13 August 2009

CV Howlers

I have been busy reading about how to improve my CV and get a head start, one section of a book I was reading said about the sort of howlers recruitment consultants see and these are some of them.. have a chuckle
  • One was like a ransom note, letters and words cut out of the newspaper and stuck onto a sheet of paper
  • A scientist sent in a massive document half an inch thick with all their publications in it
  • One had a load of sports certificates including their school high jump certificate - they hadn't even won, they came in second
  • The one that had dog-eared corners on it that looked as though the dog had chewed on it, or the baby had.
  • The one with stains on, what they were no one was prepared to investigate too closely
  • The one produced by a graphic designer that was a work of art, for an advertising role
  • Personal photos taken in a photo booth - badly
  • One listener phoned into a talkback interview we were giving and told the authors about the made who had his CV hand-delivered by a strippergram.
  • A bank manager who made his CV out to look like a bank cheque, with the address appearing like the banks address and the telephone numbers looking like the cheque numbers
  • An Architect produced a 3-D CV that was the perfect model of a house. On lifting the roof, each room contained different information on the candidate
  • An application for every general manager's position advertised at the same company, regardless of the functional area, and sent the same poorly typed standard photocopied letter of application plus a CV with a handwritten reference to the position he was seeking
  • An applicant sent his CV in 16 point font so that it read like a kid's book
Needless to say, I have now amended my CV (just kidding) but I did find these funny and also disheartening at the same time as my CV has been passed over a few times... hence my reading up on how to make it look a lot better.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

On a few occasions I had to sift through CVs and job applications. Sometimes there were so many you just had to be ruthless, and in those situations it almost comes down to the luck of the draw. Something on the CV has to "chime" with the job, and quickly.

At least the ones in the book were memorable, so many of them just aren't. Mind you, not always for the right reasons.

Hadriana's Treasures said...

I haven't had to update my CV for 10 years now. I don't know if that's good or bad!