getting picked on for the first few months anyways."
"It was a great job as a single guy. Once I got married then it was a little harder, and then it was too hard when I had a kid."
"I loved the fraternity vibe, and messing with and getting messed with. I still keep in contact with a lot of guys I met and over all it was a great experience. I cleared about $75K my first year and my hourly rate was 14/hr if that gives you an idea of how much you are working. That's when oil was 100/barrel and bonuses were pretty nice."
My First
"My very first job "in finance" was as a Data entry clerk for a mortgage lender. They asked if I could type 70+ wpm, I lied and said I could. I really could type about 25 wpm. When I got the offer, I spent everyday till my hire date practicing the crap outta my typing speed. Got up to about 50 wpm, which was enough to overlook my first two weeks of the job. By the time I got promoted to underwriting a year later, could easily type 80+wpm, and knew 10 key by touch."
Salute
GIF by Broad CityGiphy"Not me, but my Dad when he was drafted for WWII. They asked if he could touch type, he said yes. I don't think he had even seen a typewriter. But they put him in intelligence because of his answer and no one ever questioned his typing skills."
Well sometimes it all doesn't work out. That's why you have to be prepared to learn quickly when you're telling a lie. Prepare your lies, that's rule number one. And be simple in your tall tales.
6 Years Later
Kermit The Frog Reaction GIFGiphy"I said I was proficient in software I had never used before. When I got asked for an interview, I learned enough to BS my way through. When I got the job, I spent the next two weeks learning the crap out of that software. 6 years of using it all day every day, and training other people how to use it, I'd say I did pretty good."
Window Cleaners Share The Best Things They've Ever Seen | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Way What?
"Not me, but a guy I've worked with on occasion had gone to school to become an architect. There was a prestigious firm that he really wanted to work for but they kept rejecting him. Still, he didn't stop applying and one day they said they had an opening but it wasn't for architecture, rather wayfinding (like designing directional signage etc. for facilities or even cities), and they asked if he had experience doing this. He lied and said yes and got the job. Now the guy is in his 70s, about to retire, and is super well known for his creative and clever wayfinding systems."
Mixed-ish
"Not me but my sister. A little background, we're mixed(ish). Our dad is white and our mom is Hispanic. I learned Spanish later on but my sister never learned it, but maybe because my mom and I are fluent in both Spanish and English I guess my sister thought she was fluent in Spanish by proxy."
"So on her application she lied and said she was fluent in Spanish. She didn't know at the time but the company's clientele was roughly 85% Hispanic, most of whom spoke little to no English. She had the job for a couple hours."
Tell the Truth
"College buddy left after four years or so. Couple years later we are hanging out and he is a energy commodity analyst. Wtf? Lied and said he had a mathematics degree. They never checked, he did well. Couple years later he gets a huge promotion to switch to another company. Tells the truth that time. They hire on the condition he finishes his degree. They got busy, told him to drop out. He is now a C level executive of a smaller energy logistics company."
- mtgmike
Pivot
Friends Lol GIF by HBO MaxGiphy"Said I could do pivot tables. Had a very basic knowledge of Excel. Got the job and literally never had to do a pivot table 🤣 Picked up a lot just by playing around with Excel too."
The Long Haul
"I applied for a job as a truck driver. The only experience I had was in a vehicle the size of a small U-Haul, delivering for a Vietnam veterans fundraising organization. Almost 18 years later, I'm still behind the wheel for the same company, and I've gotten my commercial driver's license."
Just Show Up!
"My uncle did this. Showed up for a mass interview. They said they would call people they wanted after. He didn't get a call, but found out where people were supposed to go the first day. He just showed up! I think when he was asked, he just told them that he had been told to come, even though his name wasn't on the list. He retired from that company about 45yrs later."
In America
"When my dad first arrived as an immigrant, he took an ESL class which among other things coached students on how to get a job. The teacher literally got up there and said, "here's how you get a job in America: lie." So my dad lies and told a construction crew he could drive a forklift. The first day, they asked him to get on the forklift. My dad said, oh, I only know how to use a different model of forklift. So they taught him how to drive the forklift, and he worked there for 20 years."
And you are?
hired money GIF by OriginalsGiphy"My boss hired someone that called the store and said, "I would like to confirm my interview is on this date." My coworker had never actually submitted an application or resume, my boss just assumed it got misplaced."
I got away with it!
"I was desperate for work after grad school, and lied about my skills in Salesforce (CRM software), when asked about it at the interview. I'd never even heard of it before! I claimed I've used it plenty, and the interviewer kept asking one question after another about Salesforce and I was so desperate, and also so embarrassed about lying, that my only choice was to lie even further to cover up the original lies."
"So by the end of the interview, I had dug myself into a hole of lies so deep, the only way I got out of it was because my new manager has obviously never used Salesforce herself either. So I get the job, and I'm thrown head first into becoming the team's new Salesforce wizard. Thankfully it was pretty easy to learn, and since I used it every day/all day long, I'd become pretty skilled at it in a few weeks. It's now the most honest part of my resume!"
The Little Lie
"It wasn't on my resume, per se. But when I was in my early 20s (55 now) I was working for a company doing basically video editing. They needed someone in the IT department, and the manager knew I had a home PC and asked me if I "knew anything about mainframes."
"I lied, said I did, and he transferred me. He figured out pretty quickly that I was full of crap, decided I was still the best candidate, rolled up his sleeves and taught the crap out of me. Over 30 years later, he's still the best boss I ever had, taught me how to be a husband and a father, taught me how to manage projects large and small and how to manage teams large and small."
"Still one of my best friends, considers me his second son and I certainly consider him my second father, and I've had an IT career ever since. Been the Director of IT for 3 separate companies, plus owned my own technical consulting firm, etc. So, that little lie worked out pretty good, I think."
- dramboxf
Zero
"Not me but have a friend who had basically zero experience in IT security make his Helpdesk experience on a resume look like he handled security related tasks and issues for years. Ended up getting an entry level IT security position and today is now a Senior IT security engineer making 150k."
- Thew211
Hey Alaska
Saturday Night Live Finger Guns GIF by HULUGiphy"I hired someone like this. In the interview he claimed to have experience working with all of our equipment and we hired him."
"He showed up from Alaska and had absolutely no idea what any of it was or how it worked. I spent three months training him on the most basic equipment and he couldn't figure it out."
The Comeback
"We hired someone who lied on their resume, it took about 2 weeks but we fired them. They later applied to a similar position with a different team in the same company and referenced working on my team. So yeah, they didn't get hired when the obvious reference check was made."
"I've also known of 2 cases where people were so bad at their jobs, it prompted someone to look up their degree and find it was fake. They got fired, and in one case sued. If you are going to lie, try to not lie big, or about something easily provable."
The Blacklister
"I was running the network for a pretty big company and the boss hired a temp to help me with a project. He claimed to have a lot of experience with Cisco routers. Within 2 days it was obvious that he had no experience at all, didn't even know how to log in to the router. He was fired by my company and blacklisted by the temp agency."
The truth is always best, until its not. But trying to do better in life is hardly a malevolent motive. Some small lies on a resume still prove to be productive. And nowadays you can learn anything on YouTube. That counts as a work study.
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Neglected.
I just had a pretty entertaining one. Picture of the person applying, what I think was supposed to be the local time, and plenty of bullets. Each bullet was highlighted in a blue or green, then at the end of many of them, it just said: Neglected.
All these skills: Neglected. Wtf? Gogogodzirra
Cutesy....
GiphyIt had a horrible font, was brightly colored and had cutesy paw prints on. mallocuproo
One maybe, but 10?
My old boss kept a file of CVs he thought were terrible, and pulled them out here and there for a laugh. This is for an ESL school, so there were a few from non-native English speakers with really obvious spelling mistakes that should have been caught by any spell-check program.
And then there was the guy who attached like 10 passport photos of himself to the file. Like... why? One maybe, but 10? Why so many? You could just feel the ego dripping out of every sentence in the whole thing, too. scarreddragon28
the shortlist....
Not an employer, but looked over CV's to create a shortlist for a job. Worst was one that was half complete (got half way and had a line that said 'to be completed later'). The other, not a CV , but a covering letter about why they wanted the job, what they could do, etc but it completely missed the point of the job/job description (we were defending claims and this letter went on about helping claimants, doing the claimants justice). Both got rejected as the job involved attention to detail and research - neither had proven they could do this. colony_gamer
"expression of interest"
GiphyI work in higher ed and my last role included being responsible for tracking all the applications of interest, which was a year-round, open application for adjuncts who might be available to teach last minute. This one guy kept popping up over and over again when I would update my spreadsheet for the hiring committee. He went to a lot of trouble to create a new username for each submission, because, since it was always open, you can't re-apply for the same position.
That dude's CV was just one page, and I could never figure out why he was submitting it to me. There was nothing about teaching or education on the document, and he didn't include any people as references in the system. He would just type "N/A" in the boxes or "see resume."
The single-page was just his name in a really large font at the top (everything was centered on the page, too), followed by his place and date of birth, his wife's name and when they got married, the names and birthdates of his children (including stepson), a long list of hobbies and interests (reading John Grisham, fishing, vacations with family, TV shows).
That was it. I don't know if he thought an "expression of interest" was just like expressing his interests, and I always wondered why he dedicated so much time to apply for a job I wasn't sure he understood. MrsAnthropy
James in the 3rd person....
A guy's resume read like a story told in the 3rd person.
"James has been interested in IT since he took his first computer class at _____ Jr High. He always excelled at typing, getting high marks in his word processing course at ____ High School. Since then, he has moved on to deeper knowledge with computers, computer systems, and what makes them tick.
James build his first computer in his bedroom from parts he scavenged from Skid Row in 1996. He gained a great amount of still learning how components fit together and how hardware and software join together to make synergies. He took this love of computers and worked at _____ PC Repair in the summer of 2001, building, repairing, and reinstalling hardware, soft-ware, and operating systems (OS's)."
And on and on for several more paragraphs. Typos included. Arkayb33
"God-fearing"
I've worked in recruitment for almost 4 years now. I've seen some of the worst CVs ever. Here are some examples
- Some people would put "God-fearing" as one of their qualifications. I mean I get we're a religious country but like ??? why
- "Skills: Accounting"
- Those that have "[Insert text here]" that was left unedited
- I would get CVs/Resumes sent through my email that they probably forgot to rename (e.g. Resume_of_mine.pdf)
And many more I cant recall at the moment. arcticmonkeysVEVO
Choo-Choo....
We were hiring for flight dispatchers at my previous company. Come across a guy's resume where it says he was a "Train Operator/Engineer." We were intrigued as to why someone would leave working for UP, BNSF, etc for a flight dispatcher position until we read the second page which had the actual job description:
He was the conductor of the train inside the local mall for kids. Kudos for the wordplay but don't waste my time. tracksuits4all
Resolutions....
GiphyOne guy, he had a period of 4 years where he listed his job as a "Stay at home dad", under which he wrote "learned conflict resolution techniques." MantisToboggan14
Keep the Selfie.....
Managed an electronics retail store so not too many resumes, but lots of terrible applications nonetheless. Had someone list being tall and swimming as skills. Recently had someone who did attach a resume, in which he put both his references AND experience as "available upon request," and listed his nationality, birthdate, parents' names, and marital status below a selfie. ShepardVakarian
We took attendance....
GiphyTheir resume said they worked at a previous company that I also worked for. We had only about a dozen employees, and he wasn't one of them. Reasonable_Audience
I don't know them....
Unfortunately, the worst I've ever seen was submitted by my friend who I vouched for before he submitted his resume. Now, we were in all the same college classes, and mostly all the same project groups. So his resume should/could have contained all the same stuff my first resume did, plus what he did the 2 years out of college. I didn't have a whole lot of impressive stuff being just out of college when I applied, but it was well formatted and thought out.
He submitted a jumbled pile of crap. There was at least 4 different fonts, random missing bullets, no sort of organization, missing important dates and keywords. We did the hiring as a team, but my boss handed me his resume and asked "Is this your friend? Is this what he's capable of?" To be honest, I was shocked, because my friend did well in school and was pretty intelligent. All I could say was "He's better in person, and can figure stuff out even if he's never learned it before."
I got him the interview, and my boss wouldn't put him past the first interview. He said it was a horrible interview, and my friend showed no interest and couldn't elaborate on any of the bullet points on his resume whatsoever. It was absolutely shocking and embarrassing for me. CasuallyCompetitive
Maybe it's one long name?
I received a resume by email from "John." The email address had the name as "George" listed. The resume was for "Max." So three different names for one resume.
As if that wasn't bad enough, it was more of a story of his life in paragraph format than citing his skills. my_Favorite_post
You're not J.K. Rowling!
My boss once received a resume written from the perspective of someone witnessing the storming of the Bastille. The torches, explosions off in the distance, the yelling and screaming. Proficiency in Word and Excel.
It was for an assistant level office job. My boss passed on it. soomuchcoffee
He's a recommendation....
GiphyI had a guy apply to an online job posting, but all he sent was a picture of his dog and somehow no contact information. LibbyLewis
Don't judge a tattoo by it's cover.
I do staffing and you wouldn't believe the resumes I have seen.
One time I was trying to fill a 3rd shift warehouse role for minimum wage and it was a super urgent need for our client and in a remote area. The only guy with experience I could get to bite was... Very interesting.
All his resume said was "I've done warehouse stuff for a long time.. I have F**K YOU tatted on my forehead.. Please let me get in front of you though, I'm the definition of don't judge a book by the cover."
Screened the guy, skyped with him, and had him come in to meet with me. He was great. I let the client know what to expect before sending him on the interview. They hired him on the spot. datacollect_ct
The Green Thumb.
A guy applying for a position in agriculture research just sent a photo of a plant in his backyard. funk_truck
You sir do not look like the photo you submitted, this interview is OVER! TomasNavarro
Plot twist: The plant got hired. WizardsVengeance
Such Strength....
I wasn't the employer, but a secretary asked to print off all the cover letters and resumes that had come in. In one person's cover letter, I couldn't help but notice a sentence that had (company name) in one of the paragraphs. The person missed spot they were meant to fill in, in this obvious template of a cover letter. I found it funny that they listed, "attention to detail" as one of their greatest strengths. ToughTriflenb
Tell me more about David!
We were hiring for a position in IT recently. One applicant was this lady, around 60. Used to work in IT in the 90s, then quit to watch her daughters children. Most recent job was cashiering in a supermarket.
From her CV I learned: when she was 17 she visited the US for a couple of weeks on a student exchange program, where she met "David." They fell in love. Afterwards they kept in contact, until he eventually came to our country and they got married. They had an exciting life, being roadies for rock bands and such. Somewhere along the line they managed to finish Uni and had two daughters. David was the love of her life.
Then something happened (unfortunately she didn't elaborate), and David isn't in her life anymore. I never found out whether he died or they got divorced or something. She devoted all her energy to her daughters and their offspring, since that was all she had left of David. Now after the grandchildren are old enough, she wants to work in IT again.
David's name appeared in the application (CV+cover letter) a whopping 17 times. Sometimes I wonder what happened to him. Lazycat0204
Maybe you should apply to Maury?
GiphyI work for one of the largest staffing firms in the United States, so I've seen probably well over one thousand CV's in my tenure here. I wouldn't say this was a "bad" CV, more that it was just the funniest one I've ever seen.
We receive a lot of applications through typical job boards such as Indeed or CareerBuilder, and when they apply we get sent an email that has their CV attached to it with the job they applied for. We received numerous applications from one person, and when we opened the CV attachment expecting to see their experience, it was actually a one page description of how this particular man cheated on his girlfriend multiple times and this was how she was getting back at him, by screwing him out of the positions he was trying to apply for by replacing his CV with this document.
Easily one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my 2 years at this company, we laughed about it for hours.SuperSmashOSU
Or did you mean 'Werky?'
I think it was submitted as a joke (I hope), but it had official header info (name and contact info), but was blank underneath and said, in hand-scrawl: "Me need worky."
What bothered me most is that I would have spelled it "Workie." CitizenCAN_mapleleaf
But could she Bend & Snap?
I'm not sure if it's the worst, but it was the most entertainingly bad. Ya know in Legally Blonde where Reese Witherspoon gives out her resume and its on pink, scented paper?
I got one like that that about 3 years ago, which, looking it up on google just now to confirm, made this reference 15 years out of date (though if it was scented, I missed it). The resume started off, literally her first paragraph, talking about how Legally Blonde was her favorite movie. It was full of doodles in the margins and specifically requested I not contact her previous employers because she felt she was fired unfairly, and instead listed several sorority sisters as references.
She compared herself to Elle Woods several times, explicitly saying any hiring manager who wouldn't hire her off of this resume was doing so because their couldn't handle her individuality. I'm honestly not entirely sure if this was a legit resume or some kind of joke. It had almost nothing to do with the job listing. My manager joked that Buzzfeed was gonna write about me if I didn't call.
The job went unfilled. We chose literally no one over this. linguotgr
All the Info....
I received one which just said "I have no skills cuz I never worked before but I have my GED." Nothing else.
On a different resume I received, the candidate listed his height. He was 5'5. I don't know why he thought that would be relevant. notatallimsure
Yogi 2020....
GiphyI am not making this up. I was doing the hiring for a company and a guy put on a line of his 'qualities' that he was "smarter than the average bear" For those of you that don't know, this was a favorite line from the main character in the cartoon Yogi Bear. BeefheartLives
Oh Andrew....
It was worst I've ever seen, but also my favorite.
My company does business with a certain family friendly theme park. This means our employees can't have visible tattoos, crazy hair colors, they need to be able to pass a drug screening, background check, etc. I received a resume for a sales position from a guy we will call Andrew. I just pulled it back up so I can quote it word for word. The cover letter said:
"Hey what's good? I have worked at almost every fast food place around but now it's time to try something new. I don't know how to do retail but I'll learn. I don't have official sales experience of the legal kind of you know what I mean, but that was a few weeks ago and I'm not like that no more"
On his resume he listed the places he worked at and had descriptions such as, "take peoples orders and clean up their messes" and "take peoples orders money and give them their s**t"
I thought the resume was submitted as a joke until I looked Andrew up on Facebook (he had an uncommon last name) and found his profile. watching-the-office
You're full of Swiss....
It was mostly a bunch of bullet points about why he didn't like cheese. Haha! His last job was at a cheese factory.
I suspect he was fired from there and didn't want to say, so he kind of over played the not liking cheese thing as a reason for leaving.
It was still very weird to be on a CV though. thermonuclearmuskrat
It's a Secret...
GiphyI got one with a first name only, no address, no email, no phone number. Even if I wanted to hire him, there was no way to get ahold of him. Token_Black_Rifle
The BF will help....
Just yesterday I was interviewing a girl that mentioned "SQL curiosity" in her CV. So it's the middle of the interview and I randomly ask her if she is confident with SQL to which she responds "Well, I personally don't know how it works, but my boyfriend is a programmer and is very good at it."
No, we did not hire her boyfriend. martinkarolev
Coffee is LIFE!!!
GiphyI helped my old boss scan through CVs a while back.
A student applying for a job as a barista. Their opening line "I don't believe coffee is a drink, I believe it is an experience and you need me to be the face of that journey." He had a little waffle about how coffee changed his life and molded him as a person, how coffee has been his savior in university.
This kid seemed to really be into coffee, it was well written but we were a coffee shop in a shopping centre, we didn't need his prose. He was an English student and the CV read as if it was a piece of course work. The whole thing was in comic sans and the only experience he had down was "Coffee drinker for 19 years" the kid was 19. He didn't get the job, but I'm sure he graduated well with how well the opening letter was written though. Monjara
I Love Font.
Font size 30pt, comic sans, and just described her appearance. "I am looking for a job." izyozy
One of my worst was the opposite. 10pt font, 3 pages, front-and-back describing minute technical details of like every job they'd held in the last 20 years. Dude, you may be qualified, but I'll never know because no one's got time to read your novella in the middle of the work day. disappointer
Accidents Happen...
I had a guy who sent in a resume where he had accidentally pasted an internet banner ad for porn to the top of it. Who knows how many of those he sent out... stars_are_silent
The pillow.
Our office had a submission for a legal assistant and under skills was "always sleeps with one eye open." lcat729
Gripping her pillow tight ? 🤘🏻 slinky999
Health First....
Wasn't really bad, but he did have a section that stood out.
HEALTH: In good health.
I was hiring EMTs for a health screening, so I can kind of understand it, but just weird.... IrishMedicNJ
So Glossy.
GiphyMy MIL once got one for her accounting office that was a bog standard CV for an low-ranking accounting position.
And attached to it was a huge glossy photo of the applicant on the beach, sprawled on the sand at sunset, with a focus on her ample assets. ky0nshi
By the Slice.
I worked in a cafe and the guy whose job was to wash dishes, showed me his cv for an upcoming job interview
It specified that he 'can cut Mahon cheese, very good thin slice.'
The job was for security. thehazzanator
Skimping....
I needed someone to work at a gas station. Guy applied and his resume said he was the assistant manager everywhere he worked previously. Except he abbreviated it without punctuation.
That's right. He was a 5 time fool Man looking to pump your tank. casualblair
Oh the Young....
Not unusual or sadly unique, but when I was working at pub I was good mates with the manager, and we'd often have a scan through CVs that had been dropped in by young people looking for a job after they left school.
Most of these kids were like 16 or 17 at most, but had CVs that ran to three or four pages. Even someone in their 40s going for a high-flying management job at a world-leading financial company on a few million £ a year should only have one or two pages MAX.
These kids had done nothing aside from GCSE and maybe a paper round, bit of volunteering at most, and that's perfectly fine and reasonable when you're 16 and straight out of school.
What the hell do they get taught in school? To fill out as much crap as possible to make it look good? Why aren't schools teaching them that writing about how they enjoy going to the cinema or gardening with their Dad (a genuine inclusion) is not going to get them a job.
It was waiting-on work at a country pub. Putting nothing except "I have all my limbs and the normal number of chromosones" would have over-qualified them. aegeaorgnqergerh
It's Art.
Own a video production/advertising company. After the first year of business, we were expanding into three different cities. For each city we were wanting two graphic designers, job listings go up, toms of applicants. Since this is & still is my baby, I do all the hiring personally. I go over all the CV's, interview, etc. Cue Mr. Word Art. Not only did he apply for the job in all 3 cities that were up to a thousand miles apart, keep in mind no moving costs etc because we were looking for someone already established in said big city, he sent in three different resumes.
Now, these resumes weren't just any resumes, they were completely, 100% made with word art. The weirdest thing is, they were sent in as a .jpg, so not even a print to PDF, just a screen shot. Each resume contained the same information, but used different, "art," to state the same info. Hands down the worst yet funniest resume I've ever seen. just_a_manatee
Services Rendered.
GiphyI got a resume from an actual prostitute once. She included it on her resume... along with the name of the company and website you could go to book her "services" Listed under her job description was "assessing and meeting clients needs and desires." tossaway587