What's the oddest thing you've seen listed on a CV?

[FelicityShagsWell]

What's the weirdest thing you've seen on a CV? I received one in application for a job and they had put a hobbies section in which they'd listed "smoking".

Appreciate the typo here😂

Yup. She didn't expect that I've ever see it as we had worked together in one location (her as a consultant) and she was now applying for a consultancy in one of our regional offices. Unfortunately, for her, I moved to that regional office, and I was responsible for the consultant's pool.

Needless to say, I didn't hire her (to be fair, I would never want to work with her again anyway, even without the CV issue). I didn't flag it to others though as I could easily choose other people to hire without having to do so.

There were also things on her CV that never happened - they were planned/in the workplan but didn't end up being done. And things that were only done after her contract had ended.

A friend asked me to read her rather impressive resume before applying. It was pretty poorly formatted, errors etc.

Had to have an uncomfortable conversation about listing a professional degree. She'd failed out of the course and never graduated. I told her she couldn't state a degree she didn't have, especially as the job she was applying for legally required a degree. She wouldn't remove it, said she'd attended uni so it counted (never went to class and didn't even know the basics). I knew the potential employer, so if she'd gotten an interview I would have morally had to tell them to make sure they check credentials. Thankfully she didn't even get an interview.

Travelling.

Lazing about indulging yourself on holiday is not a hobby. 🙄

I think it's more just because buffaloes are unusual in the UK, and people expect them to be a lot wilder than the more traditional dairy cows. Other than that... no, in my eyes! Milking any animal is fairly similar, with the main differences being in their size, smell, how much mess they make, and how many teats they have.

I had a run-in with a man at uni, years ago. He was harrassing me and trying to abuse me, and in the end, I slapped him round the face to make him go away.

The next morning, I got an apology note under my door....written in green ink. The only time in my life I have ever seen anyone write in green ink, and he was clearly batshit.

To be fair that’s literally wireframing which is how all good website and content design should start out! I spend a lot of time sketching things in my role before they become web pages.

@NoodBanaan as a lapsed German speaker, I'd be impressed by the Swiss German. How did you manage that?

Wrote it on the hoof?

Well that’s a notable achievement so what’s your point?

I lived there for a while and speak another germanic language plus German so it wasn't so hard. I was really disappointed really in because I thought I was doing so well because I actually understood the gym instructor, only to chat with her after and find she was actually Swedish! She was speaking Swedish-Schwizerdütsch though

I interviewed a women in her 30s “professional student” with 3 degrees and applying for a temp position before starting a 4th degree. Asked why she applied for the role she said my dad told me to.

Star signs.
A girl who attached a bikini pic to a CV for an office role.
A guy, mid 20s, who had a personal statement that included 'Name - is smooth like coffee, cool like cream' in the intro.

OMG I taught someone with 'Juicylucy' as their hotmail.

I don't get to see CVs but I have helped quite a few students polish up their CV and to use their college email not their 'Juicylucy' or 'sexylips'.

I agree Klingon is a full language and no one is a native speaker so it shows ability to learn a language.

Slight tangent to this on the language on CVs. I was teaching students whose main course was health and social care or childcare.

I knew a lot of the students didn't speak English at home so I asked why they didn't put their languages on the CV. I was told, "I don't have a qualification in it" or, "I speak it but I can't write it".

They were looking for jobs in nurseries and care homes in a very diverse area.

They left my class with languages listed as things like 'fluent Urdu' or 'Spoken Bengali'

Sorry to derail, please keep the funny ones coming.

Was the guy "bigboybarry" mentioned upthread ?

When I temped back in the 90s, my boss was recruiting for a replacement PA and ask me to look through the applications: One applicant had sent in several pictures of herself along with her CV - one in a shiny short slip dress in a nightclub and another poolside photo in a bikini.

This was for a law firm.

I wish someone would solve my prombles!

I had “computer literate” until someone pointed out that this made me look a bit stupid 😳

I had one CV where the guy described himself as a 'maveric', that was a hard no!

😂

No gems to share but wanted to just say thank you to OP for starting this thread! It has given me such belly laughs this morning - like the Mumsnet of yore!

This is reminding me of someone who rang our shop once to tell us he'd written a musical about model trains and would he like him to send us it. He was thinking about a West End show
Not sure why he thought we might be able to get it into production considering our musical background is extremely limited and we don't live anywhere near London anyway - but the shop we had at the time sold model trains so we were the obvious people to ask in his mind!
Not very surprisingly, the musical has never come to fruition. Wonder if he thought he could be the overture to Starlight Express!

I used to work for a charity and we were hiring for a receptionist. This was back in roughly 2001, so in the days of actual paper CVs. We had one candidate send in her CV printed on green translucent plastic sheets. The only way I could describe it is like the sheets you would have used for an overhead projector back in school in the 90s. But matte and lime green!

Her CV was 8 pages long. I don’t even remember what was actually on it now, but it must have been good. 😂 Included with her CV was also a 50 page patent application for a new design for a multi story car park. 😳

We actually interviewed her just because we were so intrigued. She did not get the job, bless her, as was mad as a box of frogs.

A woman I worked with used a green pen. Actually two of them did. One started an affair with the head of department and made false allegations against another woman who she was frankly jealous of. The second was a bully. I never saw their CVs but they're on LinkedIn and their profiles are 🦇 💩.

I worked with a woman who always wrote in green ink, her surname was Green and she thought she was cute! She was highly self obsessed in every way possible, I can tell you that!