Sometimes, I believe CVs were written to test me in the same way a religious person may think famine or war is a test for them.
When I saw the mess below, I had to wonder which one of the bullet points was actually the odd one out for a few seconds before deciding it was point five.
1 Cleaning
2 Clecting glass’s
3 Severing
4 I’m trust worthy
5 Intelect
Most people in Britain live a fairly mundane existence, so it’s unusual for CVs to contain any decent hobbies or extra curricular activities, not least amateur film production.
If you’re acting in front your mate’s camcorder though, avoid going into quite as much detail on your character’s little nuances though because it won’t help your prospects of employment on bit:
‘I play a cocky troublemaking chav, instigating trouble and baring witness to a murder.’
Always tailor an application form to your audience and pay particular attention to the country’s cultural diversity at all times. Spouting Biblical nonsense at any time is strictly forbidden:
‘Soft hearted but strong in my conviction and integrity., live a good healthy habit and most of all a God fearing and live a life with principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ.’
‘I have discovered with running my own Business that the hours are great but the pay is crap o)’
Fucking brilliant, especially the little smiley at the end.
The pay is only crap if your business sucks and you’re probably not putting enough hours into it. As for the prospects of giving you an interview… I’m out.
It beggars belief that some people can even find the front door to leave their house to collect my tax money each week, let alone sire children and log onto a computer, hence:
‘I m sorry mam sir I don t have a file documents in the computer if you want I can send it to you thru post office what I mean is that I don t have a CV of what your asking to me in this application but I m assure you that all I write here’
What a fantastic idea. Fucking great!
The whole recruitment plan can go on hold whilst everyone waits three days for your pathetic career history to arrive from Postman Pat. I’m sure it’ll be worth the wait.
I can’t emphasise enough the importance of taking a few seconds to check over your spelling on a CV. If in doubt, have someone with a few working brain cells take a look; there’s no shame in it.
That way you’ll probably avoid the embarrassment of stating that one of your old jobs was as a ‘crap fisherman‘.
Either your spelling is fucked, or you just lack self esteem and aren’t selling yourself too well.
Sadly, life deals us a cruel hand from time to time, which can make certain elements on a CV look a bit suspect.
Having said that, always think carefully about how you phrase these tragedies on your job applications:
‘I done well in my Year 9 SATS and was in top set all though High School but I have crap grades because i hardly sat any exams due to a motorcycle accident which I can prove happened.’
From a field-based retail worker:
‘The Stores I visited were Glasgow to Plymouth and then Newcastle in that order – As you can see I enjoy driving.’
And as you can see, probably never looked at a fucking map in his life either. What a waste of petrol expenses that little adventure must have been.
Not having a job or any prospects in life outside of Job Center queues and cigarettes must be quite depressing. I get that. But you have to approach job hunting with a bit of resilience and drive.
So don’t write sadsack guff like this as a way of introducing youself to a potential employer:
‘am currently un employed need to make something out of my life cause at the moment its crap’
Apart from the wrong message to send, the basic spelling and grammar are fucked here as well.
‘IM ALSO AN ELDER AT MY CHURCH AND COMMITED TO THE WORK AND THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST OUR SAVIOUR.’
Why not start getting committed to doing something more useful with your life, such as learning some skills that will make you vaguely employable?
Always bare in mind that a recruiter is looking to fill a vacancy, not be confronted with biased religious statements.
Know what I like more than trying to read a crap CV with font size 9 text?
Fucking italic font size 9 of course.
Thanks for making the decision not to progress your application even easier.
Could this be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, when you’ve worked at McDonald’s and have ‘Gained customer staff relationship‘?
Funnily enough, when I order fast food from my local McDonald’s, I’m usually keen to get the hell out of that dump as soon as possible. The last thing I want is to forge a fucking relationship of any kind with the guy that’s just cooked my Big Mac.
‘The interviews i do for the online music magazine is also a great hobbie and I have chance to interview some great people my favourite interviews so far are Right Said Fred, Adam Ant and BoB’
Fucking brilliant and relevant.
If those were the best then I’d hate to see the worst. Also, how in the name of Christ did you get any journalism work with that level of writing skill?
Again, spelling is key and that goes for typos a well, little slips of the finger when typing out a CV on a word processing device.
Pay attention. I know that the last word here on a candidate’s interests section was supposed to be golf but it still left me, the recruiter, with a ludicrous mental image:
‘Swimming, fishing, gold‘
I’m rarely surprised by what I see on CVs now.
This, however, was an exception:
‘As a male of relatively high testosterone levels for my age, I feel that a job as an adult movie actor would appeal to me.’
That’s a pretty big elephant in the room right there.
At the end of a CV: ‘I enjoy cooking a wide range of foods from foods with spice to food with dye’s.’
Yeah. Some employers will certainly not consider you if you can’t use dye to cook food with. It would have been better to leave it at simply ‘cooking’.
Your CV should always be written in the present first person tense.
Don’t write ‘he swam competitively and won awards…’
You’re not writing your fucking wikipedia page just yet.
After making an application and then getting some positive feedback from the recruiter, try and avoid replying with the following:
‘I am also writing back to say thank you on this occasion as that was a very good and punctual response.’
The reason you shouldn’t do this is because you are not Alan fucking Sugar.
‘I can drive a forklift but don’t have a forklift license. I can drive a van but don’t have a driving license.’
Fucking brilliant.
And I have a vacancy list but no jobs for you.
From the opening statement on a CV: ‘I am looking to lunch in the public sector job.’
Apart from the disappointing use of the Queen’s English, you shouldn’t already appear to be thinking about your fucking snack breaks even before bagging an interview.
On a covering letter, it is slightly annoying having to read about how you admire the company products, sales and values, but this is still perfectly acceptable.
What isn’t acceptable is writing about how you use the product/s at a specific meal every fucking day because it is ‘my favourite’ - this demonstrates zero business acumen.
Having a bit of drive is great, and will ensure you can meet challenging situations head on to deliver results.
Be careful how you phrase that point though because the following is a bit melodramatic:
‘Able to work as a part of a team member and as well battle with target.’
When wrapping up a CV, pay close heed to the order of activities listed in your interests, lest you leave some interesting images in the recruiter’s mind:
‘…other interests, church, Christianity, The Bible, motocross and enduro-rally…’
‘Reading the newspaper’.
Avoid puting this under hobbies and interests, unless the employer is specifically looking for a sadsack to fill their vacancy.
Think very carefully before puting an email address like a variation of wise_n_wise@… especially if your last employer was the fucking Pound Shop.
In 2009.
