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".

Back in the 90’s when application forms were permitted to ask such things :
From a 30 something year old man , under Marital status : “Virgin”
and another applicant , under Next of kin : “Wife” and Relationship: “Close”

@Piglet89 Nope. Nothing ice related. A water sport

Did the mamifester get the job though? 😂

Not a CV per se but my husband used to be a store manager for a carpet shop and often got kids coming in asking for jobs. It was in the days you used to have to fill in an application form for a job so sort of CV related .
A young lad came in asking for a job , my husband was busy but did have a warehouseman job going . So he quickly ushered him into a room , gave him a pen and the form to fill in and left him for 15 mins . When he returned he took the form off him and it hadn’t been filled in . The young lad explained he couldn’t read or write and then went into the background of his sad upbringing. My husband felt for him and filled it in for him . He took him on on the spot , he turned out to be one of the best warehouseman he ever had and worked his way up to salesman on the shop floor ! Just to add the company paid for the lad to have lessons too .

I suppose it depends on the job you’re applying for. I believe in God and believe that he’s directed me to certain jobs and courses, my faith is a massive part of who I am. At the same time, is that faith relevant to my ability to make a PDF with clickable links in it. I might put down that I volunteer for certain things in church to demonstrate extra skills, but other than that I wouldn’t necessarily mention it.

I recruited for a nursing role where it was necessary to hold a full driving licence and be female.

Readers, a man applied who could not drive, and surprise surprise, had no nursing qualifications either.

Also the ad made it clear CVs would not be accepted, only the application form we provided. We got LOADS of CVs without application forms.

Insular, because quite obviously this was acceptable at certain US Christian schools, and he had seen no reason to research how other places might be different. Arrogant, because he seemed to believe he deserved to ignore the conventions of writing that sort of document because he was so special and important and graced-by-God.

A postgrad application, in the UK, is not about your personal beliefs. You leave them out. Putting them in is like saying to the reader 'well, I know better than you what is important'.

Funnily enough, he didn't get anywhere.

I worked with a fellow teacher - his was [email protected]. An older man too. Strange. Fortunately he got a school one with the job.

Smoking - if it's a pipe then it often is a hobby/pastime.

I get lots of applicants for nursing roles that are not registered nurses. One in the personal statement said ‘ I would be a very good nurse as I like helping and talking to people and I would like someone to teach me how to give injections’.
I also get multiple applications from abroad who clearly have no idea what they are applying for and list qualifying experience as looking after my parents/kids/family members

I agree! I was replying to the person who posted it :)

"I'm an expert in Tudor history"

It turned out at the interview this expertise was ... they'd watched a documentary about Henry VIII.

And another CV in which the first third of it was about how big an Everton fan they are.

Was it show jumping on a hobby horse?

She had literally no experience, and next to our company name, she’d just put “job,” so I don’t think she knew what we actually did 😂

I've had one of these too. A friend of mine called and said I should take a look at the job application they'd just received. One of my former interns had copy-pasted the job description from my LinkedIn profile onto their CV and claimed it was their role. It might have worked too if they had only thought to check the grammar: I'm in France so all of the adjectives etc were in the feminine form but the intern was a man 😂

Not a CV but references.

I worked in a state faith secondary school. To get in you had to fill in the various forms and put down your local parish priest so we could contact him (just hims then) to get a faith reference . As the catchment area was large it involved a dozen + parishes.

Quite a few would put down long dead priests or those who had moved years ago.

Ha ha

I jokingly mentioned to a friend once that I would put beer festivals. I didn't actually go through with it though !

Yeah but TBF I've had a family member go through council funded employment coaching and that's the kind of nonsense they were told to say and do.

Ppl get right fixed up: practice interviews where they're told to over egg their SAHM "transferrable skills" in a way that's only going to piss off a panel who do all that, and a job that's got zero cross over with parenting!

I had one that said 'Steak' in hobbies

Being a Gaza protester 😂😂

If it's the reason for a gap in employment whats the issue?

Especially if it's a field where humanitarian causes have a cross over like public health?.

I would employ on this basis alone!

im going to guess this was for an IT type position?

In the early/mid 70s during a job interview I was asked what my father did for a living - I wasn't married at the time - I assume for married women they would have asked what the husband did.

It was nothing to do with cultural norms just women being judged by their father's/husband's status.

I was really angry about it at the time.

Can't honestly remember whether they offered me the job or not but would not have accepted if they had; admittedly jobs were easier to come by in those days.

@TheeNotoriousPIG is there a significant difference between milking a cow and a buffalo?

Blood and sperm donor. I am NOT making that up. The cv ran to almost 40 pages, too.