To ask for the biggest CV fails you've come across?

Not a CV but when asked for her two referees one young lass gave her mother. Seemed very surprised when I explained this wasn’t acceptable as “ my mum knows me well”

I had the opportunity to apply for early retirement on exceedingly good terms. After all those years of preparing for annual reviews and highlighting how valuable I was for the business and how unique my skills and experience were, I had to write an application explaining how most of what I did was totally unnecessary and the little that remained could be done much cheaper by hiring a consultant when needed. Felt very strange, and not particularly good for the self-esteem.

My favourite was one that included a detailed explanation of how he took GCSE Spanish but failed it.

I had one that listed everything they've done from the age of 5. It was for a specialised role where people normally hold PhDs and this person had the most basic qualifications, no wonder he had to list his primary school to bulk up his CV.

I have sadly made this mistake in a letter I sent out for my local authority too. We did have a laugh about it after it was addressed in a response letter but I was mortified 🙈

I worked in marketing in the 90s when it was de rigeur for people who fancied themselves as a creative genius or the next Saatchi brother to send ridiculous CVs to showcase their originality. Coloured paper, wacky fonts, delivered with a teabag so you could have a cuppa when reading it, spoken aloud on a dictaphone tape, written in the style of a comic strip, flat pack furniture instructions... honestly. The day we got a CV on white paper, times new roman font, with a simple covering letter the office practically erupted in applause.

This was going to be mine! A former employer advertised for a ‘pubic relations consultant’.

🤣🤣🤣

I had one where the candidate had included a coloured pie chart showing how much time he spent on tasks an average work day.

That's interesting to know!
I've only recently been applying for new roles, as I'm disillusioned with the job I've been doing for the past 10 years, and always send PDF CVs.
I don't want random people having edit access to my CV.
Many years ago a recruiter changed my CV before sending it out and it was incorrect, I was bloody fuming!

Currently in exec search and I've seen some dreadful CVs.

When hiring in EMEA I find Europeans, particularly Germans feel the need to include headshots and marital status, even listing the names and ages of their children.

Some photos are wildly inappropriate- an HR Director included a photo of herself in a bikini on holiday. She looked great, but hardly appropriate.

Another CV included a line with each job role the reason that they left.
Explore new career opportunities and redundancy for example.
But the last job stated "The Chief was insufferable, I lost the employment tribunal".

I despise CVs that include cover letters making demands such as -
I will ONLY work MAXIMUM 2 days in the office (for an on-site position).

Anything AI generated. We can tell - just shows you make minimal effort.

Hobbies and interests -
Converting people to veganism.
I have a "passion project" selling juice plus to clients around the world 🙄

I’ve seen CVs for serious office jobs and also a nanny position where someone has added their email - no problem with that. Except when the email address is eg [email protected]!

I saw one CV where the (Scottish) applicant claimed to have a 'Keen aye for detail'

I once interviewed someone for a fairly senior role, who had proudly written that one of his greatest achievements was to drive risk into organisations. I think (hope) he meant out of.

I was reviewing an application for a PhD place with a senior professor once and one of the candidate’s American referees had written, ‘This one’s a no brainer!’ (Meaning, it’s an easy question, of course you should admit her!) Senior prof didn’t know the expression and thought the referee was rudely saying the candidate hadn’t got a brain.

I temped in a large hotel HR dept for a bit, recruiting mostly hospitality/cleaning staff. We had lots of European applicants for jobs so photos were the norm but I’ll never forget the one CV that was printed on a full page colour picture of the applicant topless, showing off his muscles 😆

Also not a CV and sadly now removed/corrected but for several years Leicesterhshire had some docs available on their website that had them mentioned as Cunty Council.

I have still no idea what "I was the bomb means!!"

It means really good.

Wonder what the job was? 😂

My favourite from an internal candidate included his own notes to someone who helped him with his CV.

Wrote a paragraph on what he achieved in his last role and at the end of it said [THIS BIT READS A BIT FLAT. I WAS THE BOMB & ACED THAT ROLE - CAN YOU EDIT IT SO IT SOUNDS BETTER?].

In fairness, we rang him and asked him to produce an appropriate CV within the hour in order to be included in the process.

He addressed it in the interview in one of the coolest manners ever & styled it out like a pro! I have still no idea what "I was the bomb means!!"

Not a CV but I used to work in public sector audit. We were presenting our annual audit report to a local authority council when the giggles started, spreading from one councillor to another. The words “public sector” were missing a rather vital L is several places in the document…

in became part of standing orders that one of the checks on our documents before they were sent to clients was that we did a search for “pubic” just in case!

Ahh OP, that made me laugh, sorry!

Nothing to add regards CV but I once wrote in an email to a very, very senior audience, "the thong to remember is that ...)

I proof read much better now.

A friend of mine was helping his girlfriend with her job seeking.
He mocked up a sample CV for her to use as a template and included some comedic "achievements" he thought would amuse her.
She thought it was the finished product and sent off a CV claiming that she had "invented jam" and "shot a man in Reno just to watch him die".
She got the job.

Oh help I’m proper giggling at some of these !!

That's so annoying. Always used to do pdfs on purpose so that Word doc formatting didn't get mangled by whatever settings the other person had.