To ask what is the worst job application you have read? *lighthearted*

[jobapplicationshock]

Name changed as this is outing.

Someone has been headhunted for a corporate job that she seems to fit exactly. Great education, exemplary recommendations, great networking skills (all according to linkedin)

I was responsible for going through the applications and forwarding on; all great until I got to "the one" and my eyes nearly popped out of my head.

On the "about me" bit she has written "[MNHQ removed as it was identifying]"
Objectives are "[MNHQ removed as it was identifying]".

This is a first time for me, enlighten me with your tales of application woes please

fridge

Do you like Rod Stewart? That really made me laugh. That's a bloody cracking interview question.

I guess the depressing thing will come when the answer from young applicants starts to be "Who?"

Oh, and Fiddle I am entirely sympathetic to your Magaluf Cock Hunt screenshot. It sounds like one of those nightmare dreams where you are in public in your underwear....

Someone I knows mum wanted to get back to work after 18years as a SAHM so I took her cv into my boss who was recruiting. A couple of hours later my boss called me into the office to clarify a few things on the cv. She had written-
I would love to work for you please if you wouldn’t mind
I have nothing to write as I’ve been SAHM for 18 years but I love my children and want to make them proud of me
That was it.
My manager gave her an interview and she is a great member of staff and well liked. Sometimes people just need a chance.

I had a man present supporting information for his application. All confidential and sensitive info that should never have left his previous employer's site...

I have recently had a application sent in where they covering letter is addressed to 'Dear Box'
I don't think they are understanding that P.O Box is not a person but an address.

I don’t know how to name change 🤔

A relative of mine came within a whisker of being sanctioned by the Jobcentre for having failed to apply for a job they had recommended. She pointed out that she didn't have the relevant qualifications or experience. Well, her CV and the advert both had "project" in them somewhere - shame one was IT, the other building construction... Clearly she should have just sent off an application knowing she would look like a twit, but that has never been her style.

Pineapplesnaffle

🙄🙄🙄

soupforbrains Just make up a file and attach it x

Some years ago in Denmark, they made the rule that you had to write a certain amount of applications each week. Several company directors warned about it and said it was unfair that they should spend a lot of resources on the government's desire to motivate the unemployed. The rule dissappeared quite quickly. Not because of what the company directors had said. It was sooo beautiful. Many unemployed had started sending applications to the government. Directly to the MPs who had made that rule and to their departments. Some of them sent the same letter to the same person/department every week. When the MPs had to use their resources on this futile exercise they quickly changed their minds.

The impersonation story has just reminded me of the time a candidate who I very vaguely knew from my uni days spun the interviewer a tall tale about me. He claimed he’d bumped into me at an event recently and that I’d told him he simply must apply for a job at our workplace and that I thought he’d be perfect.

In fact I hadn’t seen him since uni (where I’d barely known him then) and certainly would not have recommended him for any jobs based on what I did know about him!

Unfortunately for him, the interviewer knew it was all bollocks without even having to ask me. The company had quite a lucrative referral scheme in place, so if I had indeed wanted to give this guy a glowing recommendation then my name would have been on his application and I would have got a nice little bonus if he’d been hired. Because my name was nowhere to be seen on his application my colleague strongly suspected it was a lie, and I later confirmed that it was.

He had done terribly in the tests anyway so nothing I said would have made a difference one way or the other.

user your story about Denmark has given me the deepest sense of satisfaction. :)

poisoningpidgeysinthepark It's not a faux pas to include A level results at all. I had an interview on Monday where the interviewer referred, positively, to my A level subjects, even though I have a BSc and an MSc.

GCSEs are probably superfluous if you have higher education qualifications, but I'm leaving my A levels on.

The one that sticks in my mind was an individual giving an example of making effective decisions.

Their decision was to discipline a member of staff on sick leave and visit them in hospital to give them a letter requiring them to attend a disciplinary meeting. Unfortunately they died before the meeting took place

I worked in a company with different divisions, someone (I’ll call him Steve) had left our division to work for another. Around 6 months after Steve moved I fancied the move too, doing the same job as him. I applied and got an interview.
In the week before the interview, Steve had told everyone in our division he was moving back, gave the date, it had been decided which projects he would be working on etc.
So in interview, Steve’s boss said about working on a particular piece of work: I asked “so would I just be taking over from Steve?”.
Turns out Steve hadn’t told his boss he was leaving

Another example of making effective decisions: someone involved in train signalling knew people were working on the track so delayed a train rather than just running them over. Apparently it was a difficult decision as they'd been told to minimise delays!

Dh does interviews they've had a couple of notable ones:

The most notable one had apparently got an MA which according to the university he said he'd got it from didn't exist. He did an initial phone interview (as they always do for any possibles) and they asked him about it. He accused them of not doing proper research about his degree. So they terminated the phone call, and said they'd do a follow up one in a week.
They phoned the university and eventually got through to someone who could talk about it. They said roughly that an MA was awarded basically to someone who failed the PhD, but completed the course.
So the next phone call they asked about this. Person denied this and said the university was making it up.
They later received an email accusing them of all sorts including racism, which was kind of ironic as he was called something fairly common like "Tom Brown" and they'd never met him, nor did the CV give any idea of racial group, nor did he have any noticeable accent, so they had no idea what race he was.
The really silly thing was that if he'd been honest with them and said that he'd done a PhD but not passed, but they felt he'd achieved enough for a MA he would have been in with a chance because he interviewed fine apart from that.

Another one was a CV they got sent on from an agency. It was a paper copy and full of things like "I am very interested in applying for the position I saw advertised in the Times" with the crossings out in pen. It also spent some time going into their main attribute which apparently was "attention two detail".
It ended with a phrase along the lines of: "If you choose not to employ me, then it's your loss as I'm better than anyone else you currently employ. Please phone for an interview on Thursday between 4 and 5pm as I'm very busy and I cannot waste time coming to you."

They have kept the latter in the filing cabinet to give to people as an example of how not to apply.

Tom Brown" and they'd never met him, nor did the CV give any idea of racial group, nor did he have any noticeable accent, so they had no idea what race he was

You can't be that ignorant can you?

Tom brown could easily be a black British Caribbean.

It is a very nasty thread, there could be applicants who have learning difficulties, or disabilities, or SN. My dd 10 has ASD and learning difficulties, I would love her to get a job she enjoys, but feel really sad that people like op will be laughing at her .

Aeroflotgirl a thread like this is useful to potential applicants, IMO, in outlining what is utterly inappropriate and yet what people continue to do.

If you want to help your dd, when she's old enough to get a job, helping her to avoid any of these howlers is a very good start.

(I also dispute the idea that these are all from people with SEN. What would make an SEN person likely to lie and tell the panel that they were my assistant, for example, when I don't even have an assistant?)

There are some clear silly chancers about. I will help my daughter complete the application forms, and help her apply for jobs she can do. Also her special school, do work experience. I am just so worried for her, as her anxiety is so high, she meltsdown easily, if things go wrong and to her way. Both school and I are working on that, and she has improved a lot.

Tom brown could easily be a black British Caribbean.

Or indeed a white publicly educated male. What's your point?

I'm not sure if you got the memo but not every brown person tends to have the name 'brown' embedded somewhere in their name.