To ask for the worst CV's you've ever seen?!

[Isitgiroday]

About to pimp my CV prior to a career change after almost a decade in the same industry - looking for tips and hints of what to avoid!

Use apostrophes correctly. A plural doesn’t have an apostrophe and triple check it. Typos really annoy me on a CV.

A bugbear probably a thread of its own is not getting back to you after an Interview.

If you've got as far as interview and then not heard anything, ring back for feedback. You ought to have been told one way or the other.

However the days of feedback for every application are long gone. The paperwork for anyone that didn't make the shortlist will have hit the Round File straight away. Every position is massively oversubscribed with applicants. If you're experiencing a lot of unsuccessful CV/applications there are advisers you can pay to give you feedback - some of them are very good.

I think someone mentioned references a while back. Most people are reluctant to give a bad reference these days, no matter how bad the candidate is. There's a fear that word will get back to the applicant and the referee might be held to account for what they've said. I met a recruiter that had a very good way around this, they'd ask the referee whether, if their roles were reversed, they'd hire the candidate again. Hesitation was enough.

Would that applicants were this candid........

The one reported up thread who said they'd been sacked from their last job for stealing from the till was at least honest.

LOL at the bloke interviewing in the bath. Terrible interview choices is surely a whole new thread.

@Warpdrive

Please don't send your cv in pdf file. When we redact them, it is much easier if its a word file . Agree with pp, no photographs. Make sure you use the same terminology as the job advert and tweak it for each application to highlight relevant detail. Also, I like interests and hobbies!

I'm not sure I'd want to work for a company that didn't have the competence or software to edit PDFs

I’m going to read this thread more carefully to pick up useful hints later, but wanted to share my gem first. I don’t work in recruitement/management but have worked in local government as an official in charge of answering incoming queries and registering post and other documents. The council had a job posting as a part time administrator on the website. The ad clearly stated that skills included good computer skills, able to work independently and take initiative etc (usual stuff) and to apply, click THIS LINK and use our online application service please and no other applications will be considered.

One woman found the box at the bottom of the page where you could send comments to the webmaster and posted her entire job application into it. The system sent an automatic email to me, opening the official email, and I emailed her politely and said please apply here through this system etc.

She emailed back directly and attached her cv to the email. No other comments or explanations.

So bizarrely out of touch.

@TheNationsFavourite

I think the fastest Brownie in Peckham will be my new user name.

Please, please do it - I'm too lazy to name change but have been chortling at this all afternoon.

"She emailed back directly and attached her cv to the email. No other comments or explanations.

So bizarrely out of touch."

Or maybe she was just applying to keep the Job Centre happy.

Adapted, as the real version would be outing and breach confidentiality, but when applying for a general office admin role in Croydon your ability to lasso a buffalo might not be ever so useful.

@Gwenhwyfar

"She emailed back directly and attached her cv to the email. No other comments or explanations.

So bizarrely out of touch."

Or maybe she was just applying to keep the Job Centre happy.

That's a lots of efgort for that

Effort

"That's a lots of efgort for that"

Not really. Attaching your CV to an email is a lot less effort than filling in an online application form.

@Gwenhwyfar

"That's a lots of efgort for that"

Not really. Attaching your CV to an email is a lot less effort than filling in an online application form.

She also snet the application but nlt through application

Ugh. My keyboard is getting stuck on mn now👀

I have recently recruited. A 2-3 page cv is fine, not fussed about interests. If it’s a couple of lines fine, any more is waffle. Likewise a lot of personal statements are mostly waffle, I don’t have one on mine.

If you’re looking at a career change I think you need to explain why you want to change and how your experience/interchangeable skills can support this. I wouldn’t have considered an inexperienced person for this role as it’s stand alone in a very small company, but if I was recruiting in a big firm with a team of people doing the same/similar role I might.

Keep your CV updated each time you change jobs, whilst you’re in that job. It’s easy to overlook everything you do if you don’t note it at the time. Keep reducing the older jobs to keep your CV short- if you list “process sales orders” for example in your current job it doesn’t need to be repeated in a previous job. Use bullet points- it should mirror the job spec. Always put most recent experience first, working backwards.

Some roles like admin, retail etc will be really oversubscribed, so maybe look at slightly more niche positions which are likely to have fewer applicants. Also contracts like maternity cover are less popular than permanent positions.

The one that sticks in my mind was the candidate who said they were an active member of a pole dancing troupe 🤔

Use the job specification as your guide - make sure your CV reflects the skills in the job spec. Use the same keywords and technical language as the spec to make it easy for the recruiter to spot the skills they are looking for. (Don't do one-size-fits-all CVs, make sure each CV is tweaked towards that specific job.)

2 pages max. Good formatting is essential. A CV should be visual document. Use the space on the page effectively and make sure your formatting is consistent throughout.

Personally I like an interests section provided the interests are genuine and the candidate can elaborate on them. Don't just bung in a few cliches like 'travelling' just to fill up space.

This thread has given me lots of much needed giggles!

I remember going to a university open day thing when I was around 16/7 and a guy addressed a whole room of us, saying we needed to put something “eye catching” in our UCAS personal statements to stand out. Even then I thought that was worrying advice.

Years later I read a CV at work from someone who may have also received that advice.

Listing “looking for unusual objects in hard to reach places” under their hobbies and interests had me in stitches.

Also, don't forget to think about any unpaid experience you have too. It says a lot about a person's moral compass and work ethic if they have a cause they regularly volunteer for.

I got sent a CV from a 29 year old male who finished uni at 21 and then went on a "gap year" to "find himself". He showed up to the interview in jeans with a blazer and converse on. He had a degree in the correct subject for the job but no office experience or job training so would be starting at a lower salary (as was listed on the recruiting website) but he informed me this wouldnt be enough for him. I keep my options open so said it may be negotiable and we would discuss his skillset and see where we end up. This was his first job after uni so his "gap year" was infact 8 years. When I gently probed him on this, thinking he had put the dates wrong, he got irritated and said I was just like his mother. He was a youtuber as well as "finding himself", so he had kept himself busy. I was so confused, I finished the interview and ushered him out quickly.

Afterwards I looked him up on social media out of pure fascination and found his link to his youtube. He had 133 followers in the 4 years he had been making videos .

Listing “looking for unusual objects in hard to reach places” under their hobbies and interests had me in stitches.

Almost feels like that sentence should be finished off with "....and frankly, i'm not so sure now that the G-spot even exists".

I'm not a recruiter so I don't have any funny stories, but I did once ask to see a friend's CV (from a specific country so I wanted to confirm I had all the relevant info), and discovered he had listed the two nurseries he went to between the ages of 2 and 5 under 'academic background'.

Think we have a winner, hahaha!

Don’t list your soft skills if you don’t understand what soft skills are.
Don’t leave unexplained gaps
Don’t apply giving a USA, Australia, Saudi where ever outside the U.K. without explaining what your plans are or whether you have a Visa.
Don’t lie and contradict yourself - ask for feedback and then try to pretend you didn’t lie - getting aggressive won’t get you the job
Don’t repeat the little chats you have with your lecturer about how quirky you are.
Don’t send in a 5 page cv accompanied with a 5 page covering letter for your first job in a junior post.
Don’t tell me your excited to work for our world renowned company - there are 8 of us!
Don’t say you have taken a keen interest in our company over the years - we have been in business for 2 years and our contracts are not public knowledge.
Don’t say you are passionate about a career in investment banking if the job is in insurance.
Your interests at the end never get read - they are all the same...I need you to tell me about your skills.
And don’t say you bake cakes for bake sales for disadvantaged kids - it’s a nice gesture - but mentioning it on your cv to sell yourself into a Senior Management role just made it cheap.
Don’t tell me you are amazing at working with a team in your skills and then never mention your team again - all me me me!
Don’t say you’ve researched our company and we all seem a bit academic and what we need is someone with practical industry experience - we don’t want sycophants but we are paid by industry because their employees don’t have our skills - you sound like a jumped up idiot.

I think I need Valium to get through the next recruitment.

I once saw a meme, so long ago now that it was probably before they were even called memes, that said something like: "Recruiting? Remove unlucky people from your applicant pool by throwing the top half of your CV pile straight in the bin".

It's genius.

@UnderperformingSeal

I once saw a meme, so long ago now that it was probably before they were even called memes, that said something like: "Recruiting? Remove unlucky people from your applicant pool by throwing the top half of your CV pile straight in the bin".

It's genius.

Is that a Viz top tip?

I once received a CV in which the applicant declared they were fully up to date with all their vaccinations

@Snoringmutt
Could be. Could very well be.

At our office we once received a CV in which the applicant listed their ability to surf the web using multiple different browsers.

Nobody says "surf the web" any more. My words, not theirs.