To ask for the biggest CV fails you've come across?

[Kidulthood2027]

Have just realised I've been sending off a CV with a sentence that reads "I undertook regular security checks of the hotel during evening shits." I had meant to say "shifts". I thought I had proofread the CV thoroughly before sending it off, but clearly not enough. I was wondering why I was receiving so little interest for basic retail/food service jobs. Absolutely mortified. Any stories to make me feel better? Can be from you or from CVs you have reviewed during your working life.

Years ago I was sent a CV from a PR uni student that wanted to do work experience at the creative PR agency I worked at - you could tell she was very young (maybe 19) from her CV. What did it for me was her email address was. [email protected]

I gave her some feedback and said might be time to get a new email address.

I use the word 'public' lots in my job. I added it to autocorrect to change any 'pubic' just in case!

My user name is inspired by a CV where the applicant claimed to have great...

Bin Laden's CV, obviously!

The CV that under interests read:

I like big butts and I cannot lie.

😂😂😂😂

I think it was Kingsley Amis who said something like 'you're only allowed to use one exclamation mark per year'.

And even that, he wasn't happy with!

Years ago, DD was attending a job club thing and part of the session was to update her CV. Her CV informed potential employers that she was conscientious. On bringing CV home that evening I read through it and the "teacher" had corrected her spelling. DD's CV now read that she was contentious....not exactly an ideal way to gain employment 😳

I thought the same thing 😆

Mine said "vunerable" instead of "vulnerable", multiple times and I got the job 😊

Puerile humour sorry but couldn't stop laughing.

Also once had a job application from someone who described themselves as "polite and hostile"

I have done lots of trainings in

This could be a language difference. I work with an Indian woman and part of her role is to ensure teams undertake mandatory training. She always adds an s onto the end of training.

Not a CV ... but as a florist I send out quotes daily to brides for their wedding flowers.

I've lost track of the times I've sent them out stating 'ducky punk' rather than dusky pink or 'red poopies' rather than poppies.... and so many more ways of showing my utter lack of professionalism !!!

Haha yes I was once cc’d into an email about a county court judgement along with lots of higher ups, but the sender had missed the ‘o’ out of county the poor soul 😄

If that's not a reason to LTB I don't know what is.

"I'm looking to relocate to place x and this fantastic opportunity perfectly aligns with..." the job wasn't in place x. That was the previous company I applied for.

Back in the days of posting your paper CV, rather than emailing it, I typed out my CV and printed it off.
I noticed a couple of things that needed correcting so I crossed out this, added in that etc, then retyped it all out again and printed it off.
The following day, I realised to my horror that I had posted the original, complete with all the crossing out and adding on , and of which I had also used the back of to write my shopping list on, which included some very intimate items.
I never did hear anything back from what must have been a very surprised recruiter.

I hope they got the job.

see every time a story hits the press about an "enterprising" jobseeker printing their CV on a cake, or a t-shirt or whatever, loads of other job seekers think that's a great idea and recruiters across the country heave a collective sigh.

🤣🤣🤣🤣

To be honest, the CVs with funny typos or random experiences in them make them more memorable to me and make me want to meet the person. I'd have been laughing hard if I received your CV!! Sadly strict shortlisting guidelines in my org mean I can't just interview on memorable CV alone, as much as I'd like to.

I hate photos on CVs and really OTT Word CV templates which make it really hard to actually read the detail on the CV. I like it when they keep it simple instead of having a whirly background!

I see a surprising number of CVs in which candidates tell me about their amazing attention to detail and then sprinkle errors throughout.

Health professionals unable to answer simple questions about their registration is another one that drives me nuts.

Didn't know that about PDFs though. Every day is a school day, I guess.

Trying to recruit a library assistant for a specialist academic library.

One of the candidates wrote us a very sweet paragraph about how they 'love' both literature and history and how Georgette Heyer is their favourite author.

Our assistants don't get a lot of time to sit around and read fiction, we don't actually have any, and my main hope is for someone who knows their alphabet and can put Dewey Decimals in order. Or at least one of those 😂

One of the candidates to replace me claimed on his CV that his ambition was to become a “world famous ‘specific type of engineer’”
which seemed an odd thing to write. It’s quite a small industry so most of us are quite famous in our own little ecosystem

We get a lot with all the guidance from whichever AI bit they’ve used to write the cv “you can use this section to expand on your skills…’
or
“add more details here regarding each qualification you have achieved” type of thing.

If you are going to use chat gpt to apply for a job, at least proof-read the damn thing!

Many years ago I sent out a document which referred to something as having 'extensive links within the European Onion'. Thankfully it wasn't that important and didn't go far, but it took some living down 😖

I'd just try to style that one out...

A mate of mine (a few years ago) was doing the advertising for a job

A lad applied and in his cv he had padded it out a bit by writing on it that he'd been on the Jeremy Kyle show

Twice

Something to do with a dna test and again with his relationship with his girlfriend-he claimed he'd never hit her and she was stopping him via the courts from seeing his baby-all there in the cv

My mate invited him for interview (I don't think he'd got many people applying and his boss told him to haul whoever had applied to come in) and not only showed up wearing a filthy tracksuit and trainers but my friend got the full story all the way through the interview which had nothing to do with the job

The lad didn't get the job