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".

a long time when I was hiring a junior project manager in a translation firm, I got an application from someone whose only professional experience was being "personal assistant to Miss Bluebell" at the Crazy Horse Cabaret here in Paris. I offered her an interview, more out of curiosity than anything else, but she declined when she realised that our company "wasn't involved in show business".

A friend of my daughter put on her UCAS form that she was a pigeon fancier, unfortunately the person interviewing her for Oxford was also a pigeon fancier. It didn't go well!

I was only going to read and not comment on this thread. Until I read your post.

I have tears running down my face at I can run fast like a horse. 😂😂😂😂😂

Haha! She probably was like 'well...I'm only just getting into it. Erm..It's a new found passion...' while widely grinning and internally shitting it!

Not CV but I once interviewed someone for a role and asked "Tell me something about yourself that's not on your CV"

And they said "I'm getting married this weekend and my parents don't know"

WTAF? (and no, they didn't get the job)

IQ 150 and they were hired and there is no way their IQ was that high.

I once had a member of staff if they could have a separate meeting for the Christian teachers to pray together and for each other as working time - when I explained I felt this would be excluding certain members of the team that weren’t Christian they said ‘but surely Christians should get a benefit now our Head of Department (me) is a Christian they knew this only because they had seen me in a service once.

As a new head of department I was asked if our lunch out (paid for the department) could be at a nice local cafe instead of a pub as they had always felt a bit excluded as they didn’t drink alcohol due to faith reasons. I readily agreed, thought it was a lovely idea and booked a local cafe on the sea front who was happy to accommodate us, a member of staff put in a formal complaint and grievance against me and this member of staff for discriminating against their Christian beliefs as we weren’t going to a pub. I pointed out we weren’t a faith organisation and we had two pregnant members of the team and a number of people didn’t want / or didn’t drink alcohol as they drove to and from work and a cafe was a sensible idea they told me if I was a ‘proper Christian’ I would be in the pub! I was Wtaf? It was 20 years ago now but odd.

Not a CV The weirdest thing ever at interview was when I was a governor and interviewing PE teachers for the local secondary school. asked about a bad lesson he had delivered he explained how he had ‘accidentally’ groped a young female student and how awful he had felt after and that it was still difficult to process. He didn’t get the job. I admire his honestly but nope.

I also had a teacher who interviewed for a teaching job and when asked about their difficulties said they didn’t like children or people in general!

The application was already not looking great - near unreadable because of the spelling and grammar, plus I think about 8 or 9 jobs in two years which was a red flag - but then we came to the reasons for leaving said jobs:
'It was boring' (honest but not really appropriate)
'They was all c**ts'
'Got accused of thieving FALSE!!!'
'Got accused of thieving again'

We didn't hire him.

Current job: Soldier of Fortune.

(Turned out to be a job at Soldier of Fortune magazine, but certainly gave me a start before I read the detail.)

Also one memorable one for an editorial post that mentioned their excellent proofreading and attention to detail multiple times. I began by counting errors, but gave up when I hit 25 and still wasn't all the way through the 2-page CV.

Opening CV statement “as a lifelong empath” (or words to that effect) then going into great detail about how it helped with problem solving - for an IT support job
Many dodgy email addresses
More recently one where the person’s name was different in different places on the CV. Their full name was Dave John Smith, the CV referred to them as Dave in one place, John in another. The recruiter claimed responsibility so we gave benefit of the doubt, candidate joined a Teams call as Barry Jones! They were quite evasive when asked directly, what their name actually was…

Their secondary school education dates put them at least in their late 40s/early 50s. They had a paragraph right at the front of the CV listing their “key achievements”….. which were all things like grade 3 piano and bronze DofE.

I used to be Practice Manager for a large firm of solicitors. I was recruiting for the senior partner's secretary. CV looked good, loads of experience, used all the right terminology. Turned up looking like she was heading for the beach! Flip flops, short skirt. She interviewed badly. I told her straight away that she wouldn't really be the right mix with the partner who was extremely fussy. Her response, I don't think I'd like it here, it's too formal! Then turns out most of her CV had been copied from her DS gf CV that she found.

I once interviewed someone with similar. His other hobby was guitar playing. I was not keen on the rest, but he was replacing me as a strategist in internet business and my bosses thought he was worth a punt. I was interviewing - he fitted a very specific stereotype and was wearing logo socks of his current employer (a very large international computer and software company), clutched a water bottle and couldn't describe what strategy was. Needless to say he wasn't hired

A candidate said they were a furry.

Straight in the trash folder 🤣🤣🤣

along with pronoun CVs

From an apprenticeship application: "Hobbies - raping". It took me a beat to realise he'd left a p out.

She may have been cursing not listening when told in school not to make up outrageous hobbies!

Back in the day when everyone left with a Record of Achievement, those maroon folders probably festering in your garage, we used to have to rein in claims made in the Personal Statement but they did give us a bit of light relief at times!

This one is my own application as a 6th form student. I'd almost forgotten. My mum forced me to apply and I didn't want the job as it was all evenings and weekends and would have interfered with my social life!

They asked for a handwritten letter and a photo so I wrote a letter and drew pictures of pineapples and bananas in the margin and sent a photo of me with a spoon stuck on my chin. I hoped that would put them off but I got offered an interview.

They were probably curious about this wacky outgoing fun loving person whereas I'm actually quite quiet and shy. During the interview they asked what I would do if an irate customer came in and there was no manager present. I said I would go and hide in the staff room until he went away.

Did not get job. Objective achieved.

These are brilliant.

I remember when we were at uni one of my friends left his laptop out in the shared kitchen while writing his CV and his 'friend' came along and added 'good in bed' to his 'personal qualities' list.
Fortunately he proofread it before applying for a Saturday job.

This is so heartwarming, good on your hubby for helping him❤️

That is quite an achievement, come to think of it!

Well that's a shitty question IMO

an interview is to expand on an application, that's what people have prepared for

It's a dick move to want to catch people "off guard" in an unbalanced dynamic like that

The Twice-exceptional thing is actually a sort of semi-formal educational label!

My son's in a Twice-exceptional / twice-gifted class. It means, frankly speaking, highly intelligent but notably 'different', almost always neurodivergent.

It also tends to means the person struggles, unless helped in childhood a great deal, to fit it easily. (In my son's case fortunately he's got that help and he's going back into standard education and expected to do very well now, but I dread to think what would have happened without the special support he's had).

Being a Twice-exceptional person certainly doesn't mean you don't need work experience!

Oddly enough some TE people end up very successful indeed because they -are- highly gifted, but they tend to carve their own path. Others never navigate the social side of life well enough to 'succeed' despite exceptional intelligence and unusual insights.

😂😂😂
fab thread!!!!

😂😂

These stories make me think of this brilliant Mitchell & Webb sketch: