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

There's some sort of institution on social media at the moment advertising for cheap degrees and other qualifications (or gives grants for them, or something such as) that does that! I pointed it out to them on their post, and they blocked me!

@unsync I’m cackling hahaha

not a typo, but one applicant had a heading "my weaknesses" on her CV. Under that she wrote: I'm too attractive.

She was applying for a position in a law firm. No particualt level of attractiveness was required.

I owe my entire career to applying for a job on a paper application form in turquoise calligraphy.

It was a very respected company. In hindsight, this was an incredibly naïve thing to do. But it helped me stand out I suppose… especially in an industry that gets thousand of applicants for entry level jobs. And this application form came off the back of a speculative fax. There was no advertised job. Madness really.

I have to thank that easily pleased recruiter - it’s been a great profession and I’ve had so much fun.

A work colleague of mine sent a letter to the boss explaining that she had no experience or degree but that she could make a really great cup of tea - she got the job. It was a bottom of the ladder role but she smashed it and is in charge of many staff now and hugely respected. It might make a difference that we are in a creative industry where quirky or unusual isn’t instantly dismissed.

When I worked for an Iranian company in the Middle East, they binned every application without an attached picture. So entire nationalities where photos with cv’s weren’t the done thing were instantly disqualified (no real loss to them as the boss was an arms dealer wanted by Interpol and was a massive, conniving, lying arsehole).

@Kidulthood2027 and @Roundaboot I’m cracking up hahaha

analcyst 😂

These days I would be inclined to think a BBC staffer did that on purpose.

Was she 8?!

I once received a CV from a lady who used to be a hand model and listed that on her CV for an academic post.
No problem really and actually a good way to make yourself memorable.

But, despite the fact she'd stopped modelling about ten years before, the hand modelling was really high up on her CV and she spent the same amount of space talking about modelling as she did her doctorate.

I had a similar thing with a candidate once. She didn’t have anything as impressive as a doctorate to ignore, but she did go into great detail about how much she loved going shopping and various hobbies unrelated to the job, as well as a mind-numblingly in-depth recounting of various irrelevant Saturday jobs and her “proudest achievement” - managing the ice cream stall at the cinema all by herself on a really busy weekend.

Her one piece of relevant experience - a summer internship in a junior version of the role we were advertising - got two lines. She was way too inexperienced in general, but if she’d at least given us a bit of detail about her placement and what it had taught her it would have been something. Instead it just showed shocking judgement.

This person must have had a terrific CV to be working at the BBC.

My all time favourite was:
Genital office duties. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Had one who said their greatest strength was being conscious.

Another who sent a rambling example of their customer service skills from their time working in a McDonald’s which repeatedly referred to a curtain promotion they had managed. Took me a while to work out what they meant. (Certain).

We get a lot of applications where the 500 word box for a personal statement has just ‘hard worker’ or similar two word efforts in. Those get filed under ‘job club’.

These days before I start I quickly go on ChatGPT and ask it to write me a 500 word application for the following job- then paste in the whole advert. The results are often virtually indistinguishable from some applications. 100% waffle with no evidence of anything. Those ones ALWAYS have the phrase ‘ my skills and experience are perfectly aligned with the requirements of the role’. I have no problem with light use of AI but maybe give it a hint of effort!

Great thread. Shame on that person who threw people’s applications up in the air though. Applying for jobs is hard work.

Slightly different but I did point out to DDs boyfriend that using the email address “Hyperkiller456” was not the best way to apply for a job.
He was a gamer you see!

Someone applying for an admin role listed under ‘Relevant Training’:
Stage Combat
Holistic Swedish Massage

I quite like where I work, but it’s not that interesting.

I once very narrowly avoided telling a client that my manager was “very busty at the moment” 🫢

I've had my share of CVs accidentally swearing etc but the ones I remember, not sure these are mistakes but still:

One application form informed me the applicant had 'always been an overachiever in life' but, and this is with absolutely no judgement, listed a very average academic record and string of short term admin assistant level jobs well into their 30s. No mention of any particular challenges or achievements outside work or study that might account for the statement. All absolutely fine but I was mystified by the overachiever comment!

One was someone overqualified but in a different, hard hit area applying for a job during lockdown. So their experience was transferrable rather than direct.

They rather pompously kept repeating 'my CV clearly explains I have more than adequate experience for this role' or similar in answer to all application form questions (competency style). I understood their predicament and felt for them but can't see why they thought that would come across well. I suppose they were throwing in thinking someone might snap them up but I was recruiting a permanent role they would have needed quite a bit of training for.

I accepted my fuck up and never contacted them again as felt far too awkward having to go back and say sorry sorry, know I claim to be competent and sent you a curry recipe and not a cv sorry sorry tinkly laugh!

I'm not surprised, presumably you needed a crane to move them!

May I request that from now on, you do this "I meant to do that" bollocks instead of the whiny "flip the sexes" crap we usually get? It'll be a while before this stops being funny and becomes just as boring. Ta.

DB told of short listing for a job and rejecting a candidate with a distinctive name due to lack of appropriate qualifications. They kept the applicants’ CVs on file. The next year the same person applied with a very ‘enhanced’ CV - new degrees, post grad qualifications and employment history. DB didn’t short list that time but was interviewing and recognised the name. The candidate found himself having to explain the discrepancy between the two CVs in his interview and unsurprisingly didn’t get the job.

Someone claimed they had worked as a stationary assistant rather than a stationery assistant. I already had a few stationary assistants and didn’t want to employ another!

A person who had typed their name in enormous font (size 64 or thereabouts) and misspelt their first name, Brian as Brain.

CVs are formal, MN is informal. I use contractions on here, for example, miss out commas, use slang...
Feel free to explain the mistake though, or are you going to backtrack? Both are common usage and acceptable.
As for offering to help, yes, fair point, not the place. I've seen a fair few and thought I'd offer, but didn't want to be swamped and disappoint if the offer was taken up.

No bad cv's but at the height of the whole 'searching facebook for any infomation on job candidates' I sent off dozens of carefully crafted 'explain your job absences while looking for work experiance' CV's (due to poor work history) with a Facebook account using my very specific/unique name showing dozens of random photos of me drinking & with children 🤔 so it basically just looked like my lack of work history was down to getting pregnant young & pissing up every night curtsy of my own mother trying to get intouch with her sister who'd blocked her in a family fued... (my actual Facebook page showing I was just a normal person used a nickname & no surname!)

Still absolutely grates me how much I struggled to get interviews & how much stress I felt at that time of my life that she did it & so poorly that I looked like a complete mess when it was entirely my own mothers doing!

Perhaps this sort of tit?