what are the strangest things you’ve seen in resumes and cover letters?

by Alison Green on May 23, 2024

Let’s discuss the weirdest things you’ve seen on resumes and in cover letters.

To kick us off, some highlights from past commenters:

  • One of my coworkers once received a super long cover letter that included the fact that the candidate had been proudly celibate for several years.
  • A college student applied for a summer internship by sending us copies of love letters he wrote to his high school crush as a proof of his writing skills.
  • A very light resume in the work history section, but a very detailed Karate section.
  • Listed in the “interests” section of a managerial candidate’s resume: “shitting.” Candidate called us shortly after applying, apologizing up one side and down the other because he’d just realized that his teenage son had made an unauthorized edit to his resume.
  • I once received a resume that contained a photo of the applicant. It was a formally posed shot of him standing in front of a bookshelf holding a book and looking thoughtfully into the distance. The same resume include a series of quotes about him from people he knew (think the kind of blurbs you find on book jackets). Unfortunately for him, I knew some of them as well and they confirmed they hadn’t either said those things or given him permission to use their names in his resume.
  • I will never forget the time we were hiring for a research assistant and indicated a preference for bilingual English/Spanish speakers. One applicant’s cover letter included: “I’m not bilingual or bisexual (that I know of).”
  • The candidate who listed “Birthed four children vaginally with no anesthetic” under “Other Experience.”

Please share the comments the oddest things you’ve seen on resumes and in cover letters!

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  1. NMitford*

    The guy who said in his cover letter that he bought all his clothes at Brooks Brothers. Yes, it was a public-facing job where a professional appearance would be important, but still….

    1. Jennifer Strange*

      I’d be more impressed by someone who was able to make some thrift store finds look like Brooks Brothers.

      1. Which Sister*

        My late father became a bit of a clothes horse as he got older. Jos. A Banks was his GO TO for everything. My boys are in college and love to thrift and they often find Jos A Banks button downs. It is quite a feat

        1. Aitch Arr*

          I just looked at a resume where the candidate spelled out the Jos. in Jos. A Banks. Which is not the actual name of the company.

          1. Elizabeth the Ginger*

            Haha, that’s like trying to be more formal by saying you went shopping at Samuel’s Club, got a sandwich from James John’s, and then relaxed by watching some Thomas and Gerald cartoons.

          2. Susannah*

            OK, he doesn’t read this blog, so I’ll report that my husband (English not his first language) referred to that store as “Joe’s Bank.” And I said – what do you think? That it’s some kind of folksy, local place to keep your money? And now we both say things like, “I’ve got to get my colonoscopy – let’s go to Larry’s Hospital!”

      2. Stephanie*

        I found some fairly nice business casual when I worked in Phoenix. I worked for Big Household Name Shipper and they required we wear business casual in an unairconditioned warehouse (most of those clothes got ruined too because boxes are fairly dirty). Phoenix is a fairly casual city, so there were plenty of nice things in consignment or thrift there.

        1. Jennifer Strange*

          I lived in Phoenix for a year during an internship! There was definitely a place we would go to thrift, especially for our gala (the internship was at a non-profit). Forget the name, but I found some nice stuff there.

          1. Quill*

            If you’re a fairly common size it can be really easy to find nice clothes secondhand. Doubly so if you’re a guy, their clothes tend to last longer.

      4. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

        Or who got Brooks Brothers secondhand! My wife once got a beautiful Armani suit for $200 at a consignment shop.

        1. Artemesia*

          My oldest friend was the world’s greatest thrifter. She once found 3 brand new tags on Armani suits for her husband who was tall and thin — so the suits were his size and not a size that would work for the average guy — he cut a fine figure for awhile there. They were beautiful suits.

    2. Shoes*

      It sounds awkward, but not horrible. He just wanted people to know he dress in accordance to the dress code or appropriately.

      1. Broadway Duchess*

        Even if that’s the case, it isn’t a thing that would go in a cover letter.

  2. CubeFarmer*

    One candidate sent a portfolio with examples of his tattoo design work. Our work has absolutely nothing to do with tattoos, design, or anything human-body related. I think he was desperate to show any kind of experience, even if it had nothing to do with the field he wanted to enter. This, combined with other weaknesses in his application (not limited to a complete lack of work history) led the application to the “no interview” pile.

      1. CubeFarmer*

        I have no way to evaluate what’s a good or bad tattoo design. I think he was trying to show that he could be creative which…good, but maybe create something relevant to what you want to do professionally.

    2. Zona the Great*

      Ah man! Tattoo artists are such hard workers! I hope he made a transition that worked for him but I get why that wouldn’t have worked in getting an interview.

      1. CubeFarmer*

        Lots of people are hard workers! When I asked about opportunities (internships, shadowing, etc.) he took during his schooling to gain experience in our field he admitted that he did not think that was important at the time, but he later regretting not availing himself. This was during the recession when even people with pages and pages of experience where being passed over, so I didn’t feel too badly about not not interviewing him.

        2. White Dragon*

          I mean, I have an online profile that says I graduated from the Mysterious Academy of Ninja Secrets, but I left it off my resume.

          I get a lot of folks who express interest in attending my alma mater.

                1. TiffIf*

                  My dad would listen to Car Talk every week when I was growing up. I always found their end credits hilarious.

        2. What_the_What*

          Y’know, at a lot of places, had he only said “ass-kissing” instead, he may very well have been called in for an interview, as a “yes man” and be making his way in the business world as we speak!

          1. Pam Adams*

            P.G. Wodehouse had people in those jobs in hid Hollywood movie industry stories. Yes-men were the highest level, but you coud start out as a Nodder or Murmurer.

        3. The Prettiest Curse*

          You need at least a Master’s in arse-kicking to be truly competitive in the job market nowadays. ;)

            1. Developer*

              A candidate had a cover letter that said, verbatim: If anyone had any sense, they would realize it does not take a college degree to be smart. The followed a
              curriculum that lead them down a path. I needed no curriculum and ive seen the ppl coming out of college.
              They are worthless and dont get any work done. If you dont hire me your not hiring somone that can get a job
              done. Enough said.

              It has become a running joke among people

              1. Jennifer Strange*

                I mean, I don’t disagree that a college degree doesn’t define intelligence, but that’s definitely not putting your best foot forward.

                1. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain*

                  Yeah, that’s like writing in an online dating profile that [people of the gender you are hoping to date] are all liars and cheats and you’re sick of playing The Game so only message them if your serious and ready to commit to the Real Deal… or something like that. yikes.

    3. RagingADHD*

      I understand you can actually get a Certificate in Piracy from MIT if you take PE credits in fencing, sailing, pistol, and archery.

      1. Harper the Other One*

        Had teenage me known this, I might have changed career plans just so I could apply at MIT!

      2. Endorable*

        That is so fabulous I had to look it up.. and it’s TRUE! It does have a disclaimer on it though… The MIT Pirate Certificate is for entertainment purposes only and does not give the recipient license to engage in piracy or any pirate activities.

        Well darn I would love to be a licensed Pirate!

        2. Clemsonuee*

          Technically all you would need then is a Pirate’s favorite letter. A letter of marque from the Queen.

      3. Anon for this*

        It’s true! I was very disappointed this was only available for undergraduate students–as an employee, I would have loved to become a certified pirate!

        1. Not Totally Subclinical*

          Hmmm, if I ever win the lottery jackpot, I could always try to get a second undergrad degree….

    4. Web of Pies*

      Not a resume, but once I was laying out political candidate bios when I worked at a newspaper, and one of the candidates reported attending the “School of Hard Knocks.” There was more weirdness in his bio, but that’s the bit I remember. Like…sir.

      1. wavefunction*

        I recently saw some fantastic political bios in the Oregon voter pamphlet that got sent out. My favorite one included “Prior Governmental Experience: soon”. That candidate also listed seven other positions he ran for and lost perviously.

        I also enjoyed the candidate whose bio included no policy information and instead detailed four different geoengineering technologies he “invented” (I use quotes because he provided FACEBOOK links rather than any sort of patent information).

        1. beware the shoebill*

          I read both of those too, they cracked me up. And then the people who don’t even submit anything to the voter’s pamphlet. Seems like the bare minimum required to get any votes, but you do you!

        2. Reality.Bites*

          I’m not one to point out typos, but losing an election perviously is too deliciously true in many cases to not enjoy.

        3. Anonomite*

          Okay, which area was this in because I totally missed that Multnomah County and would have loved to read it. Also, did either win?

        4. lilacs*

          when I was a kid in pdx, the voter’s pamphlet was my favorite bathroom reading material – we always get some real gems. I remember an employed 18 y.o. mayoral candidate whose bio proudly extolled the virtues of their tv-based religion, ice cream, and laziness (iirc – that was the general gist, but my memory may be off re specifics bc it was long enough ago that we didnt have phones to read…).

    5. Nonanon*

      Well, yeah, it was a DEGREE in ass-kicking, not one of the standard certificates! He went above and beyond, and frankly it should be on his resume!

      1. Charlotte Lucas*

        I’d be interested to see that transcript.

        Also, he needs to meet up with karate guy in Alison’s post.

  4. Glacier*

    Wait, I have listed on my resume’s Skills/Other section that I’ve officiated nondenominational wedding ceremonies for several friends & family. Is that going to land me on this weird list?

    During my last job search, I had it listed and the interviewer asked whether I did that as a side job or part of religion or… and I got to talk about how I just love supporting other people and get excited about stuff that excites them. Each couple separately approached me; I didn’t advertise it as a service.

    Help! Should I take it off? I’m in a current job search in a different/more conservative part of the country and don’t want people to think I’m going to be weird.

    1. Czhorat*

      I’m not sure that this is the kind of thing that makes you a better candidate, which is the sole goal of a resume.

      Every detail, every experience, every trait or hobby you include should give a reason for a prospetcive employer to hire you. “I officiated my friends’ wedding” is a nice thing, but it doesn’t make you a stronger candidate than someone who didn’t. I’d leave it off.

      1. Teacher Lady*

        I completely agree! I review a fair number of resumes as a mentor to early career folks in my field, and I always tell them to take interests/other off their resumes.

      2. They knew and they let it happen*

        I agree with the overall thought, but I think that’s also too rigid. Plenty of people have a hobby or other section where they’ll list things like: Division 1 Basketball captain, Girl Scout troop leader, Habitat for Humanity, and so on.

        Those things might not directly correlate to being a data scientist or an accountant but it’s fine to humanize a resume imo.

        1. Snow Globe*

          If you are a leader/officer of a group, that speaks to leadership experience. But otherwise those interests are just taking up space on the resume, they aren’t going to help you in any way.

          1. They knew and they let it happen*

            As someone who hires people myself, I have no issue with it. I’d hate to learn one of the recruiters I work with passed on a good candidate because they listed a non-relevant hobby on their resume.

            1. Lisa*

              I don’t think it’s likely to get you rejected, but it’s not something that helps your candidacy either, so it doesn’t belong.

              1. They knew and they let it happen*

                You might be right in general, but I still don’t think that’s universally true. Let’s say I have an interview coming up and I look up the hiring manager and see he’s a classic car enthusiast.

                If my hobby happens to be restoring old cars, I’m certainly going to mention that in the interview or include it on the resume.

                If I go to the interviewer’s office and he has a photo of him and Stevie Nicks – I’m absolutely going to comment that Fleetwood Mac is one of my favorite bands.

                Neither of those things are work related but I would 100% mention them – what makes the resume so different that there’s no room for these things.

                1. Snow Globe*

                  But is that really going to help the candidate? If the resume would otherwise go into the “No” pile, are you going to schedule an interview anyway so you can talk about your shared hobby? Are you going to pass on a fantastic candidate so you can hire someone that likes the same things you do?

                2. Bruce*

                  Back when I was interviewing for jobs my senior year in college there was one employer who was interested that I worked on an old car a lot… they were looking for a process engineer to work in a fab.

                3. They knew and they let it happen*

                  @Snow Globe:

                  No of course not and I have the same thought – Would you pass on a fantastic candidate because they included one of these items in their resume? I wouldn’t .

                4. more fanfic*

                  I’m in the middle of interviewing right now (laid off). I’ve had interviews with 5 different companies in the last couple of months, and never did I know the hiring manager’s name before I submitted my resume. I also never knew the hiring manager’s name after I passed the HR screen, before chatting to the hiring manager. How do you find out their name? The companies I’ve interviewed with have ranged in size from 200-20,000 people.

                5. Star Trek Nutcase*

                  I interviewed separately with the chairman and several professors for a departmental secretary job eons ago. My resume listed my interests as reading and quilting (putting any interests was very common then). One professor spent 30 mins telling me about decoy ducks – I neither make them or hunt. Another professor told really lame jokes for 30 mins – I laughed because duh! Neither asked me about my skills or experiences. I did get the job (and the chairman was an amazing boss). Years later, I found out the jokester professor voted against me – cause I didn’t seem serious enough. I did alert him that wanting the job was why I laughed at his lame jokes. (A decade later he still used his lame jokes in interviews. Gotta love academia.)

                6. New laptop who dis*

                  I kind of do this. If I’m interviewing with someone, I’ll check them out on LinkedIn and possibly other socials, to see if they have any interests that stand out to me. For example, I once saw that my interviewer was a marathoner. So, I casually dropped a comment into our conversation “oh, I was thinking of something similar when I was my run this morning…”

                  It doesn’t matter that my “run” was to catch the bus. It made the interviewer think that I had something in common with them. People often automatically like people with similar interests to their own. I’ll take any edge I can when there’s a job I want on the line.

                  And yes, I got an offer :)

                7. Emmy Noether*

                  @ Snow Globe
                  Depends on the candidate pool. If you have a clear ranking with a few fantastic candidates, it’s not going to change anything. If you have dozens of ok candidates with basically the same CV and no standouts, it will be more random. You’re going to choose those that (1) you remember and (2) had some kind of positive thought about.

                8. Ancient Llama*

                  @ more fanfic: don’t worry it too much. I’ve gotten 8 jobs in 30+ years at 6 companies and only knew 2 hiring mgrs pre-HR screen (and never job searched more than 5 months for each).
                  If the job posting lists it, or you can find through your network, do that. If the hiring mgr has 2 great candidates they have to decide between and you , or @Glacier, made a connection, you might nudge yourself.
                  But knowing them or having a common hobby won’t help if you aren’t a qualified candidate.
                  And @Glacier:@Czhorat made a good point: if you can write about an outcome that translates to something useful at the new job, keep it. If not then remove for space/less to read (even 1 line less to read in 1 resume in a stack of 50 resumes is better for hiring managers.)

            2. Roland*

              I don’t think someone is going to pass because you officiated weddings, but it’s not going to help and you should probably use that space for something more useful unless you are very young and just don’t have anything better to put there.

              1. Wendy Darling*

                Yeah, IMO the biggest thing against that sort of thing is that it might not be the best use of limited space. If you have more relevant info and you’re running out of room it should be the first thing to go.

                Now, if you have the space? Probably not hurting anything unless your hobby/side gig is, like, kitten-punting.

              2. Bearly Containing Myself, Grrr*

                I’m not sure about that. If it’s a conservative part of the country, officiating a “non-denominational” wedding may be judged negatively by some people. In a more liberal area, where one’s religious affiliation or lack thereof isn’t held against someone, it could be an asset on a resume. In a conservative area where one is expected to belong to a Christian church, it could be detrimental.

        2. Nonsense*

          People usually list their hobbies if there’s some sort of transferable skill – being a basketball captain implies leadership skills, team management, coordination of resources, etc. They may or may not be skills that directly apply to the job, but they’re still workplace-useful skills. Just listing that you play basketball really doesn’t add anything.

          1. roann*

            Right, I work mostly in community engagement, so I have a “Community” section at the bottom of my resume. It lists a few positions I hold on community advisory boards, a leadership position at my nonprofit hobby org, etc. If I were looking for some other kind of work, I’d probably remove that section or re-work it to be relevant to a new field.

            1. General von Klinkerhoffen*

              Ooh this is interesting – I have a similar section currently titled “Voluntary Experience” but “Community” would also cover it. It’s pared down to the transferable skills minimum covering areas that aren’t in the professional experience section eg finance and DEI.

          2. Media Monkey*

            or if they’re not in the US. in the UK it’s very common to include a hobbies and interests section. which definitely helps as an interviewer, particularly of people with limited work experience!

        3. Siege*

          But again, it makes your candidacy stronger. I included Toastmasters on my resume for a job where assisting with speech-writing was a requirement and I didn’t otherwise have that experience. Officiating weddings doesn’t make your candidacy stronger and I suspect Glacier otherwise either has a phenomenal resume where a quirk can be overlooked or is getting interviews only with people who find it interesting and want to know about it. I wouldn’t (and I also do officiate weddings) were it to end up in my applications, and it would be a reason to weed Glacier out if there was another equally compelling candidate on my list.

        4. RNL*

          I generally agree, but it’s context dependent. I have done a lot of hiring in the legal industry, and in our region it’s standard to include interests on resumes for law students, and not for lateral lawyer candidates.

          The interests section for law students helps 1) provide more context when their resumes are often very light because of how early career they are and 2) provide conversation starters in the highly standardized student interview process where we have back to back interviews that are literally 17 minutes long with a 3 minute break. Those conversations are used to assess soft skills which we consider important in our industry (not unproblematic, but there you are).

          1. They knew and they let it happen*

            Yes, i agree it makes much more sense for more junior people who are light on experience

      3. TheOtherOne*

        Generally I agree, but I dated someone in college who had won a very competitive national body-building championship. He said that it was not relevant to his employment (law) but that he got a large number of interviews just because people wanted to meet him. Since there are so many job applicants nowadays and it is so hard to catch a recruiter’s attention, is there some value in making your resume look “interesting” (without resorting to silly gimmicks?)

        1. learnedthehardway*

          In that case, it makes sense to leave that on because just competing in the competition indicates that this is someone who has a high degree of dedication and self-discipline to achieve that level of performance – regardless of the activity.

          Same with sports teams or other team activities, because they show the person has worked within a team towards a common objective.

          The officiating at a weddings is interesting, but whether it is a value add to a resume really depends on the kind of role to which the person is applying. If the OP is looking at a public facing role where they would have to speak in front of people or do sales calls, sure – it indicates a comfort with public speaking.

        2. zuzu*

          I include, as part of my first job out of college (a newspaper) a line about also doing film reviews, but not very well. It’s at the very end of my resume, it’s not relevant to most of my current skills or experience (I’m a law librarian, and had a career practicing law before I did that), but it’s one of those things that catches people’s eye and lets me know they read the whole thing.

          Because, really, there’s no reason for me to even include that job on my resume at this point other than that little joke. But the return I get on it is why I keep including it. It also lets me tell the story of how I started getting interested in researching law (I was writing an article about a murder trial and didn’t understand why the accomplice to a felony murder (who sat out in the car while his buddy burgled a liquor store and killed a state trooper who responded to the alarm) got the same charge as the actual murderer, so I went to the library and did some research).

      4. James*

        This is really job-dependent. There are certain roles where it matters if you are an interesting person (sales, strategy, public facing roles, roles combining technical competence with communcation and leadership abilities, roles within startups, roles with travel where you have to pass the “stuck in a Tier 4 airport” test.

        I’ve been in hiring committee meetings where such items were positively discussed.

        I also had a former colleague who listed his membership in LGBTQ groups to prevent himself from getting hired where his sexuality would wind up an issue.

        1. Kuddel Daddeldu*

          When we bid on project, we include one-sliders on each proposed team member. A section each on project role. relevant experience, and background; I often include “work experience on all seven continents” as a shorthand for “won’t get lost easily, unfazed by cultural differences and erratic scheduling, and does nit need too much handholding”.
          The format is even shorter than a one-page resume, so tightly focused.

      5. Nicole Maria*

        Your comment is making me question myself a little. In “other experience” I list that I was managing editor of my college newspaper – which I think is relevant, but I also list the languages I speak (in addition to English), which are Dutch and Spanish — Spanish is obviously helpful, especially living on the West Coast of the US like I do, but should I take Dutch off, since it’s not something that makes me a better candidate? To date it has never been useful at a job.

        1. Orv*

          I feel like if you’re listing languages you speak you might as well list all of them. Plus it’s just an impressive achievement in the US, where most people barely speak one language well. ;)

        2. But what to call me?*

          Is Dutch taking up space that would otherwise be used by something more relevant? It’s just one word and it conveys some mildly interesting information, so I’d keep it. And who knows, it might appeal to an employer who likes the idea of having people who speak a variety of languages around, just in case they ever happen to need one of the ones that are less common in your area.

          1. rebelwithmouseyhair*

            As a translator I have to specify my working languages, and they are languages I have very deep and wide knowledge of. I do also mention the three other languages that I have a smattering of knowledge in, because it points to interests in other cultures (one I learned in order to travel to countries where the language was spoken, one I learned because my partner of the time was a native speaker of that language). You can never know too many languages!

      1. Carol*

        I think it used to be more common to include hobbies on a resume – I definitely did this during consulting interviews and was asked about that. Isn’t this along the lines of that?

        1. Teacher Lady*

          It may have been common in the past, but it’s not (and I believe, rightly so) anymore. It’s lovely that people have hobbies and interests, but they’re not relevant to the ability to do the job in most cases.

          1. AngryOctopus*

            Yeah, the fact that I read, craft, garden, and love the outdoors are great hobbies, but they’re very irrelevant to my ability to do my job. They don’t belong on a resume.

          2. Orv*

            This is the tricky thing with resumes. They go through fads and if you’ve been in the same job for ten years, your resume is likely to look odd and out of fashion when you start job searching again.

        2. DyneinWalking*

          I think it would work better if it was listed under “Hobbies/other” rather than “Skills/other”. The latter implies that it is somehow relevant to the job, while the former puts it firmly into the “irrelevant but interesting facts about me” category.

        3. londonedit*

          It’s still fairly common in the UK to have an ‘other skills and experience’ section, where you can list hobbies – but the point is that they shouldn’t just be ‘I like baking and watching films’, they should be things that showcase skills that are relevant to the job. So something like ‘Qualified rugby coach and assistant coach for St Trinian’s school under-9s’ is good, because you can use it to point to skills that are useful at work. You could maybe have one example along the lines of ‘Keen baker and winner of Middle Wallop WI medal for jam-making’, because that’s quirky enough to be a decent icebreaker, but it’s mainly about having things that show a) who you are outside of work and b) that you’re a rounded person and valued member of the community, with transferable skills from your outside-work activities.

          I think officiating at weddings would probably fall under the ‘quirky thing that might spark a conversation’ category, but if it’s just doing it for a few friends (i.e. you’re not a registered celebrant) then I think it’d come down to being a ‘quirky thing to mention as an extra’ rather than something to list prominently. If you’re worried about people bristling at the ‘non-denominational’ thing then I might also take that bit out and just say ‘Officiated at several weddings, writing speeches and maintaining running order on the day’ or something.

          1. Sharpie*

            Qualified rugby coach for the St Trinian’s under 9s would make one an expert at defusing situations…

            2. Cubicles & Chimeras*

              It’d make you an expert on a lot of things honestly, including managing chaos.

          2. Caffeine Monkey*

            I (UK) don’t have enough space for that on my CV any more, but I certainly used it when I was just starting off and needed something, anything, to make it appear I had some skills.

            Nowadays, if it’s something that’s especially relevant to my candidacy, it goes in the cover letter. Eg, current job made it clear they were a neurodivergent-friendly office, so I mentioned in my cover letter that one of my hobbies gave me experience of leading groups of neurodivergent people.

          3. K*

            Yes, it is common to see hobbies on resume, but I sometimes see hobbies mentioned on cover letter and as an interviewer, I do not like it for the reason I can’t fully understand. I recently interviewed someone who was quite accomplished amateur athlete, winning competitions etc. He won UK national competitions as a teen, but then chose to pursue a career not related to sports and continue doing sports as a hobby. He mentioned his athletic achievements on cover letter, saying that it “moulded him into a self-starting individual excelling in fast-paced environments” or something along that lines. He was applying for data analyst position. Am I wrong to be annoyed by it?

            1. Sarah*

              I think you are wrong. (I mean that gently though) Someone who has won national competitions in anything knows how to work hard, persevere, and handle high stress. I think all of those things are hugely valuable in the work environment. Can you put your finger on what annoys you about it?

              1. K*

                I am a competing amateur athlete as well. Succeeding as an athlete means that 1) you have time and money to do sports 2) you have right genetics 3) you are healthy and were lucky to not get any serious injuries (yet) 4) you train hard. So this resume line came across as out of touch and a bit classist. Even point 4 is not always a good sign. Some amateur athletes have huge and fragile egos, they keep training and competing mainly because they constantly feel the need to prove that they are better than anyone else. I’ve met a lot of people like that and it was not pleasant , so maybe my personal experience clouds my judgement.
                Also, that particular candidate won national competitions as a teen; he was in his late 20s at the time of interview and it was not his first job in this field, which made this cover letter line even weirder. We invited him for the interview because he seemed strong on paper, and found out that he massively exaggerated his technical skills on his CV. E.g. stated that he is “proficient in X method” but actually only took a short online course a few years ago. So this weird cover letter line turned out to be a part of the pattern.

              2. Florence Reese*

                This expectation associated with someone’s hobbies is exactly why I think it’s not helpful on resumes in most cases. I know several high school athletes who won national awards and do not work hard or handle high stress. One of them was a National Merit Scholar, team captain, golden boy, went to one of the best universities in our state, then decided that college was way better for partying than for studying and stopped trying. He dropped out, NCNS’d his first ever job in his life (grocery store) and refused to get another job or go back to school for…last I checked it had been 6 or 7 years. Just mooching off his mom, forever. I eventually had to stop checking in because it was so infuriating.

                He *had* lots of potential and was given lots of opportunities as a result, even as he intentionally avoided being an adult. But his performance a decade ago means nothing about who he is today and it sucks that he’s still given more leeway because we so strongly equate athleticism with quality.

        4. Stephanie*

          I’ve heard it suggested for consulting to help humanize candidates. Plus a lot of fresh out college or business school candidates can have somewhat similar experience.

        5. Double A*

          I think it depends on the job. I include some hobby stuff of my teaching resume, but it’s somewhat plausible that those interests might be relevant to the job because teachers get pulled into all sorts of random activities.

          1. Irish Teacher.*

            Yes, as a fellow teacher, I was going to say it can definitely be a benefit in our field. If you play a popular sport, that will often give you a boost as schools are likely to hope you’d be willing to coach a team.

            But yeah, it depends both on the job and on the hobby/skill. I don’t think officiating at weddings would be particularly relevant to teaching, but sports, instruments, artistic pursuits, debating, computer skills…all those things could well be.

            1. Kat*

              Officiating at weddings to me would indicate public speaking skills, social skills and being able to direct groups of people – that’s all relevant to teaching.

              1. Doris*

                As someone whose job involves lots of teaching, they have many other ways to judge your public speaking skills and teaching abilities. I had to give two talks, for example. They absolutely won’t see ‘wedding celebrant’ and think ‘wow, must be a good teacher.’ They will judge this by your previous experience, references, observations or student feedback (in universities).

              2. Irish Teacher.*

                It is, but your previous teaching experience would already speak to those (or even your student teacher, if you hadn’t any previous experience teaching). The hobbies section is meant to show what you can offer outside the classroom, skills that other teachers wouldn’t have but that could offer something else to your students, like your ability to coach a sport or direct a school play or teach an instrument.

        6. Labrat*

          I learned in the late nineties to put down hobbies… Granted this was the same class that strongly suggested
          we use hot pink paper for said resume. Maybe it was also bad advice.

          That said, you never know what will leap out at an interviewer. I do quality control and waste water analysis. My first lab job was in college… running pigs and rats on treadmills. Not really relavent to analytical chemistry. Honestly, it wouldn’t have been that helpful for a research job, since I just ran the treadmills. I did know what the study was for and what they looked at.

          Anyway, my first boss was interested in knowing what a Pig Runner (actual job title) was beyond my litte blurb. And apparently quite tickled about it as it came up first thing six months later when I interviewed for a full time position–and a couple other internal interviews I had with him.

        7. rebelwithmouseyhair*

          I include my hobbies because my field, translation, can touch on literally any subject in the world. If there’s a translation to be done on the subject of one of my hobbies, I’d love to do it. Since one of my hobbies is dressmaking, I was actually able to leverage my dressmaking knowledge to make fashion and textiles one of my specialist subject.

          When I worked at the agency, I once received a text to be translated about horses. I didn’t know anything about horses. I searched horses in our database and it threw up the name of a translator specialising in finance and tax, but who had listed horses as an interest of hers. I contacted her and she was delighted to do the translation, it made a refreshing change from the finance and tax stuff!

      2. Czhorat*

        You said the same thing I did, but with a thousand percent more efficiency.

        I’m proud that I used to be able to free-mount a unicycle and ride it around the block; that’s probably not useful for most jobs.

        2. They knew and they let it happen*

          It isn’t, and I probably wouldn’t list that either, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with listing hobbies/interests etc..

          If the point of a resume is to be a marketing doc for yourself, you’re marketing to other people, not robots. I don’t see why you can’t add a little human touch to it.

        3. Some Words*

          And yet I feel intensely jealous.

          I guess if one was applying for jobs which require a great deal of balance and quick instincts it might apply.

        4. Esmae*

          I did once get a temp position because I mentioned having dressed as a parrot for a play at some point in my initial interview. The temp position did, in fact, also involve dressing as a parrot.

        5. BikeWalkBarb*

          I’ve worked in active transportation in nonprofit advocacy and a public agency and if you said in your cover letter you still had this skill it could be considered relevant experience. It wouldn’t get you an interview over someone with a lot more direct experience in specific elements of the job description but I can guarantee all cover letters for our position mention how much they like riding or walking.

      3. Ann Nonymous*

        There’s been much discussion in a group of previous contestants of a well-esteemed t.v. show and if it’s appropriate to add that in an Other section of a resume. Most people think it makes your stand out as a candidate due to the smarts involved while also providing an entertaining bit of, ahem, trivia for interviewers to remember them by.

    3. Lady Danbury*

      I would remove it from the Skills section unless it’s somehow relevant for the jobs that you’re applying for, as it could make you seem tone deaf or out of step with workplace norms at best. If you’re really attached to including it, it should go in a hobbies/interests type section.

      1. Orv*

        Do people still do a separate “skills” section? I took mine out recently because I felt like it was making my resume too long, and I hadn’t been getting interview offers so I figured maybe it was making my resume look dated.

    4. wondermint*

      Not going to lie, it’s kind of weird! Unless it relates closely to what you do for work (public speaking comes to mind, but I still don’t think it’s great.) I personally would remove it.

    5. JustKnope*

      In my opinion, as long as the rest of your resume is normal and professional and shows your work accomplishments, I’d leave it in! As you saw in your example it’s a nice humanizing thing interviewers can ask you about. It’s not an inappropriate office topic and you only mention it briefly, which I think are good lines to draw.

      1. Fluffy Fish*

        unfortunately there’s just too many jobs that will find it odd and irrelevant to risk you might get one that finds it “human interest”.

        interviewers aren’t in the habit of looking for interesting non-work related items to chat with applicants about. and most simply do not want irrelevant things on your resume – they’re trying to gauge if you fit the role.

        if in the interview they ask about hobbies or such, then its fine to bring up.

    6. Microwaved Anchovies*

      Does it have anything to do with the types of jobs you’re applying for? Because, yeah, I’d probably take it off and maybe put “public speaking” instead.

    7. Kermit's Bookkeepers*

      I’m curious to hear thoughts on this, too — Alison has suggested in previous columns that this sort of thing can be a good talking point for personality reasons (sort of like when an interviewer asks about your hobbies — they’re more interested in how you can hold a work-appropriate conversation than anything else) — but in light of the questions about religion, I wonder if this falls on the side of “too personal.”

      1. She of Many Hats*

        I have several odd hobbies/interests eg Renaissance Faire entertainer that I’ve included on resumes but also went into how they related to my work history such skills learned like public speaking, inter-personal skills, research, etc.

        I can see including the classic question about D&D in this manner: organizing calendars, event planning, collaborating on complex problem solving, creative writing….

        1. Marie Lobbezoo*

          Historical Reenactor Here: I finesse this into “Serve on the Board of two 501c3 Non Profit Organizations.”

          1. Pixel*

            Yep. “Serve on the regional board for 501c3 non-profit educational organization, regional education coordinator for same org (including managing yearly educational conference).”

      2. EngineeringFun*

        Ski race coach in my skills section is always a great conversation starter! I’m an engineer! Where do you ski? Downhill or cross country?. Like thru the flags? How fast do you go? Can you ski moguls?….

    8. Alex*

      I’d take it off unless it is relevant to the jobs you are applying for (like maybe….public speaking centered jobs?)

      1. Junior Assistant Peon*

        The public speaking skills demonstrated by the officiant side gig are broadly relevant even if it isn’t the main focus of a job. Many people will at least occasionally be asked to speak at a conference, to customers, or in meetings.

    9. Annony*

      I would take it off. It isn’t a work skill, it isn’t as crazy or off-putting as the things Alison listed but it isn’t relevant and so distracts from actual skills you want to highlight.

    10. HannahS*

      I don’t think it’s a sign of weirdness, but to me it’s about equivalent to saying that you bake cakes for family events, or that you like to organize hiking trips for friends. It’s a fun fact, but it doesn’t say much about you professionally because you don’t have a professional relationship with the people to whom you provided the service.

    12. Observer*

      I’m in a current job search in a different/more conservative part of the country and don’t want people to think I’m going to be weird.
      Reply

      Well, if I saw this in “Other” and the rest of the stuff there was clearly just interesting personal stuff, it wouldn’t help but it probably would not hurt. But, if you put it in “Skills” (even if you join it with “Other”) you are not going to look “weird”. But you are going to look like a real potential problem. Because it’s totally not work relevant, which is what I (and our HR) care about when it comes to skills. So we’d be worrying why *you* seem to think it’s work related.

    13. What_the_What*

      It all depends. To me, “other skills” is “things that could be related to this job or assist me in being more productive at it, that aren’t necessarily called out for in the ad but I’d like you to know.” But, that’s pretty wordy :)

    15. Area Woman*

      I would remove it. It is more of a family and friend thing, where those folks would not have any kind accountability (if you messed it up, its only a one time thing). Similar to “babysitting my nephews” or “organizing monthly brunch for my mom friends”. If it were for work, it would be a good skill (childcare, event planning) but these situations you don’t get feedback or review. I would consider it highly irrelevant.

      1. ferrina*

        I agree with this take.

        I’ve known plenty of people that got online accreditation to do a friend’s wedding, and usually the friend officiating is not as good as someone that has more experience. I mean, it’s special for the couple, which is what a wedding is all about, but it’s not better for a broader audience (which is what businesses usually focus on).
        I would be put off.

      2. Lozi*

        I think this is a great filter for what belongs on a resume! I agree to take off the wedding work unless you did it within a certain organizational structure (i.e., non-denominational church leadership, and you are applying for similar jobs). In more conservative/religious areas, I actually think you risk offending people whose job it is to conduct religious ceremonies if your expression of it seems flippant.

    16. bamcheeks*

      It depends if you’re applying large companies that have formal HR-led recruitment or smaller companies and agencies where personal quirks play a bigger role. Tons of small employers are all about the “I want to know what kind of person you are and what yoh do outside of work!”

      1. londonedit*

        Yeah, totally a thing in book publishing. Even though a lot of the small publishers have been swallowed up by bigger ones, there’s still a big ‘we want to know who you are as a person’ vibe.

    17. WellRed*

      Sorry, anything on your resume that leads the interviewer to ask you about religion is not a thing to have on your resume.

    18. Glacier*

      Thanks to everyone for the helpful feedback, including perhaps putting it under a “Public Speaking” section.

      I’m a director applying for director-level positions or consulting work and the rest of my resume is Very Professional, e.g., I analyze XYZ annually, secured ABC funding, managed XYZ projects.

      I originally thought of it as an accomplishment (it can be a good amount of work and responsibility, and I thought spoke well of my relationships with others), but it looks like others see it as a hobby, so I think I’ll remove it.

    19. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain*

      I’m not sure if you’ve been paid for your officiating — often it’s more of a honorarium — but you could possibly list it as other work experience …if you need to. I don’t think side gigs really belong on most resumes, but if it flows naturally in conversation it’s fine to say something in the interview, “Tell us more about yourself.” “I have a passion for helping people and have officiated 5 weddings. I volunteer at…” that sort of thing.

    20. Aspiring Chicken Lady*

      My go-to answer for this sort of question is “if it’s not relevant, leave it off.”

      And then my go-to caveat is that I worked with a job seeker who had “Euchre” listed in a hobbies and interests section. And got the job because everyone in the small business played Euchre at lunch time.

      If there’s room, sometimes it’s not terrible to humanize yourself. (Although I like to do that by humanizing in my LinkedIn profile, where there’s a lot more room.)

    21. Rage*

      I have some friends that also do this; from what I’ve seen, officiants need to be somewhat familiar with local laws around marriages (wait time for marriage license, due date for submitting the signed license, etc.) So if you are doing all of THAT (and not just standing up and having couples read their vows in front of you), I’d say it’s somewhat relevant.

      Maybe say “Ordained Marriage Officiant in [state]” – because you are, but the implication there is that you are following laws and regulations surrounding your ordination.

      1. RagingADHD*

        If you say you’re ordained, you are definitely inviting questions about your religious affiliation, since that is a specifically religious office.

    22. theletter*

      I think that’s something that’s worth having a on a linkedin profile, if you’re open to increasing that business, but on a resume you only want to list skills relevant to the job/industry.

      I’d think of it in terms of ‘If I started a new job, and someone just pointed to a desk where there was a list of ‘____’ that needed to be ‘_______’, I would just sit down and do that, no explanation needed.’ What are the blanks?

    23. Radioactive Cyborg Llama*

      It looks like I’m in the minority here, but as someone who interviews on the hiring side, I like that sort of thing. I feel like the shift away from that is part of the shift of not viewing employees as humans but as resources. Probably related: we have a very good office culture.

      1. Kara*

        How is it for diversity, though? One of the problems with that sort of thing is that it encourages hiring people ‘just like me’ rather than genuinely hiring people on their own merits. If that’s not a problem where you are, do you mind if i ask how you go about combatting it?

        1. allathian*

          That’s a very good point. I also think that academic achievement should be the only thing that counts for college admissions, not how little sleep you can live on and still get great grades. And no high school jock should get a pass on poor academic achievement just because they’re good at sports… But I know I’m living in a dreamworld.

          Many young people live such overscheduled lives, and if your parents can’t afford all the extracurriculars, you’re stuck.

        2. Media Monkey*

          as someone who likes this (and lives in a country – UK – where it is a common thing to have on a CV) it just gives me something to chat to them about. i have a job where personality and being able to hold a conversation and small talk with people you don’t know all that well is important. and there’s only so long you can chat about the weather. i don’t care if you have a qualification or do the thing to a high level or what it is at all – happy to chat about watching football/ playing rugby/ volunteering/ crafting/ painting/ DIY/ writing/ travelling/ gaming.

          1. Blue Horizon*

            As someone who has done a lot of resume reviews and interviews in the past, I like it too, although I’d suggest putting it at the end and limiting it to a small amount of space.

            It won’t help you get an interview with me, but if you do get an interview, then I’m quite likely to mention it as an icebreaker and do a bit of small talk around it at the start. If it’s something that talking about for a few minutes will relax you and calm your nerves, then include it by all means. Help me to help you!

    24. HonorBox*

      I think if the role includes some sort of public speaking component, this is something that could be beneficial, as it highlights your ability to do so. But in general, it may not be terribly helpful… especially as you mention, in certain areas of the country/world.

      1. Usually lurking*

        I think it really depends on the role. For example, I have a volunteer section that always includes my roles in professional organizations. I’m also a board member for my church. Normally I leave that off because of the religious nature even though it’s a leadership position. When I applied for a nonprofit I put it on because it shows familiarity with nonprofit organizational roles.

    25. WantonSeedStitch*

      It doesn’t raise my eyebrows, but it does kind of make me shrug and go “so what?” If you were applying for a job that required skills like event planning, I could see it being relevant, but it’s really a small niche of jobs for which I would think it makes sense to include it. I mean, I wrote my own ceremony with my husband, trying to make a ceremony that reflected our religious beliefs accessible and not offensive to wedding guests with very different beliefs, without watering it down so much that it became bland. It was quite a challenge, and I’m very proud of it! But is it relevant to any job I’d be likely to apply for? Nah.

    26. Our Business Is Rejoicing*

      Are you solely an officiant, or do you help couples plan ceremonies, including writing vows, etc.?

      Because if you do the latter, and you’re going into a job with a writing and/or speaking component, that could be a good skill to list. I’d skip the part about your qualifications to be an officiant and just focus on the writing/speaking skills portion if relevant to the job you’re looking at.

      (I say this because I’m a ceremonialist for a hobby group; it hasn’t come up as related to any job I’ve applied for, but if I were looking at a job where planning ceremonies of any kind, or even formal events, was in the job description, I’d probably mention it because it’s a fairly unusual skillset that folks do not always think of.)

    27. samwise*

      Take it off unless it is specifically pertinent to the job you are applying for.

    28. Storm in a teacup*

      I think it’s how you’ve phrased it. So if it’s I like connecting with and supporting people, so enjoying officiating non-denominational weddings….
      It’s a nice thing to include under the other/ interests section.
      Personally as a hiring manager I appreciated this section to humanise the candidate as I worked in such a team based, frontline healthcare environment. I wouldn’t make a decision on to interview or not on this unless someone put something really egregious. In one case there were 2 candidates who I couldn’t decide which to shortlist and one had volunteered in our specialty so got the edge.

    30. nonprofit llama groomer*

      I’d advise you take it off because it doesn’t add to your work experience unless you are looking for work in a public speaking or creative role.

      Things that you can add as Other even if it has nothing to do with your job: VISTA/Peace Corps/Americorps/Teach For America; Girl Scout Gold Award/Boy Scout Eagle Scout; military service; or something similar.

      You need to think really hard about including anything else.

      1. nonprofit llama groomer*

        When I say military service I mean something like JROTC or ROTC when you didn’t go into the military afterwards. Obviously military service is relevant job experience.

  5. Jennifer Strange*

    We once received a resume in which the candidate felt the need to mention she was a “hummus enthusiast” under hobbies. I mean, I like hummus too, but I guess not enough to be an “enthusiast”.

    1. Trotwood*

      I reviewed a resume where the candidate listed one of her hobbies as “Reddit.” I mean, me too, but it’s not going on my resume…

      1. Archi-detect*

        I personally went from an enthusiastic and proud reddit user to a content reddit user to a reddit user who didn’t like to talk about it, to someone who reads the occasional askreddit

        1. PropJoe*

          Sorta similar here:
          I went from:
          – MetaFilter user who proudly sneered at the hoi polloi scum on reddit,
          – to trying it out and thinking it wasn’t so bad once I got off default subs,
          – to installing Apollo on my phone and spending an unhealthy amount of time on reddit,
          – to last year basically quitting cold turkey when they decided to kneecap third party apps.

          I’m upset with the changes but the silver lining is that I spend more of my workday actually working.

          1. Jinni*

            Killing the 3d party apps made me quit cold turkey as well. AITA was taking too much time in my day for sure.

        2. Cat Tree*

          I like when content aggregator sites give me the “best of” reddit posts so I don’t have to wade through all the filth to find the good stuff.

        2. Nicole Maria*

          Someone using Reddit is obviously fine but I would consider it at least an orange flag is someone was serious enough about it to list it on their resume. Especially in recent years I feel like the quality of most subs has gone way downhill and there is a lot of misinformation and just overall weirdness on there.

    2. Alisaurus*

      That feels like one of the titles they would’ve used on Unwrapped years ago (I recently found it on HBO Max and have been rewatching for the fun and nostalgia of it).

      1. Alphabittle*

        one of my favourite lines from Two Point Hospital: “prolific user of the alphabet”

    4. AngryOctopus*

      I do want to know what separates a hummus “enthusiast” from one who simply likes hummus.

      2. Chili*

        At family dinners, one of my relatives gets his own portion of hummus equivalent to the amount that the rest of us share. We like hummus. He’s an enthusiast.

      3. Cyborg Llama Horde*

        I won’t say it’s the only bar, but including it on your resume is certainly *a* bar.

        1. Evan Þ*

          Now I’m imagining a hummus bar, where you can order all sorts of designer hummuses. I’d like that far more than the traditional sort of alcohol bar!

  6. Lady Danbury*

    I can’t think of anything worth submitting, I’m just here for the laughs! Shitting had me literally LOLing at my desk.

    1. Double A*

      I am dying at that one. I would absolutely interview that candidate (after the explanatory phone call).

      1. Penny Hartz*

        And my first question when interviewing them would be, “So, how long is your son grounded for?”

      2. Mim*

        Absolutely, same! Like, it feels kind of wholesome. Of all the things a teen could do to prank their parent when given free and full access to their resume, that is such an understated but freaking *hilarious* choice. Like, it truly shows a top notch sense of humor and ironic sense of restraint, given that they touched the thing in the first place. A kid who hated their parent and wanted to do something mean could have done something way more obvious, lewd, etc. I feel like this is a family I would want to know. Immediate interview. Green (and brown, haha) flag.

        1. Katy*

          Really? To me it’s horrifying to think of a kid deliberately sabotaging their parent’s job search. That’s a prank that could have major consequences for the whole family. It would be hard to feel good about paying college tuition for someone who tried to keep me from earning a salary.

            1. Katy*

              Have you ever sent out a resume to a job you really wanted, or been unemployed for long enough that every application matters? If you were trying your hardest to get an interview and found out someone had altered your resume to get you screened out, would you really consider that just a silly prank? it’s one thing if a small child does it, but a teenager is old enough to understand that messing with another person’s job is malicious.

          2. Don’t make me come over there*

            I used to work with grown men who would prank each other constantly. One of them stepped away from his desk and the other changed the sign-off on his in-process email from “Sincerely,” to “Love,”, assuming the first guy would notice before he hit send. Reader, he did not.

            2. allathian*

              Ouch! Leaving your desk without locking your computer at my office would get you written up at least.

            3. Chas*

              During my PhD a fellow student in my group walked away from her computer in the communal student office while she was working on a presentation and the guy sitting next to her changed the phrase “mutant protein” into “mutant boob protein”, also thinking she’d notice before showing it to anyone.

              She didn’t, but our PhD supervisor did! Luckily for her he was a lovely guy with a good sense of humor, but she certainly never left her computer unlocked in that office again after that!

      3. ADHD*

        same on would interview after the apology story (if they were otherwise qualified).

        kids man…

    4. Phony Genius*

      I am imagining the manager hearing the apology and saying to the candidate “so you’re saying that you’re not interested in shitting? Sorry, but we don’t to hire anybody who is anal retentive.”

    5. Excel-sior*

      *looks around nervously knowing that “shitting” is one of the few things I’m good at in this life*

    6. Bast*

      I love this. I believe I’ve read it before, but no matter how many times I see it I chuckle every time.

    7. an infinite number of monkeys*

      Was it Dave Barry who told the story of a friend who had composed an important business letter and left it in her typewriter, went to mail it and realized before sealing the envelope that her teenaged son had typed “P.S. Don’t forget to fart” at the bottom?

      He was so disappointed that she caught it.

      1. The yellow dog of workplace happiness*

        Yes, you remember correctly, and I immediately thought of the same story.

        I believe it’s from the book “Dave Barry is not taking this sitting down”

    8. Melissa*

      As the parent of a 12 year old boy, I LOVED the “shitting” one. I bet that parent wanted to absolutely throttle his kid.

      1. allathian*

        Yeah, absolutely. That said, I’m pretty sure my son who’s nearly 15 wouldn’t do that, mainly because he absolutely hates being pranked himself, and he’s smart enough to figure that you have to be able to take it if you want to dish it out.

        I feel the same way. Pretty much the only times I felt like playing hooky when I was a kid was on April 1. I hated being pranked then and I still do.

    10. mreasy*

      It doesn’t matter how many times I have seen it I can’t not laugh at the teen editor’s work!

    12. A large cage of birds*

      I forgot about that one and it delights me. I feel for the guy, but it’s really funny.

  7. wondermint*

    Not a resume/cover letter, but I once was handed a business card for a videography who gave himself the title of “Media Mixologist”

    It’s not the most egregious thing to call yourself, but it gave me a cringe-induced chuckle.

          1. wondermint*

            To me, it’s chintzy self actualization by way of LinkedIn influencing and people who look for “rockstars” on job descriptions.

            But hey, it was memorable

            1. Charlotte Lucas*

              It makes me think that they’re really into creating montage sequences.

    3. Web of Pies*

      I once designed “potential lunch winner” business cards for myself (more like social cards, I guess) but never was brave enough to print/hand them out.

        1. business cards don't have to be boring*

          My parents have “retirement” business cards that they hand out to new people that they meet in their retirement community when they relocated. Also knew a lady who retired and made herself personal business cards with just “Remember Me” on the front with her contact info on the back. That was 10+ years ago and I still remember that card.

          1. New Jack Karyn*

            I think we had ‘calling cards’ before we had ‘business cards’. It would have the person’s name and maybe a little filigree, but not always contact information. You’d hand it to a servant when you dropped in, they would take it to the resident, who would then decide if they were “up for receiving visitors”.

            Sounds like your acquaintance was bringing that back!

            1. allathian*

              Indeed. There’s a lot of this in the early Poirot stories. Poirot even had several different designs that were intended to appeal to different people.

    4. ICodeForFood*

      I know a guy who, in his youth (his 20s), had a card that declared him to be “David Lastnname, Rogue.” (It had his real last name, of course.)
      And I once worked for someone in the printing industry, who offered to have business cards made for me, naming my title as “Grand Poobah.” I should have taken him up on it.

  8. Medium Sized Manager*

    Last year, I received a “resume” that was a couple of pages of references where previous coworkers from the 90s shared glowing reviews. There was zero job experience or information, and the most recent year was 1997.

      1. Hlao-roo*

        Haha! It sure is tough out there for all the time travelers who don’t put in fake experience for the years they skipped (or perhaps aren’t entirely sure what year they landed in).

        1. The Prettiest Curse*

          And how do vampires even find gainful employment? Do they just have to start vampire nightclubs or live off their investment income?

          1. CommanderBanana*

            I would love to see a vampire movie that is about a really old vampire who is not rich and doesn’t live in a manor or have staff. Just out there hustling at 700 years old or something.

            2. Miette*

              Naturally, he would learn to tend bar, change his name to Jackie Daytona, and become coach of the local women’s volleyball team.

            3. White Dragon*

              There’s a book series that speaks to this – Fred the Vampire Accountant

              Yes he works from home. As far as he was concerned, his new diet and allergy to sunlight didn’t change his essential interests and nerdy personality.

          4. The Gollux, Not a Mere Device*

            The obvious answer is night shift, anything from stocking shelves when the store is closed, to IT operations or emergency coverage for a business that’s open 24/7, or answering late-night Poison Control phone calls.

            People might wonder why a subway conductor, say, didn’t want to move off the night shift, but they’d probably accept any halfway-plausible explanation, because they want to believe that someone is happy to take the “undesirable” schedule. Sure, you can’t work for the MTA forever, but it’s probably good for a couple of decades.

            Or, nowadays, all sorts of fully-remote office jobs.

            1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

              If they haven’t at some point forged ID paperwork, and kept doing so to maintain a plausible age, they’re going to need to have more under-the-table work than some of these.

            2. 3-foot inflatable rainbow-colored unicorn*

              Can confirm that “I don’t want to get skin cancer again” is accepted a valid explanation for that.

          5. EC*

            It would be a lot easier recently with remote work being an option. Other than that, there’s night shifts. Now I kind of want a book about a poor vampire who works overnight at the Waffle House.

    2. AnonInCanada*

      That 26+ year “employment gap” oughta be a doozy when you ask for an explanation. Maybe they’re the reincarnation of Rip Van Winkle? :-P

    3. Mim*

      Eek! My first thought is that it’s someone who has spent those years as a stay at home parent, and wants (or needs) to get back into the workforce, but has no guidance or clue of what to do to make themselves look like a decent candidate.

      1. Not-So-New Mom (of 2)*

        Yeah, I find the other comments a little tasteless tbh, this sounds to me like a person who might not have anticipated re-entering the workforce ;(

        1. Nicole Maria*

          The employment gap itself is not the issue, it’s the lack of any relevant work information that probably did it

      2. Oregonbird*

        There is nothing that will. And yet there are thousands who have such gaps through ill-health, failed retirement, economic downturn following industry implosion, all leading to elders the AARP chirpily informs can work until they die – where, doing what?!?

    5. Zona the Great*

      That was Morty Seinfeld. His son fell on hard times (comics are so wishy washy). His experience with the beltless raincoat speaks for itself. Hire the man.

    6. lina*

      I got one last year that was a list of publications and the names of all the grad students they’d supervised!

      This was not a job supervising grad students or publishing papers. They may have had some expertise in the actual subject area, but I wasn’t gonna download all of those papers (or even the abstracts) to check.

  9. CzechMate*

    I work in higher ed. Every year, my office hires an undergraduate student intern for the summer. Some of them work with the career center, which dutifully instructs them to explain “What have you accomplished in this role that no one else could have?” and “What skills have you learned in your previous roles that you will apply to this new position?”

    One notable applicant a few years ago listed some previous experience in the campus biology lab on her resume. She wrote that one of her job duties was to “ethically and humanely euthanize fish used in experiments while thanking them for their contributions to science.”

    1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

      I like that one. I mean she did what she had to do in clearly a thoughtful way.

      1. CzechMate*

        Yes. I’m a vegetarian who famously used to offer to do my classmates’ homework if they would do my biology dissections, so in fairness to her, this is about the best way you can spin something that’s otherwise kinda ghoulish. We almost hired her.

        1. Quill*

          Also relevant: the attitude is neither squeamish nor flippant, which is really important in animal research roles.

    2. Janey-Jane*

      Oh man, bless – The thing is, they’re pretty close! “Ethically and humanely manage lab subjects in a safe and respectful manner” is just specific but neutral enough.

    4. Kermit's Bookkeepers*

      Welp, it’s not necessarily something no one else could have done, so I can only conclude it’s a skill she’ll apply to future positions.

      1. Viking Tuba*

        A future HR candidate- ‘ethically and humanely terminate employees in a safe and respectful manner

          1. Keyner*

            I hire editors. Something like 90% of candidates send in resumes and cover letters with typos.

            One especially memorable candidate that my boss decided she just had to speak with spent the entire interview complaining that he clearly wasn’t getting work due to age discrimination. He got very worked up and even said a couple nasty things about members of my (younger) generation while I sat there with a smile pasted on. The real problem was that his resume was four pages long with dozens of typos. I decided not to tell him. I did peek at his LinkedIn later and see that he also spent a lot of time posting there about how nobody wants to hire a guy his age.

            For what it’s worth, my boss was older than him. He must have known that at least one person in his age range was doing just fine.

        2. The Prettiest Curse*

          I feel like this is the kind of thing that the most recent version of Arnie’s Terminator would put on his resume.

    5. Jessica*

      I love the thought of the fish disposal minion in a lab thanking them for their contributions to science! This might not be fully in line with professional norms, but it made me want to hire this undergrad. :-)

      1. Nesprin*

        This should be in line with professional norms- we thank our research animals in my lab!

        1. General von Klinkerhoffen*

          I feel like it’s similar to being polite to ChatGPT or Siri in that it makes far more difference to the thanker than the thankee.

      2. ArlynPage*

        I’ve been in hundreds of research labs, and I would say the majority of the people who worked with animals did express gratitude to the animals for their contribution to science.

        1. Grizabella the Glamour Cat*

          That’s actually nice to hear!

          I once had a temp job indexing research reports for a major pharmaceutical company and entering them into a newly adopted computer database. The materials I worked with were what’s called “preclincal” studies, which means all the testing that has to be done on animals before a drug can be tested on humans (“clinical” studies). The number of animals involved was much greater than I ever realized.

          Fortunately for me I am not vegetarian and I understand the value of animal testing in medical research, so I didn’t have any ethical qualms that got in my way, but the sheer volume got a little depressing after a while. I did this work for a year and wasn’t really sorry when it ended.

    6. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      That’s adorable. “While thanking them for their contributions to science.”

    7. Teacher Lady*

      I work in public schools, so I review a non-zero number of resumes that haven’t been properly proofread that discuss candidates’ experience working for “[City] Pubic Schools.”

      1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        I think anyone working in a “public _____” field should, first thing, remove the word “pubic” from their spellcheck so that their computer will always flag it.
        Signed, a public health major.

        1. Lisa*

          Really, unless you routinely do work where the word “pubic” is relevant, everyone should remove that word from spellcheck.

        3. Serving in the Pub(l)ic Interest*

          Same.

          Signed,
          Public Utility Commission analyst who reads pubic comments on pubic utilities, pubic access, pubic service, and pubic servants in the pubic interest on a distressingly regular basis.

            1. Doris*

              I stopped even finding ‘pubic space’ funny after a while, because it was discussed in so many essays.

      2. COHikerGirl*

        My degree is in Evolutionary, Population, and Organismic Biology. Only one version of my resume had Orgasmic. I noticed it pretty early on, luckily, and now make sure every time before saving my PDF that it is still Organismic. (That degree no longer exists and just for that one word, I am glad. They renamed it and redid some requirements.)

      3. WorkingRachel*

        Just for fun, I searched my personal email, the one I’ve had for at least 15 years, for the word pubic. One reference to a school dress code, two pieces of erotica I critiqued for people, a book I completely forgot I edited with legitimate references to pubic health, and one poor soul who said an apartment was close to “pubic transportation.”

      4. Turanga Leela*

        This comes up for lawyers as well. I’ve seen the phrase “Pubic Defender” on resumes.

    8. Manders*

      I literally say “thank you for your service to science” before I euthanize mice at my research job.

      1. RC*

        100% the reason I went far out of bio into physics instead, but I’m glad some people do this.

    9. Rage*

      “What have you accomplished in this role that no one else could have?”

      First of all, though I’m great and all, surely there are other people on this planet who could also have accomplished (and perhaps HAVE accomplished, in other roles) the same things that I have – but that doesn’t negate the fact that *I* lead *this* project with *this* outcome, or spearheaded *this* initiative, or developed *this* training, or whatever. My resume would be pretty weird if I had to restrict it to only things that I am the only person who could do those things. Let’s see…maybe “possession of unique set of fingerprints and DNA” would suffice?

      If a hiring manager only wanted someone who could do “something nobody else could” – well, then, sorry, I can’t rule out the capabilities of every other human, living or dead, or even an infinite number of monkeys. :p

      (Speaking of which, anybody know of an infinite number of monkeys who may be seeking a contractual position? I could use their help.)

      1. Infinite Librarian*

        I don’t know about monkey, but they did make a digital version of the Library of Babel, which is functionally very similar.

    11. DramaQ*

      If she was applying for a lab being able to ethically and humanely euthanize anything is a HUGE plus.

      And as long as it is not straying too far into anthropomorphizing animals I would appreciate that she thanks them too. I made it a point when training people to tell them that this animal is dying for your experiment. You owe it to them to treat them with respect, compassion and be as careful as possible to not waste this animal’s death. If you can’t do that then you have no business being here.

    12. TD*

      That’s sweet and benign. I remember getting a resumé for a higher ed administrative assistant position from someone wildly overqualified — they had (or claimed they had) a PhD and real experience in “nuclear weapons handling” which was hilariously incongruous for someone applying to that role. Then again, this was 2008-9 and the job market was dire.

      For that same role, I got a resumé from a former bouncer/DJ named “Ms. Fire”. Lol.

      1. TD*

        Actually, I think it was “Ms. Fyre” or something like that. Her actual, listed name on the resumé.

        1. BikeWalkBarb*

          I’m imagining them managing the line of people who want appointments with the dean. Could weed out some of the complaints.

    14. Dinwar*

      Humanely killing animals is actually marketable. I’ve done several projects and been on more where sampling of animals or parts thereof was involved–it’s one way to determine how contaminants migrate through the trophic levels. One of the more amusing anecdotes: When I asked how one bulk-samples fish tissue, the person referred me to the SNL skit “Bass-0-Matic 3000”. The official ASTM method is less messy, but otherwise…yeah, that’s how it’s done. Knowing how to humanely kill the animals being sampled is somewhat tricky, and knowing that can protect the institution from a lot of potential liability and bad press.

      I would think a person who wrote about thanking the animals on their resume was a little weird, but honestly normal people do not go for this sort of work, so that’s not a deal breaker. Frankly I’m more comfortable with people that are open about their oddness–again, ain’t none of us normal, and those that are open about it tend to last longer! And thanking the animals isn’t nearly the weirdest thing I’ve seen. I remember one site where there were a bunch of biologists, paleontologists, and archaeologists doing environmental compliance oversight, and the workers were terrified of us. Among us discussions of decay and gifts of small dead animals are normal; for anyone else, it’s apparently extremely disturbing.

      1. AngryOctopus*

        So you’re saying that when I talk to my cells, that’s not normal? I tell them to do a good job when I treat them with things. Sometimes I say “Hello my babies” when I take them out of the incubator to check how they’ve grown.

        1. Enai*

          I would think it’s perfectly normal to do that? I make my own chicken broth and I always name the carcasses I use in order to remember that they were living chickens who had a job (laying eggs) and in the grand scheme of things were no less important than me.
          They’re always named Bertha.

          1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

            I always try to thank the animals when I eat meat. If nothing else it helps me remember where it comes from, and not to waste it.

          2. BikeWalkBarb*

            My friend who has hens for their eggs and a rooster to guard them got a batch of male chickens they raised specifically for meat. Collectively they were referred to as The Nuggets (and they were treated very humanely until they provided their services for the freezer and future meals).

            1. Enai*

              Alas, mine come from the supermarket and have spent their lives factory farmed for eggs. I console myself that they would’ve been slaughtered anyway even if I didn’t buy their remains. Your friends chickens probably not only have nicer lives, they taste better, too!

            2. Stopgap*

              My family used to have chickens named Tender, Nugget, Soup, Schnitzel, and Pot Pie. We didn’t actually eat them, though we did eat their eggs.

        2. Dinwar*

          I’d consider it perfectly normal behavior. I talk to fossils and rocks (when they talk back it’s either time to leave the prep lab for the day or turn on the fume hood). But my perception of what’s normal is rather wildly skewed.

        3. Wendy Darling*

          This is much nicer than the way I talk to the technology I work with. Yesterday I asked my monitor if it was going to connect to my laptop or if it was going to keep being a little asshole.

        4. Quill*

          “Hello Germs” is a requirement when you want them to grow, “please go die” is when you find a contaminant happily colonizing your plate.

        5. New Jack Karyn*

          So, I read your first line without clocking that you’re a scientist. Just thought you randomly thanked your own cells for functioning, keeping your body in good working order. Go, mitochondria!

    16. Wide-eyed*

      I once hired someone for an entry level position who was making a career change from working in a research lab.

      When I called her reference at the lab, he assured me that she could not only do dissection, but also minor surgery on small animals.

    17. Mom2ASD*

      There are very few things that an undergrad intern could do that nobody else in the role could accomplish. I have visions of my ASD undergrad son being totally stymied with this one. He literally would not be able to categorically guarantee that nobody else could do the things in the role, and so would really struggle to find an answer – even if he was killing it in the position. (If he could point to something, I guarantee you that whatever he did would be totally off the wall and not necessarily what was wanted, though.)

      1. Distracted Procrastinator*

        yeah, this instruction is well meant but could very much freeze someone more literal minded. There are very few jobs on the planet that only one person can do and almost none of them are entry level jobs being done by people consulting with their university career center.

      2. EmF*

        I still have that problem.

        “Why should we hire you rather than one of the other candidates?”
        I mean, I don’t know who’s applying. For all I know, you shouldn’t. I have a stock answer (“I’m sure you have other candidates who’d also be great! But here’s what I bring to the table…” including my ability to be honest about when I’m making decisions based on incomplete information.) but I still hate the question.

    19. Orv*

      Statistically, I feel like on a planet with 8 billion people on it, the odds of me accomplishing something that no one else could have are vanishingly small. I’d have to be pretty conceited to think otherwise.

      1. EmF*

        One of my favourite webcomics, back in the day, said “You’re one in a million! This means there are six thousand of you.”

    20. Sorry about this*

      Content warning for squeamishness / fish euthanasia I guess

      My dad used fish in part of his PhD and also had to euthanise fish in the course of his work. The most humane way? Quickly remove them from the water by the tail and throw them, hard, on the concrete floor.

    21. spacecowgirl*

      As a biologist I thought, “explaining you know how to euthanize fish isn’t too weir – oh there it is.”

  10. Microwaved Anchovies*

    The job was for an executive assistant. The (hired) employee’s resume had “Taught children in Morocco about feminine hygiene and associated products.”

      1. Juicebox Hero*

        Period poverty is a big deal in parts of the world. And being able to organize and convey information is important for an EA.

        1. diasporacrew*

          I completely agree. This is the type of experience that would make me very interested in a candidate.

    2. Ridiculous Penguin*

      I don’t think that’s especially weird (the experience itself); the phrasing could use some help, though. From a public health/educational perspective, that could be extremely relevant experience, depending on the job.

      1. Kermit's Bookkeepers*

        Yeah, if it were phrased a “worked with a non-profit benefitting young women in Morrocco,” or something, that wouldn’t be as jarring. If asked specifically, she could launch into the spiel about how lack of access to feminine hygiene disadvantages children by taking them out of school and other activities, blah blah blah.

        1. Devious Planner*

          I actually think that is worse phrasing!

          “Taught children about feminine hygiene” is specific and immediately conveys several skills: public speaking, sensitivity to possible cultural differences on menstruation, working directly with kids, etc.

          “worked with a non-profit benefiting young women in Morocco” tells me nothing about what the person actually did. I have no sense of what skills they used or what they specifically accomplished. I don’t even know the age range of the recipients, since “young women” could refer to teenage girls or women up to mid-20s.

      2. Microwaved Anchovies*

        Let me clarify. It was for an executive assistant in a federal Defense agency that dealt with Security Clearances. It was completely irrelevant.

        1. desk platypus*

          I think it could actually demonstrate a candidate’s communication, research, and general people skills.

          1. What_the_What*

            Irreverent but my first though upon reading “research skills” was “Ok so I tried every type, size and style of pad, tampon, and cup on the market, and here is a pie chart of my findings….

        2. European*

          It’s irrelevant only if you think that any non-profit or hobby unrelated to the job itself is completely irrelevant.

        3. RPCVFTW*

          Let me guess–Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, trying to get their foot in federal government jobs?

          -Signed, also a former Peace Corps volunteer who used to list “latrine building” as a skill on her resume until someone kindly told her to focus on other elements when not applying for development jobs

          1. Spacewoman Spiff*

            Haha, same thought. It took me a while to figure out how to describe my service on my resume in a way that made sense to hiring managers. Although in this case, I don’t see any issue with how the likely-RPCV described their work! (Although I also see no issue with referencing latrine building on your resume, so I guess I’m giving myself away as an RPCV.) It seems more like squeamishness on the interviewer side about women’s bodies?

        4. Double A*

          Yeah, wondering if you’d feel the same if it was listed the same but it was helping families set up solar ovens or something.

          Your response is a good example of why that type of work is so crucial; shame and stigma run deep.

        6. Mom2ASD*

          “Able to deal with very sensitive, potentially embarrassing information in a confidential manner, within a very different culture” – Context entirely different but skills sound relevant to me.

        7. Pretty as a Princess*

          I would argue that being able to communicate effectively with diverse audiences about frequently misunderstood topics would be top line relevant experience to someone in this position. Would you feel differently if she had taught the girls about building solar stills?

          NGL if more people involved in all aspects of the security clearance process had experience working with broader swaths of humankind, it would be a far, far better process.

    5. Fluffy Fish*

      nah thats relevant skills:
      instruction/teaching
      tactfully handling potentially difficult subjects

      absolutely relevant to an EA role

        1. Rose*

          And handling difficult populations! I was amazed when I went from working with small children to working as an admin at an Ivy League fancy pants school how similar the temper tantrums were.

    6. CommanderBanana*

      This isn’t weird. There are entire programs dedicated to trying to end period poverty and stigma.

    7. RagingADHD*

      I’ve spent decades as an EA and I think it indicates very relevant skills in communication, tact / discretion, and an ability to read the room when presenting.

  11. Alex*

    I’m not sure anything could ever top these!

    But my contribution is one candidate sent, along with his application, an origami representation of our company logo. It was actually quite delightful, but didn’t get him the job.

    2. Mim*

      haha, that’s so cute! Honestly, where I work I think that could be a foot in the door. Quirky + fawning.

      1. Enai*

        Sounds like a good idea for graphic or 3D design jobs, like ad agencies and the like.

    3. LCH*

      it’s different, i think it counts! but agree it isn’t off-putting at all, very cute.

    4. NotBatman*

      That’s amazing! My dad’s a former CHRO, and he used to bring home all kinds of weird gifts from job candidates: an RC car, a bottle of olive oil, a pair of mahogany chopsticks, and a tiny replica of his company’s product are the ones I remember. Part of the reason he took them home was the hope that the hiring managers wouldn’t know about these attempted bribes and be influenced, for good or for ill.

    2. The Terrible Tom*

      Seems a little suspect if they didn’t include their *accuracy* as well… :D

      1. RagingADHD*

        WPM is usually represented as net of errors. So if they typed 150 words in one minute but only 20 were correct, you get 20 WPM.

    9. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain*

      I know the punchline is the low number, but is typing and words per minute still even a consideration…anywhere…for anything? Skills like stenography and typing pools are a thing of the past. (RIP Dabney Coleman)

      1. PreviousDispatcher*

        When I did a brief stint as a 911 dispatcher, this was absolutely part of the hiring test. It included tests to measure baseline multi-tasking ability, typing speed/accuracy, decision making while under stress, etc. They were willing to train, but you had to have the baseline abilities (especially the ability to multi-task accurately under stress).

        1. Charlotte Lucas*

          When I was a CSR, you had to type fast and look at multiple screens for answers while talking to another person.

      2. Random Bystander*

        It is also necessary for relay operators (for the Deaf and hard of hearing/speech-impaired). I worked that job for a period of time, before moving–I would have happily continued if it’d been available in new location. 60wpm was a requirement for the job at all, 70wpm minimum to handle calls for Florida.

      3. FricketyFrack*

        Yes. A lot of jobs technically *can* be done without good typing skills, but keeping up on the workload would be a lot more difficult. I work in government and we produce memos, resolutions, proclamations, newsletters, and so on. Speed and accuracy make a huge difference.

      4. ferrina*

        This came up at a meeting recently. We don’t work in a job where typing speed generally matters, but there’s a few folks that hate being recorded but still want detailed notes of the meeting. They were thrilled to learn that we have a few people that can type fast enough to pseudo-transcribe the meeting

      6. Ripley*

        Many, many administrative job listings still ask for WPM. Usually in the range of 40-70 WPM. I had to do a typing test to be a clerk in a medical clinic (my current role).

        I am in Canada, so YMMV.

      7. Penny*

        I interviewed for a job in a typing pool in 2019. I’ve just done a quick google search and found an active listing for a typist for the same organisation. So, yes, typing pools still exist! Off the top of my head I can think of two other job interviews where I was asked to do a typing test.

      8. Proofin' Amy*

        I don’t know if there are still companies who do this, but 20 years ago, I freelanced for a company that captioned shows that previously didn’t have captions, and the scripts weren’t available. They needed transcribers. Court reporters were preferred (because using a court reporting setup is much quicker than typing on a regular keyboard), but they would take very fast typists. Maybe AI and better text-to-speech programs handle most of that these days?

    11. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      Maybe German words? :)
      Some German compound nouns are looong buggers, 70 characters.

    13. spcepickle*

      The venn diagram of people of volunteer the WPM on applications and people who have comically low WPM is almost a perfect circle in my world.

    14. Butterfly Counter*

      Maybe they were talking about texting on a flip phone. 20 wpm when you have to press the 7 key 4 times to get to the t is pretty impressive.

    15. Throwaway Account*

      I used to work in the public library. One gentleman came in often to fill out job applications. Despite repeated instruction on logging in to the computer, opening Google, navigating to websites, and then to the careers part of websites, how to click in a box to be able to fill in his info, AND what to put (his name!), he just could not do it. We had to help him every time with every step. Just for reference, we had other novice computer users who learned and would come to tell us how the skills we taught them got them the job (it was always so awesome!).

      Anyway, this guy who just could not figure out computers asked us what he should put for the question about his level of computer skills (basic, intermediate, skilled) – he wanted to put skilled!

      1. ialwaysforgetmyname*

        Ouch! Because “basic” wouldn’t even apply in this case.

        In 2013 I had to fire someone after 2 days for a very admin/support role who claimed in her interview to be very competent with computers but had ZERO skills. As in, no idea how to use a mouse or open up MS Word.

      1. Dancing Otter*

        Right, they can use a manual typewriter. Those new-fangled electric models will never catch on!

    17. It's Marie - Not Maria*

      We have candidates who regularly say they can type 200-500 wpm. Had one a couple days ago who said they could type 1000wpm. Bless your hearts, but we know better, especially the skills test comes back “Not Proficient” in all areas of computer work.

  13. Trotwood*

    One of my friends received a totally bonkers resume from a candidate who declared “I have run a background check on myself and I have a clean record.” The candidate didn’t list any college degree or major, but did list her study-abroad experience and her Medicaid coverage.

    1. The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon*

      I mean, every time someone runs a background check on me I have the sudden feeling that I was previously a career criminal and then forgot about it, so I kind of get it? “Dear potential job, I just confirmed that my memories of being a complete square and never committing a crime in my life are, in fact, accurate. I’m sure you’re as thrilled and relieved as I am.”

      1. MigraineMonth*

        It’s weirdly common for people to have arrest warrants out for them due to, say, red-light camera tickets that were mailed to the wrong/an old address and therefore never paid.

        1. Cyborg Llama Horde*

          Thankfully not an arrest warrant, but we discovered, in the middle of a reasonably large US state, that my uncle did not have a legal license in that state, due to an outstanding speeding ticket from when he was a young man (and moving a lot) that was probably older than I am.

          Luckily I can drive stick, but it’s been over a decade, and I’ve got to say that going from 0 to ~70MPH, in front of a cop, in a stick-shift car you aren’t used to, in moderately heavy traffic, is not an experience I can recommend. (I did not stall the car. My uncle felt that I could’ve done a better job of upshifting, but under the circumstances, I thought that not stalling the car was victory.)

          1. SarahKay*

            Agreed that not stalling is the victory.
            I didn’t drive for about ten years and was so out of practice I decided to take a couple of lessons – this is in the UK, so most cars are manual (stick shift). The instructor told me that if I assessed that traffic flow would give me time to cross the road on foot then I had time to pull out of a junction.
            ‘Okay’, I said, ‘but my feet don’t stall!’

        2. NotBatman*

          Oh hey, it’s me! Not an arrest warrant, but I had an outstanding misdemeanor in Iowa due to a late-registration fee being charged to someone else with my first and last name. Which I learned years later, through a background check for a job in New Jersey.

      2. Ipsissima*

        I get the same feeling every time I go through airport security. “What if I have suddenly acquired a gun and some cocaine despite never being in possession of either??”

        1. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain*

          Same, but not a gun. I lightly panic to think I might have dropped in scissors, a screwdriver, or a pocket multi-tool/knife because I’m a “just in case” type of person when I pack … what if I put aspirin into an unlabeled travel container will they think it’s a controlled substance… have I left my bag unattended? why yes, it was sitting in my apartment where I live alone but I can not SWEAR someone didn’t break in and drop a weapon or drugs in there.

          1. Cyborg Llama Horde*

            Not to give you more nightmare fodder, but ages ago I had an old married couple as site coordinators, and at one point when they were flying (before my time at the job), some of my coworkers stuck a LOT of condoms in their luggage. Brightly-colored condoms.

            They were, of course, selected for a manual bag check by the TSA. I’m told there were condoms everywhere.

            1. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain*

              Ok so…I may have done that to a college roommate 1,000 years ago in her backpack…at BYU…as a prank… we were a prankster apartment of girls. She did think it was funny. I swear.

          2. Butterfly Counter*

            I’ve had this happen to me. TSA found a 4-inch pocket knife in my makeup bag. It was mine. I used to move around a lot and I’m sure I just tucked the knife into the bag months or years prior as I was packing my apartment and completely forgotten about it.

            It turns out it’s not a big deal. (I’m sure it helped I was a wide-eyed 22 year-old white girl who was legitimately dumbfounded as to how it got in there.) TSA asked if I wanted to mail it home or just turn it over to them. I hadn’t missed it in however long, so I said they could keep it.

            Guns or drugs, now that would be a big deal.

            1. TiffIf*

              After going through TSA when flying across the country to visit my parents, my mother was helping me pack to return and found a box cutter in my bag that I had left there by accident when moving a few months earlier. TSA entirely missed it.

            2. Chas*

              A friend of mine bought himself a metal “Wallet Ninja” multi-tool that was in the shape of a credit card, so it could be slipped into your wallet and you’d always have it with you when you needed it… or, to his chagrin, when you were trying to get through airport security. He ended up letting them keep it as well, but they were very understanding of the fact that he’d put it in there and then completely forgot it was there.

          3. an infinite number of monkeys*

            Well, I once brought pepper spray through security in my purse. But I was the one who found it, and then not until I was rummaging around looking for a charging cord, sitting in my seat on my RETURN flight.

            So your odds probably aren’t that bad.

          4. Caffeine Monkey*

            I used to fly a couple of times a week for an old job. After six months, I discovered my boxcutter had slipped into my handbag’s lining. Not once, in all of those security checks, had anybody noticed it.

            My boots had been scanned and swabbed and investigated nearly every flight, but nobody seemed to care about the knife I was carrying around.

            1. Chas*

              I’m not sure about the rules for knives and it varies with what airline/airport you’re using, but I know that you can take scissors on a flight as long as the blade is not too long, so it might be that your boxcutter wasn’t long enough to trigger the security sensor.

        2. CommanderBanana*

          I’m firmly middle-aged and still feel kind of weird and shady when I buy alcohol? I didn’t drink underage or try to illegally buy alcohol before I turned 21 but I still feel like I’m trying to get away with something.

        3. Orv*

          Enough people accidentally try to take guns through security that the TSA now recommends you start packing with a completely empty bag.

          1. And thanks for the coffee*

            I have never owned a gun, but maybe I still should start with an empty bag.

        4. Quill*

          My worry is usually more along the lines of “what if I have a boxcutter and my lotion tests as nitroglycerin?” because both of those have been… closer to my experiences in airports.

          (Aloe vera gels can show up on some of those airport screener things as potential matches for nitroglycerin, and yes, we were there for an additional hour.)

      3. Excel-sior*

        I’m the same and i doubt/hope we’re not alone. Just a voice in the back of my head saying “are you SURE you didn’t once commit a small infraction which was dealt with by the authorities but you’ve repressed?”

        no brain, because I’d remember the fall out at least.

        “what if you repressed that as well?”

        oh leave me alone brain

        “no, never going to happen”.

      4. Jayem Griffin*

        I had to do an identity verification for the IRS and had a horrible couple of minutes where I really thought I might have been a dentist and had let my certifications lapse.

        (I am not, nor have ever been a dentist. I do not work in anything even kind of adjacent to the medical field. Teeth gross me out.)

      5. Cabbagepants*

        My dad forgot an apple in his backpack when going through customs in 1996. The agent found it, tsk-tsk’d him, and threw it away. He thought nothing of it until he was being interviewed for Global Entry in 2017. Apparently it made it into his record and he had to answer for it!

      6. Gurathin*

        Worrying you might have committed a horrible crime and forgotten about it makes the Murderbot username feel appropriate

    2. DVM*

      Getting Medicaid isn’t always the easiest, and I think we should give more people credit for that, honestly.

      2. Gumby*

        I must have had an extremely helpful staff member then. I was actually trying to sign up for a plan under Covered California and brought my filled out paperwork to the county services office and the person I spoke with was all “oh, honey, no; you are unemployed you get Medicaid” and I think it was complete in that one visit. (Turns out “I have a decent emergency fund for exactly this reason: to be able to afford to live during gaps in employment. I can pay for my own insurance.” didn’t matter – they only cared about current income.) So I ended up with Medicaid kind of by accident. Though it was helpful!

  14. KT*

    “A very light resume in the work history section, but a very detailed Karate section.”

    Dwight, is that you? :D

      1. Jennifer Strange*

        Nah, Mac isn’t the type to actually write a resume. He’d just show up in person to demonstrate his skills.

    2. KateM*

      I was thinking it was someone who had previously applied to a Karate-related job and grabbed that old resume without checking. My own “I am just the right person to prepare your students for math contests” resume would probably look really weird for any other job as well because who (else) cares that I have been to an international math contest?

      1. Charlotte Lucas*

        I now need a mystery series to have an episode set at an international math contest. (No idea these existed!)

        1. New Jack Karyn*

          My partner is doing a rewatch of Monk. I’ll ask if they ever had an episode like that–it seems like it would be a good fit!

  15. Carol*

    That they were a “god fearing” person. This wasn’t in the US though, and much more normal in the country they were based in.

    1. Teacher Lady*

      I’ve seen this (also in a non-U.S. location where this sort of thing was more common), as well as “godly man/woman.” In that same location and at that time, it was common to include contact information for references on one’s resume/CV, and it was basically expected that at least one of those references would be a pastor. (I know that’s actually common in many evangelical spaces in the U.S. as well – I caused a bit of a kerfuffle when I applied for a job at an evangelical organization that needed my fairly-niche-for-a-U.S.-American language skills, but I couldn’t supply a pastoral reference because I’m not religious.)

    2. A Nonny Mouse*

      I got one once that said they were “recalcitrant to evil influences”, which I’m sure was meant to be a statement of personal integrity but nevertheless with that particular phrasing did not come across quite as intended.

    3. The Prettiest Curse*

      That is an impressively unverifiable skill. What are you going to do, ask their deity of choice if the person really is scared of them?

        1. Elsewise*

          That is the most hardcore line I’ve ever seen at 10am on the askamanager comments section.

    4. Strict Extension*

      There was recently a local election in my area. A publication had the candidates complete a survey to publish their answers side-by-side. Most candidates when asked their top three priorities listed the first three issues they wanted to address after taking office. One listed “God, family and community, in that order.”

    5. Emikyu*

      I knew someone who received a resume with a similar phrase, along with the applicant’s education history all the way back to PRESCHOOL. This was a middle-aged woman who had been out of school for some time.

  16. Alisaurus*

    Once received a resume where the applicant had used an online service to generate a multi-page PDF with extreme background graphics that looked more like a sales document for a product than an actual resume. Worse, he hadn’t fully edited the whole thing, so page 1 started with a greeting of “Hey, wonderful,” and proceeded through instructions for using the template, including something along the lines of “this start-to-finish document will guide you through the process of putting your best foot forward.”

    Spoiler: he did not put his best foot forward, and he did not get an interview.

    1. The Terrible Tom*

      We don’t have enough data points yet but in general I’d lean *away* from utilizing work-related resources that include the greeting, “Hey, wonderful.” :D

      1. Babbalou*

        I’d recommend starting with “Dearest beloved” since it’s so common in my spam folder and always get my attention.

        2. AngryOctopus*

          I don’t speak Lithuanian, but there is some translation disconnect that would lead to the Lithuanian site that processed our bulk buffer orders to email us with the opening “Hello Dears”.

          1. Snoozing not schmoozing*

            Several years ago, I was corresponding with a distant relative, whom I’d never met, in Hungary. Google translate (or some quirk in the Hungarian language, which certainly has a lot of quirks) began each email with “Snoozing my darling,” which squicked me out in a way that “Dear Snoozing” certainly does not. Or perhaps the relative is just a perv.

    3. Space Coyote*

      “Hey, wonderful,” just broke me completely and I’m quietly choking to death at my desk XD

    4. TJ Morrison*

      I’d be tempted to send back a document with instructions on how to let an applicant know they didn’t get the job.

    5. pcake*

      LOLOL Awesome story!

      Not a resume story, but it reminded me… I once managed website designers, and one submitted a site for a client with the ipso lorum on it – he forgot to save after adding the actual text :-)

  17. No_woman_an_island*

    This is 100% true: a woman put on her resume that she was a former playboy bunny. For a job in which she’d be working with women coming out of sexually exploitative situations.

    2. Czhorat*

      Am I crazy in thinking that could almost be relevant and work? That as a Bunny she was in a position where she was valued for her sexuality so she understands the experience of being objectified?

      1. No_woman_an_island*

        Ah yes, I see how it could be. But this was in an ‘Honors’ section. She was very proud.

        1. Czhorat*

          YEah, that sounds less than great.

          Framing is SO MUCH. I could see presenting it in a way that would make her a really strong candidate (I know what it feels like to be seen as eye-candy, and have inappropriate passes made at me all the time) , and in another way that boils down to: “men found me SO HOT. Isn’t that awesome?”

        3. Observer*

          But this was in an ‘Honors’ section. She was very proud.

          In that case, I take back my original comment. This is why it’s a good idea to read the responses before responding…

          1. RagingADHD*

            The point is that it wasn’t listed as “relevant experience” but as a prize she received. It could be relevant experience, but if she was focused on the “honor” of being chosen she is unlikely to connect with the clients in the way they need.

            Like, “I know you didn’t enjoy being trafficked, but you should be flattered someone thought you were pretty enough to traffic” is not the message they want to convey.

      2. Kermit's Bookkeepers*

        This actually sounds so relevant to me. Curious to hear more about how it was specifically inappropriate in this context, but the Playboy Mansion sounds like the platonic ideal of sexual exploitation.

        1. LaurCha*

          It really, really is. And so much worse than I ever realized, until I read Holly Madison’s memoir. Hugh Hefner was so gross.

      4. Nebula*

        Yeah, and to be honest I’d hope that an organisation which helps women come out of sexually exploitative situations would also be somewhere a candidate could feel free to talk about her experience as a Playboy bunny, as opposed to many other organisations which would judge her character on that basis.

    3. Laura*

      I mean, I can kind of see it if she felt like she had been exploited by playboy – she may have felt like she could connect with the women she would be helping. I’ve read some accounts from former bunnies/playmates and it sounds awful.

    4. Ridiculous Penguin*

      That *could* have been an excellent hire if their perspective were that they had first-hand experience that would help them serve the clientele and they framed their experience that way. But just to include it? Yeah, at the very least tone deaf.

    6. Hydrangea*

      That makes sense to me. She was letting you know she had experience with the adult industry. Maybe she was assuming the hiring manager knew of the rumor that all Playboy bunnies (centerfolds at least) had to sleep with Hugh. (One of the milder stories about how the Playboy Mansion exploited women.)

    7. Annony*

      I could see that being a selling point. If she felt that it was a sexually exploitative situation then it shows that she would have insight into how these women feel. If she thought it was a fantastic experience then its extremely tone deaf for her to include it on her resume for that job.

    8. Methuselah Honeysuckle*

      Judging by the stories we’ve heard from former Playboy bunnies and Hefner’s “girlfriends” I’d say she probably has a lot of experience coming out of sexually exploitative situations.

    9. lunchtime caller*

      I could actually see this making sense, but it would require some time spent in the cover letter explaining that she now views that experience as a sexually exploitative situation and it gives her personal grounding when she relates to the people she’d be supporting.

    10. Observer*

      This is 100% true: a woman put on her resume that she was a former playboy bunny. For a job in which she’d be working with women coming out of sexually exploitative situations.

      That actually makes sense. If you think that that job is not exploitative, you’re deeply mistaken.

    11. PotsPansTeapots*

      So…she’s a former sex worker/sex worker-adjacent person seeking to help others who had exploitative experiences in sex work? That seems ideal to me! Why shouldn’t she be proud of her accomplishments at a previous employer, either?

    12. samwise*

      Seems relevant to me. I might put that in the cover letter? Or wait for the interview?

  18. BellaStella*

    Last year I had an internship position open. We pay our interns, but the requirements were pretty strict: must live/and or have right to work in our country (with a visa); must be a current Master-level student; must have some interest in what we do; plus must send a cover letter and 3 references. For this open role we got 54 (actually 53, you will see why) applicants.

    Two applications were exactly the same. Same blue background layout, same font, SAME EXACT experiences and dates, places, etc of work. EXCEPT: one application had a women’s name on it, the other a man’s name on it. Neither qualified as neither had a visa, did not live here, neither were enrolled in Master-level schooling. It was BIZARRE. When screening the 53 applicants, I flagged this for HR to look at the applications to make sure I was not being stupid. They noted to me that this happens regularly with postings we offer, and it is always caught by us managers who have to screen all the applications manually anyway.

    1. Elan*

      I wonder if these two matched resumes were a part of one of those studies where people are testing to see if there is gender bias in hiring managers’ responses to resumes? A number of these (and related) studies have been done, so maybe your posting got included as a recipient of these matched resumes somehow??

      1. Czhorat*

        The problem is that you need to send the identical resumes to different places to make this trick work; otherwise it’s too likely that you end up with this.

        When I saw such studies I always assumed that they’d send to similar companies in the same industry, not to literally the same posting.

        1. Annony*

          Or you make the resumes equivalent but not identical and flip the genders for various companies. Company A gets resume 1 with female name and resume 2 with male name. Company B gets resume 1 with male name and resume 2 with female name.

          1. Cabbagepants*

            or two different resumes, but randomize which gets the female name and which gets the male name.

            1. NotBatman*

              It’s also possible to change a ton of surface-level details without changing the content: 6 months of experience in sales and 8 months of experience in marketing becomes 7 months in each, etc. It’d be pretty silly to send both to the same company with so few changes.

              That said, as a psychology researcher I have in fact seen errors exactly that silly or sillier. For example, the item that asked “How often do you commit arson?” with answer options ranging from “rarely” to “frequently.”

              1. Enai*

                Well…
                Does starting the fire in my mothers fireplace count? If so, I’ll have to answer “moderately frequently, preferably when it’s cold and wet outside”.

          2. New Jack Karyn*

            Yes, it’s the ‘not identical part’ in play here. Like, they have different Ivy League schools, captained teams in different sports, one wrote for the school paper and the other helped run a charity organization. That kind of thing.

            I’ve seen studies that use these parameters and switch names based on what ethnicity they might be more associated with. Eye-opening results.

    3. Kermit's Bookkeepers*

      I wonder if someone was trying to run a social experiment of the “if all other variables are the same, is one gender more likely to be called in than another” variety.

    4. TakinABreak*

      Is it possible that the duplicate resumes be part of a research study, rather than actual candidate(s)? That’s usually how research into hiring biases about gender, race, etc. work. Send out 100 identical resumes to various job postings with one variation (like name or gender or school, etc.) and track which get responses.

      1. AngryOctopus*

        That only works if you meet the basic job requirements though. And the resumes are not 100% identical, because then they’ll be flagged immediately by a reviewer (“wow, why does this seem like I’ve seen it before, oh, because it’s the exact same resume I read 15′ ago”).

    5. Stephanie*

      I agree it sounds like a social experiment…but not a very good one if the resumes don’t meet the actual job requirements.

      1. Annony*

        My guess would be either an undergrad project with poor supervision or someone trying to prove a point to an SO or friend group.

    6. Former Psych Major*

      Those might be from a psychology study–there have been multiple studies where the same resume is sent out with names that are associated with different races and genders to demonstrate how bias and discrimination can occur in hiring…

    7. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

      This is becoming increasingly common with online hiring. There are bots submitting applications based on key words. I would say less than 25% of the applications we get are legit. Our process thankfully has a second section you must complete and most of the time nothing happens there so I can just reject based on incomplete application.

      I hire jobs that require you have Federal Work Study and be a student at this college. Last go round 2/3 of candidates did not even live in this state.

    8. Retirement Pending*

      I was once on the committee to hire an executive director for our local YMCA. We had applicants from several different states. Two applicants had identical cover letters. Turns out the author’s supervisor had showed it to a group of his mentees as a good example of a well written letter so someone copied it verbatim. Busted.

    9. Sneaky Squirrel*

      I’ve actually had this same exact situation happen to me! The position required work authorization and wasn’t eligible for sponsorship. Neither candidate had existing work authorization in the US so neither could be considered.

  19. Velawciraptor*

    I had one applicant who kept applying for attorney positions who had never been to law school, much less passed the bar. Their cover letter informed us that they’d be happy to go to law school at night, like that would be some sort of favor to our office rather than a prerequisite for the job. It was utterly bizarre.

    1. Jessica*

      Some states have what they call “lateral entry” schemes for teachers, where you can start working and go to school part-time for a while while working to get the actual credential that you were supposed to have. Maybe this applicant is aware that things like that exist and thinks every profession does it?

      1. TakinABreak*

        Washington State has an alternate option for getting bar admission that involves working as an “apprentice” instead of taking the bar exam. But even that option still requires completing law school first. Maybe the candidate was aware of that but didn’t actually understand how it works?

        1. Lucia*

          Washington’s alternative licensing program actually doesn’t require law school. You have to have a mentor who takes responsibility for your training, and I believe there are set exams you have to pass. One of my paralegal program instructors did this. Caveat, this was about 7 years ago, and I haven’t kept up with any changes that might have been made since then.

    2. The Wizard Rincewind*

      This is my favorite so far. Do you advertise a continuing education perk? Maybe they hoped you’d pay for their law school.

    4. Retail Dalliance*

      lmao imagine this happening in ANY OTHER FIELD!!! “I’m a doctor, no med school, not board-certified, but I’d be happy to go to med school at night while practicing medicine at your hospital during the day” wt actual f

      1. MigraineMonth*

        There are a lot of fields where this would work. Plenty of places will hire, say, a project manager before they’ve gotten certified, or a software developer who has demonstrated skills and is in a class to improve them further. Apprenticeships basically work this way.

        I think jobs like law or medicine that require a degree before you even start gaining experience are the exception, not the norm.

      2. Rose*

        I received a resume for a call center role (so looks could not have mattered less) with a “head shot” wherein the applicant was posed seductively by a pool, wearing a tube top.

        She wasn’t particularly attractive by conventional standards. I don’t say that to be mean, just to clarify that this didn’t seem to be a case of “leveraging my long held pretty privilege.” It was just… a choice she made.

      3. Doris*

        I’ve noticed a lot of people in non ‘professional’ positions don’t really understand how long people spend qualifying for some professions. I don’t say this to be classist. My own working class family can never really remember what qualification I have or in what area and my dad thought a PhD was a one year degree.

    6. MPM*

      We also receive a shocking number of resumes from people who have never gone to law school for what are very clearly attorney positions. It’s bizarre.

    7. AngryOctopus*

      Huh. I know a few of my grad school cohorts did the thing where they joined a patent law firm that then paid for them to attend law school part time. But they already had the relevant PhD which made them a good candidate for patent law. Maybe this kid heard about that and wildly misinterpreted how it works (“my friend wasn’t an attorney but the law firm hired them and paid for them to go to law school! I can do it too!!” when the friend had the science background needed and law school was being covered because they wanted a patent prosecutor).

    8. Tesuji*

      I’ve seen more than a few occasions where a valued paralegal is going to a local bottom-tier law school–you know, the level of law school that may or may not be located in a strip mall–with the idea that they’ll get a job at that firm after they graduate (which is one of the very few situations where going to this kind of law school makes sense).

      Maybe they’re trying for a deal like that, and don’t get the key difference between attorneys and literally every non-attorney job the firm might have.

    9. Velawciraptor*

      Based on the responses so far, I should probably make a couple of points clear:

      The job postings for attorney positions always note that you must have a valid license to practice law as a minimum requirement.

      Also, the applicant had no previous legal experience. This wasn’t a paralegal looking for a way to get through law school. This was a purely hubristic “how hard could it be” type application.

    11. Florence Reese*

      Hey I have tons of legal knowledge, from reading the very qualified answers on arr-slash-legaladvice! Surely that’s on par with 4 grueling years of school.

      (P.S. great username.)

      1. Chas*

        Ah, but have you also beaten all of the Ace Attorney games? That’s where the REAL knowledge comes from!!!

  20. Fleur*

    When I worked as a hostess at a restaurant, a man dropped off a paper copy of his resume and then quickly left. He had an eyepatch and a large sign (it looked like the one that protestors carry, although I didn’t see if the sign said anything). This was in 2020 (maybe 2021?). According to his resume, his most recent work experience ended in 2016 and he stopped attending college in 2016. In the “other” section of his resume, he said he wanted to “expose the horrors of the pharmaceutical industry,” “take revenge upon the people who abused him when he was a child,” and something about how he wanted to “avenge his father’s death.”
    I gave the resume to the assistant manager. This man was not contacted for an interview.

      2. WantonSeedStitch*

        I was gonna say, “unless the resume listed the name ‘Inigo Montoya,’ hard pass.”

    3. Mim*

      Um, this sounds so similar to a local “character” where I live that I legit wonder if I am thinking of the same person and relatively small town/city where you are located.

    4. MissGirl*

      I feel like Inigo Montoya’s resume would be better than this. I’m ruling him out.

    5. Leslie*

      wow I would have 100% wanted to talk to this man because I have so many questions

    6. Beth*

      Oh, that this too, too solid resume would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a job offer . . .

  21. A Meyers*

    My own resume very long ago. I was young and had little experience aside from college. So, under experience, I added
    “King of Spain: Ruled Kingdom and Empire under professional name Charles III.”

    In the time between “what a funny idea” and “what the hell was I thinking?” I sent out exactly three resumes.
    – One I never heard from
    – One was clearly contacting every submitted resume
    – One was one of the top Strategy Consulting firms in the country.

    I got the consulting job.

    1. Czhorat*

      I’m not going to lie – the consulting job sounds like a BIG step down from King of Spain.

    2. Curious*

      Well, that makes sense, since (according to Wikipedia), you were probably the most successful European leader of your generation.

    4. Madame Señora*

      The only acceptable jobs for a former King of Spain are:
      Making pizza at Pizza Pizza
      Vacuuming the turf at Sky Dome
      Driving the Zamboni for the Leafs

          1. Proofin' Amy*

            The King of Spain never rushes! (Hi, Will! I didn’t know you were a Fruhead!)

            1. Will "scifantasy" Frank*

              *shrug* I have eclectic tastes. Don’t know if I’d call myself a full Fruhead though.

                1. Madame Señora*

                  I used to go to Frucon back in the day. I’m still best friends with two people I met at a show in 2000.

    6. Curious*

      You got a good result, but I can imagine the comments that would be coming at you if you didn’t get the job.

      1. Snow Globe*

        Now that this story is out on the internet, I’m thinking there will be others using this strategy.

    7. azvlr*

      I’m tempted to put a couple of joke things on my next resume, as it would screen for the kind of workplace culture that I’d actually want to work at. My current workplace/team would have really enjoyed something like that.

      The top two that I’ve thought of are:
      Folding fitted sheets (I am actually pretty good at this one).
      Knows all the words to Rapper’s Delight (except I don’t, so I couldn’t lie like that. lol).

    8. And...uh...Abraham Lincoln*

      I filled out a survey about a job recently that asked me to state, to the best of my knowledge, whether I had been a senior government official in the last few years (I think it was five but I can’t remember for sure.) Now I get needing to screen for potential conflicts of interest but…to the best of my knowledge? How would I somehow be unaware of that? “Oh shoot, I forgot to mention that I am heir to the throne of Luxembourg”?

  22. Ann O'Nemity*

    A four page resume with purple “cursive” font. Each page had a header with what looked like Windows 98 clip art of purple and pink flowers.

    The kicker? The job was for a college career coach, someone who is supposed to be an expert in resume writing!

    1. Kate Moseley*

      I think I received a resume from this same candidate in my former job in higher ed.

    3. cktc*

      Hah, that sounds like a resume I once got. Pink paper, cursive font, don’t remember if it was scented. The resume content itself was fine, and about what you would expect from a soon-to-be college graduate. I included it in the recommend pile, with a note to ignore the color/font.

    4. H.Regalis*

      Ugh, that makes me flash back to some of the old Babysitters Club books where the whole damn book was in cursive font. Not an enjoyable reading experience.

    6. Tesuji*

      That’s just amazing.

      You’re probably lucky the envelope didn’t include a hefty pinch of glitter, just to add a little more pizzazz when you opened it up.

    7. Caffeine Monkey*

      When I worked on a newspaper, we used to get weekly letters from a freelance sub-editor looking for work.

      He’d always send them in a metallic gold envelope that was an absolute nightmare to open. Considering the mail was opened by the editor’s PA, who essentially ruled the newspaper, that guaranteed we never contacted him, even on the odd occasion when we could have used a freelance sub.

  23. Former Hiring Manager*

    I once received a resume that consisted entirely of the single sentence: “I have mastered all forms of business.” Despite great temptation, I did not call them back for a phone screen.

    1. Double A*

      I think that person did ok. A lot of people find that bio convincing. Eventually ended up president.

        1. Charlotte Lucas*

          If you had called their references, there probably would be a lot of commotion.

    3. Excel-sior*

      I can’t be the only Brit reading this and thinking of Jay from The Inbetweeners. “Business? Yeah, completed it mate”.

  24. Wams352*

    Oh wow I finally have something to share. We were hiring for a community center supervisor and a candidate’s job experience included NFL player – won’t mention the team but he listed his job duties as ‘winning a Super Bowl’. That was it. Not particularly relevant to running a facility and supervising people… but I’m sure he got a lot of interviews because people wanted to say they met him (I hadn’t heard of him but my husband said he was on the team but not a star).

    1. HBJ*

      To be fair, that is a job you do for a salary. If he didn’t list it, he’d presumably have a gap.

      1. PotsPansTeapots*

        Yeah, and it doesn’t sound like he was glory-hungry if he didn’t list the team.

        1. Wams352*

          No he named the team but that was it nothing about being part of the team or a leader just ‘I won a Super Bowl.’ Which is great and impressive but not sure it translates into running a front desk, customer service, cash handling, facility maintenance… supervising people. If he’d bulleted out anything like that on any part of his app we would have at least phone interviewed him.

          1. Special Specialist*

            I have heard that now that NFL players’ average tenure is about 3 years… they get a lot more help from the league and the union about how to successfully transition from a professional athlete career to one much more mundane. My son’s local public high school is lucky to have some former NFL players coaching football and my international consulting firm also has some ex-NFL players as employees.

            1. Orv*

              I once met a former NFL player who was working the checkout window at Hertz. It was clearly not where he wanted to be. I got out my phone to take pictures of the car (I like to document the condition when I pick it up) and he got mad because he thought I was trying to get a free picture of him.

          2. PotsPansTeapots*

            If he was an ad guy and his agency had an absolutely amazing campaign that he was only peripherally involved in, he still might mention it on his resume, no? I don’t see how that’s different here. He could have expressed it better, sure, but I just don’t see it as that damning.

            1. Florence Reese*

              I think the problem is that, as Wams said in both comments, the *only* experience he listed under that job was “I won the Superbowl” and nothing else. If an ad guy only listed “my agency did X Campaign” and nothing else, I really hope you’d think twice about their experience. (And ad work is more obviously relevant to other office work than winning a Superbowl! How does that prior work experience actually relate? You gotta try to make that connection a little bit, as the candidate.)

    2. Carol*

      That seems very valid though! It is his work experience, makes sense to put it on a resume. And can’t really beat that bullet point.

    3. D. B.*

      The only thing that’s weird is the way he expressed it. I wonder what a more conventional way to list that job would be.

      1. fine-tipped pen aficionado*

        I would think for a job in Parks & Rec you would use it to talk about your experience with Athletics, your knowledge of safe recreation, your skill in de-escalating conflicts, and facilitating collaboration with a lot of stakeholders with disparate needs, interests, and abilities. Also when a patron starts going off on your staff about paying their salary, you can loom over the patron menacingly.

    4. Anonnnn*

      I work in the same giant org as a famous Olympic athlete. She needed some onboarding briefings for a relatively niche portfolio and LET ME TELL YOU the number of people who needed to share information about this area people don’t usually track was ENORMOUS. I did one of the meetings and I think there were five extra ppl who came to “brief”. (They all had useful things to say, but I could have done it myself too. I definitely wanted to meet her also!)

  25. Ginger Cat Lady*

    Mid-40s man in tech listed “grew largest pumpkin at the county fair, won a blue ribbon”
    His resume was otherwise excellent, so he got an interview.
    At the end of the interview they asked if he had any questions, and he wondered why they didn’t ask him about his pumpkin. The interviewer said “tell me more about that, then, and how you see it relating to the work we do here.”
    It happened when he was 12, he “didn’t remember much” about how he did it, he just thought it was what made him unique.

    1. Velawciraptor*

      Why, in the name of all that is holy, would he invite a question that he didn’t really have an answer to?

      “Why didn’t you ask me about this irrelevant experience that I don’t remember much about but definitely makes me a very special boy?” Good gravy.

      2. Siege*

        People think being unique in applications is good. I promise, I remember the authors who submitted to my publisher back in 2006 and 2007 who included in their cover letters:

        – that they were on dialysis and had once won an extremely regional writing award from the extremely local paper when they were 12.
        – that if we didn’t publish their book (not included in the submission) Jubelo, Jubela, and Jubellum (Sumerian deities, per my internet search) would destroy the earth.
        – that they called “their president” (George W Bush, also my President whether I liked it or not) Dragonfire.
        – and, more tragically (for him) the candidate who I reviewed on Monday and requested a full submission from, which he responded to with joy on Wednesday, but on Tuesday we had gotten his threatening letters sent to the editors of a certain book about dragons, explaining in pages of detail why they were all hell-bound sinners who should be ashamed of themselves because dragons aren’t in the Bible so obviously we’re all heathens. The name was unique. I ghosted him because I didn’t know how to say I wouldn’t touch his book with a ten foot pole without saying I wouldn’t touch his book with a ten foot pole.

        I declined all of them due to terrible or absent writing (or threats) but boy howdy were they memorable. It was just all for the wrong reasons.

        1. Siege*

          I also want to note that this was at Wizards of the Coast, known for their dragons, so what the last guy was doing writing fantasy and submitting it there but taking offense to the vast majority of the product lines, I don’t know. Cognitive dissonance, thy name is that guy’s.

          1. MigraineMonth*

            Wizards of the Coast also publishes D&D, a.k.a. the adolescent gateway drug to Satanism. Because pretending to be a wizard once a week with your friends is exactly the same as congress with the Devil.

            (/end sarcasm)

        3. Windsorite*

          I guess he didn’t read Revelation 12, Revelation 20, Job 41, or Isaiah 27 then.

          1. Jelizabug*

            I was going say, dragons are mentioned multiple times in the Bible. *shrug* Maybe he has a different translation!

      3. ferrina*

        I’m wondering the same thing. It’s one thing to include it on the resume to get a foot in the door, but once you’re in that door, why would you say “ask me about this specific thing, so I can say I don’t remember”?

      1. Ginger Cat Lady*

        He did not. But the dude they did hire was a disaster, so I would like to know what working with this guy would have been like. It’s unlikely he could have been worse.

  26. Johnny 5*

    The information provided was fine, but the candidate wrote their cover letter in rhyming couplets.

    For an accounting job.

    I wanted to interview the person because I just really wanted to meet the kind of person who would not only have this idea but follow through on it, but alas, we had a large pool of more qualified candidates, and apparently “the interview process does not exist to satisfy [my] curiosity.”

    1. The Prettiest Curse*

      I am not involved in hiring, but I’d definitely want to interview this person too!

      1. buddleia*

        Yeah I would have liked to have seen if they would do the interview in rhyming couplets and asked them why they didn’t do the resume in rhyming couplets

    2. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

      The moving finger writes;
      and having writ, Moves on:
      nor all thy Piety nor Wit
      Shall lure it back to revise the amortization schedule

    3. Marian Librarian*

      I can’t! The juxtaposition of a super creative response to a very practical field is hilarious.

    4. Lenora Rose*

      Did they at least scan? My biggest peeve with people trying to go all Dr. Seuss is that they seem to miss scansion entirely.

      (It doesn’t help that a primary form of poetry out there now is long lyrics, which can be amazing, but you can also stretch one syllable and three over the same note range so their scansion is sometimes a bit more muddled)

      1. Distracted Procrastinator*

        My husband is an aspiring song writer and he’s very careful about scansion. He loves throwing in internal rhyme, alliteration, and all the poetry things. I think it makes a better song all around, and maybe someday a singer or publisher will agree with me.

        1. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

          Internal rhyme is great. Part of what makes The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald so haunting.

    6. Despachito*

      I want this job and I hope it makes sense
      I can in no time accrue an expense
      My cash flows smoothly like a mountain brook
      I always keep my entries by the book
      To add some more perfection to my great abilities
      I kick ass in assets but don’t lie in liabilities
      I hope that’s enough for you to clearly see
      That you can only hire one person, and that’s ME!

    7. Charlotte Lucas*

      Maybe that was so Kinga and Max wouldn’t know what he was doing.

      Or you missed out on hiring Fezzik.

  27. Msspel*

    I will always remember fondly an applicant for an internship at a human rights nonprofit who listed under hobbies, “Renovating an antique French farmhouse.”

      2. Wolf*

        Oh, they would have been interested in the pay. As we say in Germany “renovating old buildings is fun, sustainable and costs twice as much as building new”.

  28. ThatGirl*

    Saw a 12-page resume from a person with ~5-7 years of experience – it was mostly that long because the formatting was horrendous, but it also included a lot of extraneous and unnecessary details including that he had been an Eagle Scout.

    1. Czhorat*

      Eagle Scout is one of those things that can generate a lot more attention than it probably should; some people consider Eagle Scout a tremendous accomplishment, and fellow scouts take it as a very major accomplishment. A mention if it in a resume can help more than one would think it would.

      1. ThatGirl*

        Well, fair, although I think after you’ve been out of college for awhile it becomes less impressive.

        Also, I have a friend who’s a girl scout leader and frequently complains that the Eagle Scout projects she sees are way less thought out and impressive than the Gold Projects the girls do.

        But I have to admit that I temporarily forgot the actual best/weirdest thing, which was his perfect attendance in K-12.

        1. PotsPansTeapots*

          I think it really depends on the troop! My dad’s a Scout leader and he’s extremely rigorous with Eagle projects the kids do, while the nearby Girl Scout troop has put out a few half-a**ed Gold Projects.

          1. sb51*

            Yeah, but the requirements from the national organizations are very similar (and both can be skimped on or well-done); it’s just that the Boy Scouts have managed to gain all this prestige for theirs and the Girl Scouts haven’t, for the obvious reasons.

            (There’s some structural differences between them — Eagle is a rank and Gold is an award, and my last look at the books was over 25 years ago, but they’re pretty similar. A bunch of badges demonstrating a range of different skills, some leadership and community service requirements, and then a capstone project.)

          2. ferrina*

            Definitely depends on the Scout troop.

            I did my then-boyfriend’s Eagle project for him. His parents designed the idea, submitted the paper work, and I coordinated the whole thing (community clean-up project). He….showed up? I guess he did a whole hour of helping clean up trash- that was it.
            Ever since, I’ve not been impressed with the Eagle Scout accolade.

            1. Quill*

              I’ve seen a lot of Eagle Scout projects that boiled down to “you and your dad built a very small deck”

              Varying degrees of desirability, utility, structural integrity.

            2. NotSoRecentlyRetired*

              My older brother didn’t become an Eagle scout because the scoutmaster was pushing him so hard.
              Saying that my dad (who had moved up into the district(?) level of scouting) would be disappointed in him. If I remember the story right, dad was more impressed that he had stood up for himself.
              This was in the ’70s.

          3. Distracted Procrastinator*

            I have seen way too many “winter coat drives” (put a box and a poster in their church lobby for a few weeks) that get Eagle Scout awards.

          4. another fed*

            Eh, this is localized, as I’ve seen plenty of Eagle Scout projects that were raise $1500 for a park bench. And Gold projects that created new community organizations that have lasted decades. it completely runs the gamut, as does how much the Scout did on their own.

            I still think wrangling your junior class peers to plam, execute, and decorate for prom often shows more leadership than a closely supervised Scout project. I even had a friend who organized his own 5K with permits and all (pre-internet, takes several trips and meetings to city hall), and he was the one that pointed out he needed more diplomacy to get people to build sets in our high school drama productions.

        2. Czhorat*

          Perfect attendance is weird; it’s something I used to VERY highly respect, but the older I get the more I see it as either luck OR a poor ability to prioritize ones own health (and family obligations if it’s an adult)

          1. Lenora Rose*

            In kids it can also mean “my family made me go even when sick” which means the “accomplishment” isn’t even personal.

          2. Jay (no, the other one)*

            I might still be bitter about the perfect attendance award at my kid’s elementary school. I think it’s a stupid thing in the first place because it encourages parents to send sick kids to school. The bitterness is due to the fact that my kid would never have been able to win it because she always missed at least one day for the Jewish holidays and that counted as an unexcused absence. Same with any observant Muslim kids, of course, and any other non-Christian observances. Grrrr.

          3. HonorBox*

            Agree about the perfect attendance. There were awards in school for kids who had perfect attendance, which I think is even weirder. As I remember it, most of those kids weren’t the type who would come to school noticeably sick, so it wasn’t that. But it did seem weird to congratulate a kid for their immune system, or for their parents’ ability to schedule dentist appointments outside of school hours.

          4. ferrina*

            My mother forced me to skip school several times. A couple times for a family trip, once to get my driver’s license (she wanted me able to drive my siblings as quick as possible), and once for a community hearing on land use (I was giving testimony- the group thought it would look impressive to have a teenager speak to the issue).

        3. Keyboard Cowboy*

          My co-op advisor when I was in college straight up told the class that they could list Gold Award too, but it’s “not as good” as Eagle Scout. My bestie (aka the other half of the women in the class, besides me) lost her shit as a former Gold Award Girl Scout. That guy was a jerk.

        4. Caffeine Monkey*

          I’d always assumed that Eagle Scout was roughly equivalent to the UK’s King’s/Queen’s Scout award, but with more requirements for being manly and outdoors, and possibly wrestling bears or taming an eagle. Looking at the requirements, it seems a LOT easier.

          (I got my Queen’s Scout, but I’ve never considered putting it on my CV.)

      2. Charlotte Lucas*

        All it makes me think of is the guy I knew in college who was very proud of being an Eagle Scout. This wasn’t the only reason my friends and I considered him Undatable, but it didn’t help.

        FWIW, this was the early 90s, and we were from an area where most kids quit scouts before high school.

    2. Panicked*

      The Eagle Scout (Or Girl Scout Gold Award) can be a big positive on a resume. I see it quite often. It shows that a person (usually) works hard, can see a project through to completion, has leadership skills, can stay organized, communicates well, etc…

      Although a 12 page resume is something else!

    3. Pastor Petty Labelle*

      Don’t laugh at listing the Eagle Scout. They are told it can be useful to get jobs.

      The university I got my MA from was hiring a law school dean while I was there. I kid you not, the guy they hired listed Eagle Scout as one of his accomplishments. The guy was easily in his 50s.

    4. ThatGirl*

      OH I almost forgot the best part – he had perfect attendance in elementary school.

      1. Czhorat*

        That isn’t his accomplishment; that’s his parents not letting him stay home when he’s sick. (you said K-12 in another comment; I refuse to believe he wasn’t sick once in a dozen years)

        1. ThatGirl*

          I honestly can’t remember now if it was elementary school or K-12, I second-guessed myself, but either way — it’s not really an accomplishment, like you said, and anything that happened before college is generally not relevant once you hit 30.

    5. Luanne Platter*

      Eagle Scouts have to serve their troop and community, have to learn important life skills, have to plan, coordinate, and execute a major project. This is directly relevant to work skills.

      1. ThatGirl*

        Well a) I actually meant to post about the perfect attendance thing, which is far weirder but b) I can see it if you’re fresh out of school/college … this dude was at least 30, it’s not particularly relevant anymore.

      2. ferrina*

        Theoretically. I don’t know many Eagle Scouts, but those that I know are a 50/50 split between hard workers that pulled off an impressive project vs people whose parents/friends scrambled at last minute to do the thing that the Boy Scout couldn’t be bothered to do but was happy to claim credit for.

    6. Cyborg Llama Horde*

      Okay, that’s better than mine, but I did once see a 15-page resume that included a Microsoft Office certification from… 1996? (and this was LAST YEAR). There were not fifteen pages worth of meaningful accomplishments — it was in fact one of the worst-written while still largely grammatical resumes I have ever seen.

  29. Part Time Wizard*

    I got some confused questions from my interviewers when I included a project building cat towers for an animal shelter on my resume. To be fair to myself, it was my Gold Award project (the Girl Scout equivalent of the Eagle rank) so I was slapping that on everything hoping for a leg up. But they were very confused about why there was a carpentry project on my application for a position at a government library.
    I did get the job.

    1. diasporacrew*

      Perhaps this is silly on my part, but I feel like carpentry skills could come in handy in a library.

      1. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain*

        Eh yeah, if it’s the kind of library that creates fun seasonal displays or runs community programs. But I’m guessing a government library wouldn’t do that.

        1. Charlotte Lucas*

          Aren’t most libraries government libraries? The two I worked at were part of the municipal government.

          1. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain*

            I assumed that since Part Time Wizard didn’t say Public Library that this would be a much more formal or specialized library that would mostly be used by researchers for example — like the Library of Congress — it is open to the public, but it would not have fun seasonal displays.

      2. fine-tipped pen aficionado*

        Carpentry may not be that handy but a background in scouting and experience with student volunteer projects is!

      3. RetiredAcademicLibrarian*

        We once had a reference desk that was permanently attached to the floor. When we wanted to rearrange the reference area, one of the librarians offered to bring their chainsaw to work to fix the problem. The library director declined the offer and had the university facility folks the care of the desk.

    2. DisneyChannelThis*

      My first professional job I had kept my nanny jobs, my IT job, and my farming job on my resume as an attempt to seem like I had experience. I had 0 job history relevant to the new job, but I had been working on and off for all of high school and college and was trying to show it!

    3. Bumblebee*

      Well, I think we just identified my youngest’s Eagle Scout project one day . . . he would be so happy to do something like this!

    5. Orv*

      I once had an IT job where I ended up building a wooden frame to mount some air filters in the window of a makeshift server room. I remarked that I’d never really expected carpentry to be part of my system administration duties. I won’t say it was the prettiest or most plumb and true bit of framing but it worked for about three years until we were able to move to a real data center.

  30. pookie87*

    We had a candidate for a Food Service Worker position that listed making dognuts at a local grocery store. Spell check may have come in handy.

    1. Juicebox Hero*

      They’d have fit right in at a store I used to work at, where I remember seeing signs for “pasta bowels” and “camisole table” instead of console table, which is a long narrow table that goes behind a sofa. My own manager nearly put one up that said “girls’ t-shits” but she caught it in time.

    4. Snoozing not schmoozing*

      Ew, now I’ll have that in my brain when I think of doggies getting neutered. Which, btw, I do NOT think about at random, but still …

      1. RC*

        Dognuts made me lol.

        (There was just that study looking at microplastics in dog testicles, although I’m pretty sure the researchers did not source them from a grocery store!)

    5. TJ Morrison*

      I’ve seen something called a “Bear Claw” at a bakery before. I’d probably try DogNuts if it looked like an actual pastry at a local bakery.

      1. RetiredAcademicLibrarian*

        There is probably a bakery that has labeled their donut holes as DogNuts

        1. RetiredAcademicLibrarian*

          Couldn’t find one with a quick search, but there are multiple bakeries selling dognuts dog treats.

          2. Chas*

            I was going to say it sounds like it’d be a good name for the donut equivalent of a Wooffin (dog-friendly muffin).

  31. Chocoholic*

    I’ve gotten some doozies over the years. One had an extensive work history listed, and put on there that the reason they had left various jobs was that they were terminated due to poor attendance.

    One resume was literally 20 pages long and came bound in one of those covers I used to put a paper in when I turned it in.

    There was another one that every “S” that appeared at the end of a word was an apostrophe S. It made it very distracting to try to read.

    1. HonorBox*

      I think after the first two of the apostrophe S instances, I’d have round filed that resume.

    2. Rock Prof*

      Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes) and his “clear plastic binder” would be proud.

    3. Wolf*

      What do people even writein a 20 page resume? Lots of jobs, or lots of detail about a regular number of jobs?

      1. All things considered, I'd rather be a dragon*

        I don’t hire, but I’ve recently started reviewing resumes as an SME. I waded through one that was about 23 pages plus 12 additional pages. The applicant appears to have made a living as a seasonal worker who was occasionally hired back the next year but often moved to a different place over the winter. Their resume read as though every winter, they opened the document and added new text at the top describing exactly what they’d done that summer. In paragraphs with complete sentences and much detail. And never edited the existing text (including occasional comments at the end of a section in present tense).

        By “much detail”, I mean that they wouldn’t have said “ergonomically adjusted chair”, but “ergonomically adjusted arms, back, seat, and height of chair”, because they clearly didn’t want you to assume they only knew A-C when they actually knew A-G.

  32. The Wizard Rincewind*

    I used to assist an HR manager and resumes were tangentially related to my duties. I mostly remember seeing a LOT of non-professional email addresses. Lots of BabyGirl[numerals] and BigPoppa[numerals], one CheeseMeister, and, since it was the height of Twilight mania, MANY permutations of EdwardLuvsBella, BiteMeEdward, VampireLuver, etc.

    All of these people were applying to work at a major oil company.

    1. DisneyChannelThis*

      In engineering college in like 2011 or near then, we had 4 different seminars were they stressed that we needed to snag our name as an email and use only it for job hunting. At the time we made fun of the instructors for thinking we needed to be told that so much, like who on earth would apply with a non professional email??? I guess some people really do!

    2. Cow Woman in hiding*

      Came here to say the same thing. Email address that you should only use with your friends.

      1. Jam on Toast*

        Oh yeah! I can verify this. Years ago, I was an events coordinator for a big advertising awards show. We needed volunteers as ushers, runners, setter-uppers and hander-outers so I contacted a professor who taught in the marketing program at a local college and they had the students in the program submit a cover letter and resume.

        Some of the emails they used were completely NSFW. Like Wow! I did not need to know that about you! Others were very fan or hobby focused, like IluvHarryPotter134@hotmail.com.

    4. Tempest*

      I was helping a friend edit her resume and when she sent me her draft her email was some permutation of sexxxymama69.

    5. Albatross*

      My email address is firstname @ customdomain dot com. The custom domain isn’t anything obviously inappropriate (it’s the name of my dad’s dwarf barbarian from his high school D&D campaign, I have to spell it for most people), but I did have one interviewer mention that they’d checked out the site because they were curious. At the time, it had a bunch of old family vacation photos visible. Those have now been removed, and it just links to some of my dad’s nonfiction writing. (I also have a garden-variety firstname-lastname-numbers @ gmail address, but I know some people don’t like the numbers so I usually use the custom domain one.)

      1. allathian*

        I guess I got lucky in that I snagged a gmail address without any numbers, although I did have to include my middle initial.

    6. Elle Woods*

      A friend is a recruiter and a die-hard fan of a state school that has a rivalry with a neighboring state school. This friend thought he’d found a great candidate for a role he was looking to fill and, after speaking with the candidate on the phone, asked the candidate to send over his resume. The candidate’s email address was along the lines of “neighboring state school mascot rules recruiter’s state school sucks at domain dot com.” The candidate was immediately eliminated from consideration.

    7. Bread Crimes*

      Hoo boy. Indeed. Like, my standard job application email address is a touch on the quirky side, but it’s based on my name, and it’s not about my hobbies or bedroom preferences.

      I have thought about making “Bread Crimes” an email address if I ever need another account to be even more detached from my real name, but I don’t think I would apply to a job from breadcrimes at any email server. Raises too many questions about other types of crimes I might commit.

    9. Hydrangea MacDuff*

      I was helping my first student teacher with his application materials and we had only communicated using work email, which is how I discovered (and advised him to change) that his personal email was “onebigburrito@domain”

    10. Distracted Procrastinator*

      I very much sympathize with people who have common names. Mine is pretty much on the level of Jennifer Smith. But even still I wouldn’t apply for a job with an email like MrDarcysShirt @thirsty.com

    11. Aitch Arr*

      Two I saw recently (somewhat altered for privacy):

      lowenergysales@ (this was for a sales role)

      godschosenone@

    12. karriegrace*

      My husband once had an intern whose email was meatwad69@. He still remembers this fondly,

  33. Audrey Puffins*

    Applying to work in a bookshop, handed in a lovingly typed essay explaining how they didn’t believe in standard CVs because they were such an original thinker and didn’t have to be constrained by society. And to prove it, they decorated this essay with scads of carefully chosen Microsoft standard clip art.

  34. Keeper of the Boos*

    I had an applicant who listed “international ferret judge” on her CV. I wanted to interview her just to ask her about that! Another covering letter consisted of one line, which read “I am perfect for this job”. He wasn’t.

    1. Aspiring Chicken Lady*

      Anyone who can judge international ferrets can join my team immediately!

    2. Nea*

      Hey, the ferret judge is used to working in an environment of hyperactivity, petty theft, hoarding, and biting.* Depending on the job, it’s perfect training!

      *And being adorable; I used to own ferrets and love them but… yeah.

      1. ferrina*

        “Hmmm, the copier was left open, there are three staplers on the floor, and all the paper clips are missing. I can tell you exactly who did and why.”

        Hired.

    3. I don't work in this van*

      There is a *delightful* documentary about people who show ferrets. IIRC, it is by PBS and called Ferrets: The Pursuit of Excellence.

  35. Shauna B*

    Once got a resume that stated they had graduated Magna Cum Latte. Also got one where the candidate spelled their name differently on the cover letter than they did on the resume.

    3. Mim*

      I was just scratching my head yesterday over an email where someone (at a different organization) spelled her name in her sign-off differently than it was spelled in her email address or email signature info. Neither versions were a nickname, they didn’t have different gender associations (like Jesse/Jessie, for example), or anything like that. Just… spelling variants that looked unlikely to be a typo. I used the name that she used at the end of her email, but I’m the type of person who is now anxious that I chose the wrong one. Even though that’s what I’d advise anyone else to do. (But why not change your email signature? Is she a time traveler from Elizabethan England, or any other time/place where spellings were loosey-goosey like that?)

      1. Tempest*

        Could be a lazy IT department.. we’ve had three employees with misspelled last names in their email addresses, our old IT manager considered it unimportant and refused to fix/change them.

        1. Orv*

          That can be surprisingly hard to fix. You can fix it on the email server end, but anyone who has previously mailed the person is likely to still see the old name because it’ll be stored in their address book.

          I went through this a few times with colleagues who got married and changed their names. It can be very frustrating.

          1. Peanut Hamper*

            Nah, that’s just lazy IT. It’s a pretty simple thing to set up a rule on the mail server that redirects emails from an old email address to a new email address.

      1. TJ Morrison*

        I’m imagining that baristas are awarded a Magnum Cup Latte when they finish training.

  36. Panicked*

    I had one applicant that put “Have spent less than 8 nights incarcerated” on his resume.

    I’ve had several candidates who listed Olympic records, although not a single one was actually on the Olympic team, had verifiable records, or even possible. I had one 40 year old candidate who stated that she won an Olympic medal in 1990. She would have been under the age of 10.

    I also had one candidate who put on their resume that they made “the best cookies in the world. (No, you cannot have the recipe.)”

    1. Expelliarmus*

      There wasn’t even a Summer or Winter Olympics in 1990! Back then, both Summer and Winter Olympics took place in the same year (ex. 1988, 1992). This changed in 1994, when Lillehammer, Norway hosted the first Winter Olympics to not take place the same year as a Summer Olympics, and only since then have the events been staggered.

          1. AFac*

            Alternative Olympics Sports:

            – Changing TV channels to avoid commercials.
            – Couch potatoing
            – Applying makeup in a car
            – Procrastination
            – Accidentally hitting tennis balls into the next court
            – Typing your own name incorrectly

            1. Quill*

              – Confidently giving out your wrong name, address, etc
              – Scooting in a chair without making noise
              – Tripping over own shoelaces

      2. Distracted Procrastinator*

        They were still called the Summer Olympics and the Winter Olympics. they just took place a few months apart instead of two years (roughly) apart.

    4. Texas Teacher*

      Junior Olympics, possibly? But really that sort of thing needs to be properly noted.

    5. Aitch Arr*

      I couldn’t find it in the ATS, but I recall a resume from a candidate whose accomplishments included something like “attended London Olympics.”

      1. Caffeine Monkey*

        Considering how hard it was to get tickets, that shows dedication, perserverance, and ability to deal with bureaucracy!

  37. diasporacrew*

    At a nonprofit internship several years ago, I was tasked with receiving applications in the general mailbox and forwarding them to the relevant hiring managers, as there were many open positions in several countries overseas.
    One applicant sent in a resume which had, in the lower left corner, a pretty big cartoon image of the genie from Aladdin coming out of his lamp. Then a blue speech bubble coming out of his mouth and filling the page. Inside the speech bubble was the actual resume (in smaller font, as the genie, lamp and bubble took up a fair amount of space on the page).
    He was not hired.

    1. NotBatman*

      That is a beautiful mental image, and I can imagine exactly the era of Microsoft Word it must have come from.

  38. AnonInCanada*

    I can’t really speak too much about this, but I do remember helping an old friend of mine redo his resume many years ago. The biggest eye-popper in that: he (or whoever wrote it for him) left out the “l” in “public.”

    Whoops.

    1. Teacher Lady*

      As someone who works in public schools, I see this quite often! I just reviewed a batch of resumes last week where TWENTY PERCENT of the candidates had this error at least once. I have never rejected a resume solely on that basis, but most of the resumes I see that have that error also have many other errors, and usually don’t come across as strong candidates in terms of experience, either.

      It is why I advise new teacher candidates from my graduate program to actually print out their resume and have someone else proofread it.

      1. AnonInCanada*

        Wow. You would think someone applying for a teaching job, who would be teaching children things like attention to detail, would go over their resume with a fine-tooth comb over something like this.

        Whoops, indeed!

        1. ialwaysforgetmyname*

          You might be sadly dismayed by the writing ability of far too many people in education.

        3. Wolf*

          There’s nothing quite as ironic as misspelling “I have great attention for detail” in your cover letter.

      2. ferrina*

        The other trick- do a Word Search for the word you don’t want. Spell check won’t find it, but you can directly search for it and fix ti.

      3. Doris*

        I mentioned this in another comment, but I was an instructor for a Human Geography subject all about public spaces and so many of our essays discussed ‘pubic spaces’.

    3. PicklePants*

      Haha we had this in one of the reports the teachers wrote for end of year. Apparently the students had all been learning how to catch pubic transport….!!!!

    5. Snoozing not schmoozing*

      That person is merely making up for a boss of mine from many decades ago who always pronounced it as “plublic.” There are only a finite number of letters in the world and if someone uses too many, another person has to do without.

    6. Small Town Librarian*

      Our local school district has an automated telephone system that will robo-call the parents of all students when there is a weather related closure.

      And one frosty winter morning, they misspelled “public” in the way you describe for the robotic lady to matter-of-factly read to all the parents in the school district.

    7. allathian*

      The missing l in public is probably one of the most common typos there is in the English language.

  39. Snarkus Aurelius*

    Some years ago, my agency was hiring for a position with the word “officer” in the title. The role was required by law to be filed so think of something like “compliance officer” or “HR officer.” A lot of people mass apply to government jobs without reading the job description so we included multiple choice questions to screen out anyone who had zero experience with this law.

    One of the applications scared the shit out of me. This guy’s resume had a border (a crime unto itself) of crosses. Then it listed all of his military experience abroad, his knowledge of firearms, his choice of religion, and his love of Jesus Christ. But his cover letter was most disturbing. In it, he described how much pleasure he took in killing to defend the United States when he served in the armed forces and that if we gave him this job, he would “defend” our agency in the same way. He would even bring his own guns! In the first and last paragraphs, this man proudly announced he would kill for my employer. Oh and he completely lied in all the multiple choice questions about his knowledge of this law and the role we needed to fill. He said he had “multiple years” of experience working to ensure compliance with this particular law. (I don’t want to know how he defined “compliance.”)

    For a few weeks, I was really scared to come to work because this guy had our address and my name is very Google-able.

    Sir, this is a Wendys…

      1. Roland*

        This person was literally paid by the government to kill, they ain’t putting him on a list

        1. Lenora Rose*

          That’s not how that works. Soldiers are all paid for the possibility they will kill, but threatening to kill people as a civilian, even one with a military record, is still a no-no. Ex-military people can be arrested for murder.

    5. DrB*

      I’m wondering if he thought it was a LEO position. Like he had some Rambo fantasy of being a security guard for your firm that’s apparently (in his mind) routinely attacked by space aliens or terrorists or supervillains or something.

      1. Snarkus Aurelius*

        I mean…

        The job was meant to make sure we, as an agency, were compliant with very, very specific state and federal versions of this law. Unofficially, it was about data quality for us because we produced a lot of it and needed a person to ensure accuracy and consistency.

        The literal worst thing that could ever happen to you if you violated the law was a hefty fine imposed by a judge on our agency and there would be a ton of public scrutiny. No one would go to prison or get the death penalty.

        Part of me really wanted to know what this guy thought we did! And I’ll give him credit for standing out among the attorney and regulatory applicants just not in the way he thought!

  40. DisneyChannelThis*

    I had a candidate list a section as “IT skills” and then include that they were a surgical assistant in that section in amongst their list of “Microsoft Office , Word ,Excel” etc. It had dates too, so it wasn’t like they just missed a line when reusing a template or something!

    Runner up was the cover letter with 3 different fonts, some bold font sentences, and 2 different colors. Like show us you have 0 attention to detail please.

    1. Glazed Donut*

      I’ve seen cover letters with CLEAR copy and paste from the job description – along the lines of “I am very (desired qualities) and have experience (direct copy-paste of experience requested)”. I likely would have noticed it anyway but the change in font and background shading made it extra noticeable.

      1. anon for this*

        As I frequently used to comment at my former Higher Ed job, “It helps a lot if you use Paste Special to remove the Wikipedia links…”

      2. sb51*

        If they haven’t done horrible crimes against formatting, using the exact wording of the job description to make sure that automated first-pass software pulls them in wouldn’t bug me at all, honestly. It shows they’ve read the job description, for one…

    2. Mim*

      I’m laughing at the font thing, because that is absolutely something my middle schooler would do (um, does do) for assignments. But in her case, she is showing great attention to detail! Each absurd font choice, color choice, etc., is done with the utmost care and attention. So sincerely. Very important. Extremely fancy.

      1. DisneyChannelThis*

        From a middle schooler that makes sense! Handouts for kids often switch fonts or use bold to draw attention to important information, she’s mimicking what she’s seen.

        But in the cover letter, which is paragraphs, to just randomly have navy text then black, then sentences in arial vs times new roman vs calibri was just such a red flag to me! Tells me you copy pasted sentences you found somewhere else basically. Couldn’t even take the 30 seconds to glance over the final and select all then select black font!

      2. New Jack Karyn*

        I am trying to train my high school students out of this. I am not 100% effective.

  41. Meg*

    We had a guy apply for a vet tech position and he stated his experience in landscaping at one of those extremist Christian universities qualified him to restrain animals and give medication. We hired him as a kennel assistant and he rage quit after half a day when we wouldn’t let him do everything the licensed techs did.

    In the same round of applications we had a veterinary receptionist equate escorting dogs to the kennel from the front desk to being a licensed tech. That was fun.

    1. ferrina*

      Ugh, hate that.

      “I’ve given bandaids and ice packs to my kids. What do you mean I’m not qualified to be an ER doctor/nurse?”

    2. Wolf*

      Well, I remember seeing a “lawnmowing, mulching and alligator removal” company in Florida.

  42. PicklePants*

    At a previous job, I was assisting the headteacher with applications for a class teacher position. One lady wrote the entire application from the perspective of her hand puppet. The hand puppet had apparently filled in the application on behalf of the candidate. The best thing about it was that she included photos of her & the puppet working together on projects e.g. in the garden, painting. I’m laughing now remembering it.

      1. PicklePants*

        I wish I could have kept it & or had the decision making power to give her an interview!

    5. Roy G. Biv*

      I would have been delirious with joy to have puppet teacher in elementary school!

    6. WantonSeedStitch*

      For someone who’s going to be teaching kids? As long as she actually gets across the relevant information, that is kind of genius! It communicates a sense of play and creativity that make it clear the kids would adore her.

      1. Enai*

        Oh, the kids might love it, but how is she as a colleague? Being talked down to by your coworker or employee gets old really quickly, and she clearly didn’t understand that the resume is the wrong place for a ventriloquist number.

  43. Over It*

    Not the weirdest thing out there, but someone I went to college with very prominently has it displayed on their LinkedIn that they were valedictorian of their middle school. Makes sense to put that on your resume in high school and maybe first year of college, but we are in our 30s now.

    1. Expelliarmus*

      I didn’t even realize that middle school had valedictorians! And I’m younger than you (late 20s)

      1. Over It*

        I don’t think this is a thing most middle schools do! Mine certainly didn’t have a valedictorian.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          I don’t even know who my high school valedictorian was. I think there was a tie, it was announced at graduation, and I forgot 20 minutes later.

      2. Lenora Rose*

        Mine did, I can even remember who it was. I can’t imagine her putting it on her resume though; even by the time she was done with high school she had a few more actual accomplishments.

        1. Two-Faced Big-Haired Food Critic*

          There was a girl a year ahead of me who was frantic to be valedictorian because she thought it would get her into Harvard. She did not get to be valedictorian. And she did not get into Harvard. I remember afterwards, a teacher talking to the whole class about what it takes to get into what college. She cited this, and added, “Harvard could fill an entire freshman class with valedictorians and still have people left over. They’re looking for people out of the ordinary, and valedictorians are often conformists, which is how they get to *be* valedictorians.”

    2. Orv*

      Yeeeah. I used to have my college GPA on my resume, but I took that off after I got my second post-college job.

  44. Anonforthis*

    I had a cover letter where a guy talked about navigating his divorce as relevant experience. This was a legal job, but it was not a family law job or adjacent, and the time was very much “I succeeded over my evil ex”. So not appropriate.

  45. Ann O'Nemity*

    Recently, the worst thing I’ve seen are AI-generated emails that serve as cover letters with attached resumes. These emails started showing up in my inbox a few months ago from random out of state applicants. I am not currently hiring for any roles, so I have to assume these AI systems scraped my name and contact information off of a previous job posting or company webpage. I did some research and found tons of online for-fee services that will automatically apply to open jobs and spam resumes to hiring managers.

    1. Sue Smith*

      What did you notice about the emails that let you know they were AI-generated? Did they seem a little off? Or were there repetitions or irrelevancies?

      1. Ann O'Nemity*

        It was weird that I started receiving unsolicited resumes. Even when I’m hiring, the vast majority of candidates just apply through our ATS instead of emailing their resume to me. So that tripped my suspicions right off the bat. And now I’m getting at least one a week.

        Here are a few other oddities:
        * All of the applicants were out of state or international, when usually our candidates are local.
        * The email in the from field didn’t match the email in the signature or in the resume.
        * Many of the emails started with a variation of “I hope this email finds you well.” Classic generative-AI opener!
        * The applicants are looking for positions outside of my functional area, most often in IT but not always.

          1. Orv*

            You know, I kind of get it. Given that most job applications are going to be read and screened by AIs, might as well have AIs write them too. There’s a symmetry in the idea of robots applying to robots.

            1. Ann O'Nemity*

              My gripe is that these emails are basically spam. It’s not so much that applicants are using generative-AI to help write cover letters and resumes; I assume that’s becoming more common. I’m annoyed that these for-fee services send out 20,000 cold emails over night. I suppose that even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while, but none of the ones I’ve gotten have any alignment with the actual jobs in my department.

              1. Orv*

                I feel like we’re in an arms race. On the one side there’s employers using AI to weed through resumes, posting jobs that don’t actually exist, etc. On the other side there’s job seekers looking for a way around having to put a ton of effort into a lot of applications that will only get ghosted. Frankly the whole system seems broken, but I’m not sure how to fix it.

        2. Quill*

          We can finally retire the “I hope this email finds you well” now that it’s being used in AI? Nice.

    2. WantonSeedStitch*

      I am currently hiring, and I actually typed in a ChatGPT prompt saying “write me a cover letter for a position as [role I’m hiring for] at [my employer.” I was curious to see, first of all, whether the bot could write a halfway decent cover letter (turns out it wasn’t half bad, showed correct understanding of the role and even brought in a lot of the stuff my employer prides itself on). I also wanted to be on the alert in case I got a cover letter that STRONGLY resembled what the bot produced. While I can see an AI-generated cover letter not being a terrible thing in all cases, this role is one that really requires skill at written communication and has data privacy reasons why we can’t use AI for our written work product. I wanted to be sure I wasn’t getting a false idea of someone’s writing ability.

      1. Holy Moly Guacamole*

        My sympathies,

        My team was flooded with tons of AI generated cover letters that only matched the job description and did not match the applicants’ resumes. While this made weeding out applicants that did not possess and eye for detail, the whole process made my supervisor drop the cover letter requirement.

        1. WantonSeedStitch*

          I haven’t actually received an AI-generated cover letter yet that I was able to recognize as such! I feel bad about dropping the cover letter requirement: I feel like it’s easier for me to get a sense of a person and figure out if I really want to interview them when there’s a cover letter.

    3. MigraineMonth*

      I wonder if the emails I’ve been getting recently are advertising that service. The email pretends to be from a recruiter and pitches a job candidate that would be perfect for my opening, giving lots of details about their background and experirence… and the job candidate is me. It’s surreal.

  46. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

    I believe I have shared this here in the past, and I may be getting some of these bits out of order, plus this was a two-step problem in which the first step was that our terrible terrible HR associate posted my job opening for a position that required both specific experience and a specific credential … as blank. Like, the headline said “Remote” (and NOTHING ELSE), and the only text in the job description was the boilerplate “we don’t discriminate” statement, she didn’t include either the job description or the position requirements. So it took me a couple days to figure out why I was getting applications from Amazon box packers, Arabic-speaking call center specialists, vet techs, and construction workers for my medical coding job (because he was also so terrible we didn’t allow him to screen resumes for us).

    But then there was this one, from a 17 year old high school student, which consisted of, by my recollection…

    A single-page PDF
    containing a screenshot of a Word document
    containing a cell phone screenshot
    of a photograph
    of a Notepad file on a computer screen
    that read “I am willing to learn anything necessary to do a job.”

    2. New Jack Karyn*

      That’s some serious Gumption ™! But not bad for a high school kid, and the willingness to learn is a really good trait in an employee.

  47. Mrs. Badcrumble*

    Cigarette ash. The content was probably ridiculous, as was the 13 page resume that accompanied it, but what really stood out was that. And the reek of smoke.

  48. anon for this*

    application for a professional role at a financial institution, listed email began with poohbearlove

    1. Rainy*

      When I was teaching during grad school many years ago, I’d have students who adamantly refused to use their uni email and would give me their personal email as a contact, and I had a student whose email address was BigDickOnCampus6969@[once common but now very dated host].com. I suggested that he might want to make a more professional personal email since I knew that his department strongly suggested, if not required, an internship over the summer, and he responded, somewhat pugnaciously, that there was nothing wrong with the one he had.

      He was a business major.

      4. WantonSeedStitch*

        Unless 1) his name was Richard, 2) he was larger than another Richard on campus who others might have confused him with, and 3) his birthday was June 9, 1969, there’s no excuse. Even if 1, 2, and 3 were true, he would still have been pretty clueless.

      5. Orv*

        As someone who works in campus IT, I absolutely insist students use their campus email to contact me. I tell them, “I don’t know who ‘greeklife69@example.com’ is and I can’t give them any of your information.”

        1. Rainy*

          Well, in communicating deadlines and stuff I really wanted the email addresses people actually checked, so I’d put both on my list, but this was 20 years ago and my university barely acknowledged email as a method of communication, let alone had any policies around that communication.

          I still work in higher ed, but we have Rules now and I won’t communicate with people outside of our official methods.

          1. Orv*

            I find most of them these days are forwarding their official mail to their unofficial one; it’s mostly just a matter of getting them to reply from the correct account.

            It does drive me up the wall when *professors* do this because there are information security and public document request issues at play.

            1. Rainy*

              Yeah, occasionally I’ll have students try to add me on LinkedIn, which I understand but don’t allow, partly because that’s the kind of thing that you allow the first or second time and then they want to use LinkedIn messages to communicate and that is absolutely not okay.

      6. lurkyloo*

        100% not resume related but we had a giant meeting a few weeks back with big muckity mucks and about 100 other staff of varying levels.
        The next day a dude accidentally typed his password into the chat.
        It was Erection69!
        We’re in federal government.
        Cheers, man!

        1. Rainy*

          Oof. Not only does he now have to change his password (THE WORST), everyone knows the old one was Erection69. That’s a double whammy.

        2. ConstantlyComic*

          It’s so funny what people will use for passwords. I work at a public library that allows patrons to partially sign up for cards online (we need to confirm their identities in person to issue a physical card). Part of the online process is setting up a 4-digit PIN for the account, but people frequently miss the 4-digit number requirement and enter a full password, which library staff can see and which we have to change to a 4-digit number because of how some of our tech works.
          So I was addressing all that with a patron once and discovered that instead of a 4-digit number, he had set “BOOBS69” as his password. For his library account. Fortunately, I was able to remain professional throughout the process of changing the PIN to something our apps would accept, but in my mind, he is going to go down in history as the guy who thought that was a good library password.

  49. Rainy*

    I once got an academic CV with a whole section (probably 2/3rds of a page) that was nothing but fawning quotes from former students, clearly taken from course evaluations.

    I also have saved somewhere a list of “skills” from a resume that my husband got once that is absolutely unhinged. It includes such gems as “patrol a city park”. Yes, just like that. No, the person whose resume it was has never worked for a Parks Department.

    My favourites are always cover letters, though, because the number of cover letters I’ve gotten over the years that were written for a different role in a different organization is substantially more than zero. As in, we’re hiring for a Program Manager for X at Y organization and we get cover letters applying for Software Developer at Z Company (two cities away).

    1. JustaTech*

      My husband once got a resume where the “skill and technology” section (for a computer startup company) prominently included “Using P-Touch” which is a really basic label maker.

  50. Lena K.*

    Among other very silly things, a prospective intern that I was scheduled to interview included the bullet point “Powerful voice and charismatic aura” on his resume.

    He ended up being a no-show for the interview, but I sorely wish I’d gotten to meet him.

      1. Rainy*

        No one looms like Gaston
        Takes a zoom like Gaston
        No one’s voice makes a big basso boom like Gaston’s
        He’ll impress every hiring manager
        He’s perfect, a PowerPoint wiz
        You can ask any boss, dev, or janitor
        And they’ll tell who’d be an upgrade to your biz

        5. Storm in a teacup*

          And this is why although I come for the advice, I stay for the comments!
          Love it!

  51. E. coligist*

    I recently received a cover letter that was one sentence. No headers, no greeting, no closing — their name wasn’t on it anywhere. Just one sentence that essentially said, “I’m applying for this job, and I think I would be good at it.”

    They did not get an interview.

    1. ragazza*

      Back at my first job at a relatively staid university press, I got a cover letter applying for an editorial position that started out, “Congratulations, you’ve won a million dollars!” And then it went on to say something like, “Now that I have your attention…” Um, no.

    2. Juicebox Hero*

      So, if the interviewer was an attractive person of the same sex, would the applicant suddenly start speaking Spanish?

    3. bamcheeks*

      Years ago there was a minor British political scandal in whcih a public figure was alleged to have engaged in a threesome with “a trilingual bisexual” and it was very, what DO you people think trilingual means.

    4. Orv*

      Big, “no, I don’t have any pornographic material! I don’t even own a pornograph!” energy.

  53. New Yorker*

    I’m in NYC and once received a cover letter & resume where the candidate had designed the documents to have a background like the NYC subway — colored lines and the subway line letters spelled their first name, iirc. The cover letter continued the subway theme with all sorts of train/subway puns. It was actually well designed and the cover letter was well written but it wasn’t right for the position to which they were applying. If it hadn’t been for advertising or marketing or something I might have put them in the ‘yes’ pile, but I this was for a project manager role.

    Also received a cover letter for a PT visitor service position at a museum where the person was wrote things along the lines of how much they hated people but were good at faking it, and how pretentious the contemporary art world is. They aren’t wrong about the latter but I couldn’t tell if it was a joke/some sort of art performance (ha), or if they thought the brutal honesty would be a positive. They did not get an interview.

    1. New Yorker*

      Oops, that should read “If it had been for advertising or marketing…” not hadn’t.

  54. Lynnerd*

    A memorably bovine cover letter for a copy writer position indicated that the applicant was “like a cow” and, since cows are “very creative,” often invents words like “fuggy guggy.”

    The final paragraph assured us that if we did not choose them, that would be fine because “cows are forgiving that way.”

    1. Rainy*

      I can’t decide if that’s someone intentionally biffing applications for unemployment insurance purposes or someone who wants to make sure that their fursona will be welcome at any job they take.

          1. allathian*

            That did it, now I’m literally laughing out loud at my desk! Fortunately I’m remote today.

  55. Veryanon*

    My favorite: A resume I received from someone who listed, under professional experience, that she was the President of the Allen Iverson Fan Club. Yes, her last name was Iverson. I was tempted to call her for an interview just based on that fact alone; I would have loved to meet Allen Iverson (this was back in the early 2000’s when he was A HUGE DEAL in Philly).
    Grossest: When I worked in Corporate HR for a well-known convenience store based in the Philly area, I received a resume printed on a *used* sandwich wrapper from one of our stores. Complete with grease spots and smelling of rancid food. I give the person points for creativity, but for the love of all that’s holy, I wish they would have used a clean, unused wrapper.

    1. I don't work in this van*

      I had a resume that had someone’s fansite(s) for a mid-tier, mid-90s heartthrob listed (this was 2008). It was kinda relevant because they were applying for an internship at an arts & entertainment website, but I for sure wondered if they included it everywhere they applied.

  56. Hannah Lee*

    It wasn’t any one thing, on the application, but,

    once had an application for an industrial equipment manufacturing job which required a very specific technical skill. The person from their application it appeared this person had none of those skills, nothing anywhere close to them.

    But they went into GREAT detail in their cover letter and multi-page resume about their extensive (multi-degree, multiple institutions) education in metaphysics and divinity … no program, degree, certificate seeming to follow logically from the last, and listed almost zero work experience.

    1. Mrspotatohead*

      it’s shocking the number of people who will apply for postings with specific technical requirements because they always thought it would be fun to do whatever. I’m like, I know you’ve seen my job on TV and it looks fun, but there are actual regulations in place here

      1. Pippa K*

        We sometimes get applications for tenure-track positions requiring a PhD in political science from someone who is a lawyer (with a JD but not a PhD). Their cover letter usually says something like “I’m very knowledgeable about politics because I’ve always been interested in it” and “a JD is a doctoral degree.” No.

      2. bamcheeks*

        I think it comes down to the “if you have 80% of the essential criteria” advice, and some people not realising that some criteria are more essential than others. People don’t get that there may not be a massive difference between theee years experience and five years experience, but there really is a big difference between being a lawyer and not being one.

        1. Albatross*

          I was applying for engineering jobs recently and had a vast number of job-hunting sites go “This job is in your field and you meet all but one of the criteria! You should apply!” Except the one I was missing was the Professional Engineer license. In my field, this is the one that lets you, say, sign off that a bridge design works and the bridge will not fall down while people are driving over it. A job that needs a PE license will accept no substitutes.

          1. Quill*

            Working in STEM it’s mostly relatives and tailored job ads for me. Job sites have emailed me literally anything that matches a single, technical enough word, relatives don’t know what I do, and recruiters do not care.

            The number of times I’ve been asked if I want a job as an electrical engineer… Folks, I herd germs for a living.

  57. AA*

    I wrote a limerick as part of a cover letter for a job application…at a nuclear reactor. Oh, college.

    1. The Prettiest Curse*

      To be fair, if the hiring manager had been Homer Simpson, this would have been totally fine.

    3. Captain Vegetable (Crunch Crunch Crunch)*

      There once was a man from Nantucket,
      Who stored uranium in a leaky bucket.
      I’ll perform work better,
      Please accept my cover letter,
      Not throw it in the trash and say F*%$ it.

    4. Junior Assistant Peon*

      Were you applying to the nuclear power plant in Limerick, PA? They should have hired you!

    5. LabManagerGuy*

      I work in a field adjacent to the nuclear industry, and I can promise you that I know more than one manager in the industry who would be favorably disposed to a resume with a limerick (assuming it scanned properly), especially from a college student. That said, I’m gonna go with not recommending that tactic to any summer students I help mentor…

  59. CantMakeThisUp*

    It’s not exactly the weirdest but we recently received a 36-page resume….for an editor position!

    1. HugeTractsofLand*

      Oh dear. Although, I guess it’s convenient that an editor’s resume is basically a built in hiring project!

    2. LabManagerGuy*

      “My editing philosophy is most strongly informed by my love of James Michener and Marcel Proust…”

  60. H3llifIknow*

    I have mentioned this on other questions before, but the weirdest thing I saw on a resume that I have received more than once from this woman…was that it was MY resume. Still makes me angry and laugh at the same time, and it’s been almost 10 years! I finally blocked her on LinkedIn so not sure where/if she’s getting any new information to add on there! She may have to start using her OWN WORK EXPERIENCE! The Humanity!

    1. The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon*

      Oh my goodness. Maybe she was going off the studies showing that hiring managers like to hire people who remind them of themselves?
      This one really amuses me.

    2. BellaStella*

      Wow. So, why don’t you write back to her and explain this is nonsense? Or better post it on a comment on her LinkedIn to stop stalking you or something? I would call her up and ask her to stop or get served with a cease and desist maybe? not sure it is that severe but wtf.

      1. H3llifIknow*

        Well, when it comes to me, I simply tell HR to put her on our Do Not Hire list. And because our field is relatively integrated in this community, people always ask, “so and so sent us a resume and she sounds awesome, do you know her” and basically the word is out. No need for me to confront her–my revenge or whatever you want to call it is all behind the scenes, no ugliness or accusations need be involved. I guess imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?

    3. bamcheeks*

      This might explain the “two identical resumes with different names” phenomenon above…

    4. Llama face!*

      But…but…if she was you wouldn’t she already have your job and not need to apply for one?
      Also, I feel like there could be a joke here involving wanting to work for yourself.

      Jokes aside, that’s actually weird and a bit concerning. Glad you were able to block her and she didn’t pop back up again like a whack-a-mole.

      1. H3llifIknow*

        So, we worked in the same office. I was a Llama Analyst and she was a Llama Editor, let’s say. That work was dissolved, but because she edited my and other’s work she knew the words to use in our field. My resume was up so she literally downloaded it, changed the dates, name, etc… of course, as I’m much older (although weirdly we went to the same college, so that stayed in, diff year tho) and didn’t use my older, irrelevant jobs, but used the same bullets under work experience, etc.. But the format, font size, and type, everything was the same, otherwise. My field is super hot right now, and she wanted to get out of Llama editing, so as to your question about “if she was you…” Yes, she DID get several jobs in our field, w/ my resume, but none lasted longer than a year because she didn’t KNOW the job, just the jargon. By now, it’s possible she’s finally gotten some skills, etc… and maybe knows her shit… I haven’t had her resume cross my desk in oh… 8 years or so now although friends in the field know to put her on their do not hire lists!

    5. I don't work in this van*

      This happened to someone I used to work with! One of our clients was like “heyyyyy, we just got this resume and it sounds a lot like you?” and it was absolutely a copy of my colleague’s resume.

  61. Percysowner*

    Many years ago my boss received an application from a woman who stated that that her previous job was as an assistant to President Jimmy Carter. She explained left that job because her mother became ill and on her deathbed forced her daughter to swear she would live forever in Akron, Ohio. My boss noted that there was no way she would hire someone without checking a reference and there was no way she could call the White House and ask to speak to the President regarding a reference check. I can’t imagine the reference was true, but the application did stand out.

    1. bamcheeks*

      I feel like if you were the president’s ex-assistant, the least he could do is hook you up with a job directly.

    2. ThatGirl*

      I mean, I’m sure the White House has HR like anyone else who could verify an employment claim, but that’s still pretty strange.

    3. BikeWalkBarb*

      Years ago when I worked in higher ed one of our executive assistants had been part of the secretarial team staffing Air Force One during Clinton’s administration. She was an absolute whiz at travel planning–thought of everything down to whether or not transit service would be running at the time my flight would arrive and I always got a tidy folder with everything hole punched and held in place in the chronological sequence I might need it in.

    4. Irish Teacher.*

      We have a former president in Ireland who later went on to become Professor of Children, Law and Religion at a Scottish university. I assume it wasn’t exactly a normal job application process, but it amuses me to think of her writing “former experience: President of Ireland.”

  62. Mrspotatohead*

    I was helping my supervisor go through some resumes for a position that I was going to help manage, let’s say teapot sorter. Plenty of resumes came in, standard mix of qualified and not, and low to high quality resumes. but the one I really remember is the one that really focused on his novel – I can’t recall the details but it was at least one page of his two page resume was about this novel he wrote, entirely unrelated to teapot sorting. It read almost like it was ad copy. But at the very bottom there was just one line under the teapot sorting header stating “please contact me about my experience with teapot sorting”. My dude, you contacted me. What did you think this was?

  63. Forty Feet*

    We had a candidate recently that had an Activities section at the bottom of his resume. The only thing in it was that he runs 4 miles in 28 minutes several times a week to stay in shape.

  64. Former Young Lady*

    I saw a candidate boast about her commitment to “equity, inclusion, and diversion.”

    Another talked about running an online business “while caring for a child with special health needs that has now fully launched.” Not sure if it was the child or the business that launched.

      1. Tangerina Warbleworth*

        …. and now I’m picturing a woman with a big, plastic catapult in primary colors putting a toddler into the cup part right outside of a big office building and yelling “HEY EVERYBODY!! WATCH THIS!!” before launching happily squealing baby into the air….

        Too many late nights with Monty Python, man.

        1. Dobby is a Free Elf!*

          I have as friend with a teen with very special health needs, and I’m kinda picturing her catapulting him….

    2. N C Kiddle*

      Clearly the child launched and is now living independently, hence why the candidate is available to apply for jobs

  65. E*

    An applicant who was about 45 (based on high school grad date) and listed every award received in elementary school. Nothing for middle or high school, just elementary and started with perfect attendance in kindergarten.

      1. Wolf*

        Yeah, there’s no way he went through kindergarten without getting all kinds of viruses (like all kids that age do), so perfect attendance is a bit worrying.

  66. bookbug71*

    I worked at an alternative newspaper and we once had someone apply for a job whose resume was an artsy collage with a poem listing their skills.

    I know we were an alternative paper, but really?

  67. anon today*

    CW for assault.

    When I worked in social services and we were hiring, we got a cover letter from someone who described in graphic detail being assaulted by a client of our service population while volunteering, and the extensive trauma therapy she was undergoing to move past this horrible event. She also linked an opinion piece she published in a local publication again describing the incident and her healing process. Besides about 2 months of volunteering at the organization where this incident happened, she had no relevant work experience in our field. We had several candidates who were more qualified so we didn’t interview her. I hope she’s doing okay, wherever she is.

  68. PP*

    I once received a 7 page resume. It included at the very end the gentleman’s mile time for running on a treadmill. Which (in my opinion) was embarrassingly slow.

    1. Trout 'Waver*

      Completely inappropriate for a resume. But there’s no such thing as a bad mile time.

  69. NotARealManager*

    From two different resumes:
    “The first thing to say is that I’m nobody special.” – In the summary section.

    “Too many to list. Seriously. 10+ years.” -In the skills section.

    1. ferrina*

      For the second one-
      I can tell that content curation and message crafting are not in their skills. Hope that wasn’t necessary for the job.

  70. Just Me*

    Had an application for an entry level accountant in the public accounting firm I work for where the guy stated he “devised” individual and corporate tax returns. Pretty sure he was looking for a different way to say preparing, but the IRS really looks askew at people thinking stuff up on tax returns. (Which is how we all thought of devising.)

    1. Dancing Otter*

      Similarly, you may need to be creative in researching and creating procedures to handle abstruse accounting issues correctly.
      Do NOT describe it as “creative accounting.”

  71. Elle*

    A resume we received featured a quote from a Phil Collin’s song in large font at the top, just under the persons name.

    2. BellaStella*

      All I can think of a I jut heard this song yesterday is:
      Now everybody keeps on telling me how to be
      And everybody tells me do what they say
      Oh I’ll help myself it’s up to me and no-one else
      But till I’m ready, just keep out of my way

    5. Luanne Platter*

      “you can wipe off that grin
      i know where ya been
      and it’s all been a pack of lies” …?

  72. Sometimes hiring*

    They had a very long, like 3/4 of a page, list of skills at the top of their resume. Included on that list were their archery skills, fire breathing skills and knife throwing skills. This was a faculty position at an R1 academic library.

    1. Anonymous Librarian*

      I work in an academic library also, and there is always at least one completely unqualified candidate for every job who I’m tempted to interview just so I can meet them. The off-the-wall candidates are a nice contrast to the ones who seem to think that working in an academic library is all about worshipping the books and cultivating a scholarly air. (But both groups are vastly outnumbered by the well-qualified applicants that make me wish I could hire them all!)

    2. HigherEdExpat*

      Honestly having worked in academia (though far from an R1) and knowing a statistically unlikely number of librarians, if this person was otherwise well qualified (and hadn’t listed it at the top of the resume) this isn’t a bad set of skills. XD

    3. Sarah Fowler Wolfe*

      This person should apply for positions at universities with collegiate circuses!

  73. SwimmingInPopcorn*

    In college, I screened applications for the movie theater I worked at. To be fair, it was mostly high school and college age kids with little to no work experience. But my favorite was the guy who included a “special skills” section on his resume that just said “Swimming”

  74. CC*

    I work in engineering. As a philosophy, I try very hard to be understanding of poor resume formatting/unusual choices – building a good resume is orthogonal to a lot of the job skills I’m looking for, and when that combines with things like different international resume standards, sometimes a candidate that would be good for the job has a bad resume.

    That said, there is one that I remember very well. I was looking for an electrical engineer, and under hardware skills the candidate put “Playstation” – I didn’t think anything of this at first (Playstation hires electrical engineers after all), but the next line was “Nintendo DS”, followed by “XBox”. The candidate put seemingly every electronic device they had ever used as a skill. The resume was 8 pages long, with very little details on actual job duties and hard experience. Strangely, they weren’t entry level, they had several years in the workforce.

  75. McGoaters*

    Not so much outlandish, but more about not being relevant to the position, in the least.

    Reviewing resumes for an IT/Cybersecurity position and received one from a former military pararescue/parajumper type. These folks are like the ultimate athletes, for sure. Whole resume was filled with references to awards, medals, field medical knowledge, and Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE). Not a single bullet or position mentioned anything about computers or even basic IT skills.

    1. DisneyChannelThis*

      Oof. They needed better career advice for sure.

      Also you could translate those skills into versions semi good for an IT role – “works well under deadlines and pressure”, “able to focus in all situations”, “quick to learn new skills as demonstrated by…” basically. Especially if its a customer facing IT role where you have to deal with people yelling. Still doesn’t mean they know anything about computers tho…

    2. Katherine*

      Noone will be able to social engineer (via torture) the admin passwords out of him at least!

      1. I Have RBF*

        LOL. I had a roomie one time who had been a Navy Seal and had been through SERE. He was very mellow. IIRC he worked in engineering.

  76. desk platypus*

    A friend was on a hiring committee and had to share one of the best and worst resumes they ever got. It was about 20 pages for a non-religious general sales position. There was a massive section detailing his faith and desire to evangelize everywhere that included a picture of Jesus. Other listed qualities detailed how he doesn’t do drugs and is a great father.

  77. Coffee Please*

    Had a cover letter once state that the candidate would bring his love of Jesus and Christian faith to all areas of the role. This was for an education position at a non-profit (secular) institution.

  78. JustaTech*

    For a while I was hiring undergraduates for a lab position, so I saw some doozies.

    The good: a student from Anchorage who managed to make working at Subway sound fascinating. (They got a position in a very good lab, I’m sure they went on to awesome stuff.)

    The Oh Dear: a resume where the text was in yellow. On a white background. It was sent electronically, so the lab manager was able to re-print it in a color we could read, but oh no. (I really wanted to email that student and tell them that an unreadable resume wasn’t a good idea, but the lab manager correctly pointed out that it wasn’t our job and would just invite a lot of argument from students.)

    1. Roland*

      It’s not exactly your job, but it’s also not exactly NOT your job imo when you’re hiring undergrads who (presumably) attend the university you work for.

  79. Percy Weasley*

    A friend working in recruiting once received the resume of a person describing themself as a “happy and genital person.”

    3. allathian*

      A friend who works for an international company where the working language is English and where they hire people in English once got a resume from someone who described themself as a “gentile” person. My friend, who isn’t Jewish (neither am I), wondered if “oy vey” would’ve been an appropriate response…

  80. Seal*

    As an academic librarian, I regularly receive a sizable number of applications for entry-level staff positions from recent graduates of the university I work for. One enterprising applicant used the university’s well-known, prominently trademarked logo as a watermark for their cover letter and resume. I did not invite them for an interview, although I suspect they would have shown up wearing at least one article of university-branded clothing.

  82. Higher Ed is wild*

    Advertised for a data-heavy administrative role in higher education. Received many applications, including the following:

    One whose CV started with a “professional summary” section. First sentence of said summary was “Charismatic religious leader with deep understanding of the Catholic faith”.

    One whose cover letter started with “after 10 years in creative copywriting, social media management and all things comms, I’m looking to transition into a more traditional marketing role”. [the job, as outlined above, was absolutely not in any way a marketing role]

    And one whose entire application, start to finish, was exactly as follows, in bullet point format. I’ve only taken out identifying information – everything else is exactly as written:
    – Name: [candidate’s name]
    – Address: [candidate’s address]
    – Education: Degree in [field]
    – Experience: Worked in [company] at [role]
    – Hobbies: cooking, needlework, shopping, eating tasty food, hanging out with my kids

  83. Keymaster of Gozer (she/her)*

    A hand drawn child’s picture of a mother and her kids with ‘please hire mummy so she can feed us’ written on it. CV did not in any way contain enough experience to be considered for the job, although they’d highlighted ‘helping my children with their computers’.

    Felt a bit sorry but…no. Not invited for interview.

    1. Hannah Lee*

      There have been a few times I’ve been managing recruiting for positions at my current job, and in every single one of them, there’s been at least a handful that have caused me to say
      “oh, honey, no” or “man I wish this person could catch a break” None of them had anywhere close to the background, skills, etc the position needed.
      But for a second I’d be thinking “surely there’s *something* we could hire them for ?”

      And then often I get very angry on their behalf, when I see their education was from one of the local so-called “technical” schools or “work skills preparedness” programs*, and from what I can tell they came away with few marketable skills and absolutely no coaching on resume prep, career search, communication.

      *there are a couple that are very good, and really give 16-22 year olds some valuable experience, skills, but others …. grrr!

  84. Tea for Me*

    Most memorable was the one that listed “wife of U of ___ quarterback” in the other section.

  85. Sundance Kid*

    Friendly caution to avoid punching down here. Some of the stories shared seem to involve people that may have mental health issues. Those aren’t necessarily worth mining for humor when we have plenty of professional-level (or professional-adjacent) people who just made hilarious missteps.

    2. Ella Bee*

      Not sure I see much of a point in speculating on whether someone has ‘mental health issues’ based on their resumes/cover letters alone?

      1. Enai*

        Well, putting on your resume that you went to the olympics as a child under 10 years old in a year when there wasn’t an olympic event does count as having a disconnect from reality. Several others of the examples feature people who claim similarly apparently delusional things (not the “experimented on without consent” guy, though. MK-Ultra was real).

        1. Gumby*

          does count as having a disconnect from reality

          Only if the candidate believes that to be true. Instead of being someone who inflated their resume with skills and accomplishments that they know they don’t have. Which is what I assumed for that one. Someone who was laughably bad at lying.

    3. Snoozing not schmoozing*

      Friendly caution against tone policing other people’s comments, which can come across as smug and condescending.

      1. Doris*

        Yeah, as someone who has mental health issues, I don’t read a lot of these as being due to mental health issues? I see them as being more people who are perhaps a bit desperate for work/willing to lie/not sure of current resume norms.

        1. Lilac*

          Yeah, it’s not the first time someone “well meaning” has attributed stuff to mental health in AAM that could be just due to Dunning-Kruger, being an arse, etc.

          Seriously, as someone with mental health conditions this “oh, you can’t say X, that (negative behaviour) could be due to a mental health condition” shit needs to stop. It’s ironically more alienating and marginalising than what people try to prevent.

          1. H.Regalis*

            Ugh, that is the worst. “Maybe they screamed at you because they’re depressed!” It doesn’t help people who are struggling with their mental health, but it does give shitty people acting in bad faith a socially acceptable smokescreen to hide behind.

            I can give people leeway if I know they’re struggling or going through a rough time, but there is a point where I’m like, “That’s not okay. I don’t care how sad you are or what you’ve been through, you can’t talk to me like that.”

          2. Visually Impaired Guy*

            I feel like it assumes someone with a disability is more likely to be problematic.

    4. H.Regalis*

      There is no way anyone would be able to determine if you have mental health issues based on a secondhand account of your resume, and we shouldn’t try to diagnose people over the internet or be making up elaborate backstories on what their motivations could be that are supported by nothing in the original letter/comment.

  86. An American(ish) Werewolf in London(ish)*

    I once got a CV that had as its heading (in bold, giant text) this chap’s personal…statement I guess:

    “I am like potato. I go with everything.”

    And yes, it wasn’t ‘I am like *a* potato’. It was ‘I am like potato.’ The rest of his CV was equally as quirky, but not in a good way. He didn’t get an interview.

  87. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

    I had two summer jobs/internships in web development (through which I realized it’s not a gift I have, but at the beginning of my career, I quickly reached the desperation where I’d take any foot in the door), so I rewrote my résumé by hand in HTML. It allowed me to be very exact with formatting, scale up and down logically with page size, and when opened in a text editor would be a sample of my work.

    Then everyone had me convert it to doc(x) or pdf anyway.

    I also had a few hobbies that I thought spoke to my patience and living the “quality in quality out” (as opposed to “garbage in garbage out” that plagues knowledge workers), but retired them after gathering enough feedback that it was too subtle. (I still have those hobbies; I just no longer list them).

  88. RedinSC*

    Oh wow! We got the BEST cover letter once. It was a fellow with multiple PhDs, who talked about being a DRAGON, and villagers would cower in fear of him. He had a golden parachute so he didn’t even need to be paid. It went on and on for about 2.5 pages. I have it saved somewhere, I love that cover letter so much.

    2. Ellie*

      Sorry to have to tell you, but this was clearly false. Dragons don’t need parachutes; they have wings.

      3. NothingIsLittle*

        You mean he wasn’t trying to show off his dragon’s hoard with that statement? What a shame, I’m sure such a display would be lovely.

  89. lifeinretail*

    Not on a cover letter or resume but on a job application for a bookstore. Reason for leaving last job: my boss called my wife an elephant.

  90. stelms_elms*

    If you’re going to use Chat GPT to answer questions that are part of the application process, be sure to take the prompt out before you submit your answer.

  91. Seal*

    As an academic librarian, I regularly receive application for entry-level staff positions from recent graduates of the university I work for. One enterprising applicant used the university’s well-known, prominently trademarked logo as a watermark on their cover letter and resume. I did not invite them for an interview, although I strongly suspect they would have shown up wearing at least one article of university-branded clothing.

  92. Peon*

    An application I received back when I worked retail listed a reference as “Dr Charles Soandso (Deceased)”. The same applicant listed office equipment he was skilled at using as “Tape, scissors, stapler”.

    I did not call him. Or find a medium to call his reference.

    1. Lurker*

      Ha! That reminds me of a year-end evaluation I once saw where the person listed “attending [required] meetings” under things they’d accomplished during the year.

  93. clm*

    Candidates name was just a single word nickname, all caps, and resume was 40 pages long, with the last 38 being a list of all the federal government departments, with pictures of their logos, and the current secretary of each listed as their references. None of their job experience was in any way relevant to our posting.

  94. Spider Plant Mom*

    This was a while back when I was managing a retail store, we hired a lot of high schoolers so I kept my expectations pretty low and let a lot of things slide. One day a kid came in, must’ve been about 16, and handed me his resume. It was FIVE pages long and included at least one photo on each page. Shot of him getting school awards, playing sports, with his family, the variety was impressive. One of the resume pages was just a full page picture of him.

    Of course we had to meet the person who made this bold choice. His interview was amazing and we ended up hiring him, honestly, was one of the best employees I had there!

    So I guess the resume strategy worked?

    1. ferrina*

      I would have been interested to meet this kid too. He probably had no idea of what a resume was supposed to look like and did the best he could. That takes dedication, and it sound like he had reasonable accomplishments for his age. It sounds like he put together a great document, if not exactly a resume.

    2. AngryOctopus*

      TBH, when you’re 16 all bets are off, because you’re looking for your very first job.

  95. Crabigail*

    A few years ago, I worked as a resume writer for a questionable career coaching company until it folded. Most clients would fight me tooth and nail if I said something needed to come out of their resume, and the career coach would back them up, so most of these bad boys clogged up someone’s inbox. Some of the best things I saw include:

    *Demanded their resume highlight winning three erotic fan fiction contests in their awards and license section (medical field, did not get an interview).
    * Citing over a decade of successfully hosting an unlicensed ayahuasca retreat in their home (elementary education, did not get an interview).
    * I probably know more than management does about INDUSTRY TOPIC in the about me section applying for a job in which he had no education or experience (cyber security, did not get an interview).
    * Insisted that “never cheated on my wife or been tempted to cheat with a coworker regardless of mutual attraction” stayed in the special skills section (media, did not get an interview).

    My all-time favorite was that someone put “delicious to mosquitos but not humans” in their special skills section. This was a teen applying for a summer job working for a kennel and they did get an interview.

    1. NameRequired*

      “Insisted that “never cheated on my wife or been tempted to cheat with a coworker regardless of mutual attraction” stayed in the special skills section”

      I /wasn’t/ worried about that but I am now

      1. Gumby*

        And yet that is a bar that all too many of our public figures cannot meet.

        If this resume was submitted to The Weinstein Company it still wouldn’t be a particularly good thing to say if you wanted the job but I’d understand putting it out there as a pointed comment.

    2. Quill*

      To be fair, there are some seasonal and animal jobs where knowing who the mosquito bait is could be helpful.

  96. Motified*

    I realized I had sent out resumes with a typo, leaving the “l” out of “public”. This despite having multiple people review it too!

    2. LCH*

      everyone, let’s all just always set our software to autocorrect this. very few instances where you need to use the word “pubic.” medical staff, please ignore.

    3. cityMouse*

      Mortified, if it helps, I once sent out a resume that stated for “time worked: 1905 to present.”

      I reviewed it 3 times. I proofread it, I thought.

      Did not get an interview. lol no wonder….

  97. Definitely keeping this anonymous*

    I’ve got a couple. Will nest.

    My friend in Recruiting once received a 60-page CV, consisting of solid text and screenshots of the candidate’s IQ test results, recruiter inMails (to show how in-demand he was, I guess), feedback from previous recruiters (he highlighted that a previous recruiter had declared him the “most intelligent candidate they’d ever interviewed” – but didn’t mention whether he was offered the job), that he’d recently attended a reading bootcamp that improved his reading comprehension to 2000wpm, and – my absolute highlight – a summary of his EQ test results that showed he had a self-awareness EQ of 120.

    1. Definitely keeping this anonymous*

      On one application I received for a pretty junior operations role listed his objective as: “To constantly accelerate and achieve excellence by applying my professional and life skills in a dynamic environment, to enable me to use and improve my innovative strategies to create a new generation marching ahead with information cognizance. With this, I hope to achieve excellence and create a mark for me as well as my organization in the pages of history.” I thought, “wow, that’s a big expectation for a role that’s basically just filing.”

      1. Definitely keeping this anonymous*

        Another one I received was a 40-page CV for someone who’d been in the workforce for 15 years applying for a fairly junior role. The entire first two pages were a summary of this person’s perceived skills. The CV was riddled with formatting errors and a LOT of spelling mistakes, but the best was that, in the above-the-fold summary she gave of her summary (sidenote: you know something isn’t quite right when you need a summary for your summary), she stated she had “excellent, concise communication skills and a neck for the English language.” Oops.

        1. Quill*

          To be fair, she didn’t claim to have a head for the English language.

          Just a neck.

      2. MisterForkbeard*

        We used to be told (in software engineering) that those kinds of buzzwords and formulas were very expected for development/IT resumes. I have always hated them so, so much.

    2. ferrina*

      That candidate is…..something. I’m not sure which made me roll my eyes more, the reading comprehension of 2000wpm (yet somehow has never read a word of resume advice) or the self-awareness EQ of 120 (yet somehow doesn’t realise how pretentious he sounds)

  98. School social worker*

    TEACHER RESUMES. I have no idea why they are so absurd other than they probably aren’t used much to apply for jobs since school districts have their own hiring processes. When they are used is during the teacher of the year selection process. The number of teachers who add that they’re a “social worker” on their resume, while obliviously not being credentialed, and their BEING A SCHOOL SOCIAL WORKER AT THE SCHOOL is wild. Like some professions would be against scope creep!

  99. Kiki*

    My Mom, a nurse, had “looks good in white” on her resume and got hired. It was the 60s/70s, a different time. She is still a nut.

    1. Elsewise*

      There was a really great moment in the finale of the Netflix sitcom One Day at a Time where the protagonist, a nurse, is talking about potentially getting married and says “I do look good in white” before it cuts to her in a white coat, having just gotten her DNP.

    2. AnonyNurse*

      I have a friend who is in her late 40s who got her RN in the southern US not all that long ago — and they had to wear the white dresses. She said the first day she put it on she started sobbing as she hated the idea of it and how it looked, and almost quit school. She stuck it out and fled to the other side of the Mason Dixon line. I met her working at a hospital that had a street clothes policy — you could wear scrubs, but did not have to. Most of us wore hospital-branded tshirts and scrub pants (for the pockets).

  100. A Tired Queer*

    An undergraduate applying for a lab assistant job whose sole qualification was that he was the “teacher’s pet” (his words!) of the post-doc who referred him. He referred to me as “Dr. LastName” and her as “Mrs. LastName” in the cover letter, which were both very incorrect. It was so bizarre.

      2. A Tired Queer*

        Honestly I was so embarrassed for him that I didn’t even tell her he had applied. I didn’t think she needed to have that on her… plate? conscience?

  101. Everdene*

    As a new manager a direct report brought his CV to our first one to one, it included the qualifications and present employment of his wife and adult children.

    One cover letter I reviewed simply said “I’d be good at this job.”

    1. 3-foot inflatable rainbow-colored unicorn*

      To be fair, that is what most cover letters are trying to say, he just needed to pad it out a little more.

  102. hhh*

    This was from a college freshman applying for internships so I shouldn’t pick on him too much, but the entire resume was as follows:

    Name
    Major
    Harvard University
    Interests: sports, video games, working out

    2. Dancing Otter*

      Maybe maybe he thought you’d be so awed by Harvard that he didn’t need to say anything more.

  103. ialwaysforgetmyname*

    My all-time favorite is the “My Little Brony” resume I received for a digital marketing position. For those unaware as I was, apparently it’s A Thing for some guys to be VERY into My Little Pony. The resume writer went all in with the theme – colors, graphics, language, and so on. The top of the resume asked “Where will this little brony go next?” Part of me wanted to interview him to see what sort of man child thought that was an appropriate way to market themselves professionally.

    Second favorite was while at a very well-known five star hotel chain where professional dress and language was mandatory. The resume was fine but she attached a picture of herself with two friends at a blowout party, holding large containers of alcohol and wearing clothing that highlighted their very large and obviously augmented breasts.

    2. Horsing around*

      Huh! I remember a few years back there was a brony resume that went viral, had a similar “where will this pony go next” tagline but if I remember right it was for an IT job rather than marketing. Wonder if that’s where your applicant got the idea?

  104. spiriferida*

    I was only a member of a hiring committee for this one, and wasn’t a primary decision-maker. This was for a low-level technician job, so it wasn’t out of the bounds of possibility for people to be applying with more general work experience, but… First, most of the experience listed was in social media and marketing, with a lot of bullet points about fundraising and awareness campaigns, managing social media, and being interviewed or holding press conferences. Weird, but just a resume mismatch, right?

    One role was for a local clown-for-hire nonprofit. Two more were for two separate groups of free masons. At this point I had to commit to some candidate googling, and discovered that not only were they a free mason, there are free mason clowns, and our intrepid candidate was one of them.

    I’m devastated that this wasn’t one of the candidates interviewed, mostly because I had and continue to have so many questions.

    1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      oh yeah! The Shrine Circus has always been affiliated with the Freemasons, their group (which is now Shriners International) was originally the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine and was a spinoff from the Freemasons, focused more on performing arts.

      1. Our Business Is Rejoicing*

        Yep. No parade when I was growing up was complete without one or two of the local Shriners lodges in their tiny cars, which they’d drive in various formations during the parade, often accompanied by other Shriners in clown makeup.

        1. Distracted Procrastinator*

          I’ve always felt like those little cars are mostly just an advertisement for the local chapter. Like “Join now and you to can drive these awesome little cars.” And honestly, if they let women drive those suckers, I’d be all in.

  105. Casey*

    We had an intern who applied for a full time role a couple years later… and his resume listed the accomplishments of our ENTIRE TEAM over the summer which he had interned. Cool that he was paying attention to what all of us were working on, I guess? But it was so clearly an impossible scope for a single intern and he was applying to the exact same team with all the same people. I’ll never know what led him to think that was a good move.

  106. L*

    As part of a personal statement section a candidate indicated they had been charged with a felony and hoped it wouldn’t interfere with the hiring process. No further details were given.

    1. BikeWalkBarb*

      This makes me think of the “ban the box” movement. Has to do with not allowing a criminal conviction alone be a barrier to applying for a job. It usually means not having questions about a record or a background check until later in the hiring process and only when essential, but I’m wondering if this statement was related to this. List of the 37 states that have some form of this is available at the National Employment Law Project site; I’ll add the link in a reply.

  107. Just moi*

    My heartfelt apologies to the original applicant wherever they may be now, but this section header of their cover letter has always stuck with me: ‘From whence did this stranger come to us in our hour of need?’
    Love the confidence.

      1. Just moi*

        Unsurprisingly, not at my firm. But the entire hiring panel did remember the applicant’s name for a very, very long time.

  108. Gretchen*

    Many, many years ago, I interviewed a technical writer who was extremely proud that she had done her resume in Lotus 1-2-3 (the old spreadsheet software). She said, “You can do anything in Lotus 1-2-3!”

    I was not terribly impressed at the time, and the font was super tiny and very hard to read. Yeah, you can do anything in Lotus 1-2-3, but should you?

  109. boots*

    On his resume for a serving position “Glowing tan” was its own bullet point on a list of skills. He was hired; not sure if that was a large contributing factor…Appeared to be at least 45, perhaps all the sun aged him, though.

  110. WootWoot*

    Once upon a time, my office was interviewing for an Associate Director. All the candidates seemed pretty normal from their applications, but one asked if he could send supplementary information before the meeting. Sure, we thought. What’s he going to send, an update resume and a writing sample? Some references? Ok.

    What we got was a dossier, for lack of a better word, including a glossy 8×10″ head shot, and an unbelievably long CV — I think 4 or 5 pages, plus references. In the middle of the CV was a series of “distinctions” that were all Ayn Rand-related. And the list of references included Evander Holyfield, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan.

  111. Seawren*

    My brother spent several years working on a ranch, then moved back to the city and was looking for an IT position. He asked for my help (I think our mother insisted) on polishing his resume. Two of the ‘skills’ I suggested he remove were “Can think in 3 dimensions; never get lost” and “Worked in the fields until my feet bled”.

    1. Special Specialist*

      I wonder if these would have worked or been positive things on a resume when applying to ranch jobs. I mean, they’re things you’d say verbatim in an interview and maybe even put those same sentences into a cover letter. So interesting

  112. Ipsissima*

    Not one I received, but one belonging to a (terrible) coworker. It was a five-page-long … essay? personal narrative? It listed every job she had ever worked (including a two-week stint in fast food, FORTY YEARS AGO) and was completely unformatted. Just a rambling catalog of her experience. It started out something like, “I entered the working world when I was just 15 and my mom made me get a job so I applied at [wherever] but they were rude so I left and then I worked at [somewhere] and I really liked that job so I stayed there even though the pay was bad, but then I had to make more money because I was pregnant and my deadbeat husband was unemployed so…”

    I can’t tell you what the rest of it was like because my eyes refused to read any further. I do know she dated her jobs by what age she was when working there instead of listing the years she had worked there, “so if they don’t hire me I can sue for age discrimination.”

    I was torn between offering to help her fix it (so she would get another job and leave us) and not saying anything (because the amount of time it would take was far longer than I would be able to tolerate her company).

    She was fired a month later, and we all celebrated.

    2. coachfitz13*

      I’m curious how she was hired *anywhere* with the stream-of-consciousness resume.

      1. Ipsissima*

        No idea how she was hired originally, but she transferred into my department, which is usually just a rubber-stamp level of effort.

  113. Cat Lady in the Mountains*

    I once had a candidate use his cover letter to attempt to “personally connect” with me, the hiring manager…by finding a bunch of super-specific and personal details about my childhood/teen years and writing about them. not “google my name and you find this stuff;” more like “this is borderline stalker-ish.”

    Then there was the woman who included a photo of herself…in a full-on furry outfit.

  114. LCS*

    In the header section with general contact info where I’d just expect to see phone / e-mail / perhaps the city where we live:
    “Marital status: married, but in the process of divorcing”.

    Not that it’s ever reasonable info to include but this was for a senior level professional buyer role in a large multi-national where there’s no possible consideration for or relevance of this type of information.

  115. The first thing*

    Kind of the reverse of this- my husband and I were recently wondering if him leaving something unusual about himself OFF his resume is causing him any issues.
    He was a member of a fairly successful band for a long time, and he has his own Wikipedia page so when you Google him, this info comes right up (and his name is very uncommon, it’s definitely him).
    We’ve wondered if it’s caused any issues that he hasn’t included that info anywhere on his resume or cover letters, like he’s hiding something or lying. For what it’s work, he’s applying in a field completely unrelated to music.

    1. kiki*

      Why would you think leaving it off would cause issues?

      I think it’s really normal to leave something like this off. I could see including it as a fun fact (like how some folks include runs on Jeopardy). I could also see including it to explain a gap in experience related to the field he’s currently in, like if he took time off to tour or is in a more junior position than somebody might expect based on his graduation year. If I googled somebody and found out that they were also a well-known musician or actor I’d be pleasantly surprised. I definitely wouldn’t think he was hiding something or lying!

      1. The first thing*

        That’s reassuring! He was just (mildly) concerned that it would somehow make him look less honest by not having it on there, like he was pretending to be the person from the band. My reaction would be more like yours- I would think it was neat! He definitely wasn’t losing any sleep over it but I think for now he is going to continue to leave it off.

        1. BikeWalkBarb*

          I’m now thinking of the discussion in comments above about including skills and hobbies on resumes.

          Other skills: Professional musician.

          We’re not supposed to Google candidates in my public agency but this would be very tempting.

            1. Auntie Social*

              Possibly because you could discover stuff that, once you know about, could be considered cause for a discrimination suit if you then don’t hire them. Like, say, if you find an article that mentioned them and that mentioned they were undergoing cancer treatment, or that specified their religion or some such thing.

    2. Forrest Rhodes*

      I agree with kiki’s question: why would leaving it off cause issues? I think an interviewer would like to chat with someone with Husband’s band background, so that might help get him the interview.

      Not saying the band would get Husband the job—and that shouldn’t be why he’s hired—but once he’s in the interview he can present his bona fides and show that he is, indeed, a good candidate who’s knowledgeable about the open position and its related field.

    3. Code monkey manager*

      That would mostly depend for me as a hiring manager on how long ago it was. If it was 10 years ago, yeah, no concern at all about leaving it off. If it was fewer than 3 years ago, it might be worth addressing in the cover letter, but more from the perspective of a career change. Definitely no need to have it on the resume though.

  116. Hotdog not dog*

    I once received a resume that included “can identify poison ivy in all forms” under Special Skills. Which might have been more helpful had we not been located in a city high-rise. (it was for an office job in finance, so there was no reason to expect any kind of flora beyond a basic potted ficus.)

    1. Czhorat*

      If you hired them you could be SURE the potted plant was really a ficus and not some form of poison ivy

    2. Kara*

      You only have to encounter potted poison ivy in the office -once- to want to recognize it in all forms!

  117. Danielle*

    I was on a hiring committee for an academic position and one applicant’s cover letter mentioned telekinesis as one of her skills. Who knows – maybe she *could* move things with her mind, though there’s not much call for that as a sociology professor.

  118. Marzipan Dragon*

    Not something on the resume, but the resume itself. A former supervisor of mine was helping her boyfriend update and mail out his resume. He was a middle manager in his late fifties. I made the comment that I always used ivory paper for mine, it was just enough different from white to not get lost on a desk full of regular paper. She took this tidbit and ran with it in a most unfortunate direction. All of the poor guy’s resumes were mailed out on rose pink paper.

    1. Gumby*

      If it’s good enough for Penelope Garcia…

      (To be fair, her resume probably wasn’t a huge part of actually getting the job since it was that or jail.)

  119. perstreperous*

    Not so much the content as the presentation:

    One CV which ignored that there was a form to fill in instead and presented 36 pages of goodness knows what written on poor-quality recycled paper with about a 6B pencil. The whole screed was so smudged it was unreadable.

    A CV printed in yellow ink, in reverse, by a cheap inkjet printer on thin shiny paper. That one was only 11 pages … of blurred white text on a yellow background.

  120. Red Alpaca*

    Company got a resume with the applicant name in a huge (like 96 point) font and the rest of the resume was in tiny (6 to 8 point) font. One of her skills listed was “weighed pigs weekly.” The job didn’t have anything to do with animals or husbandry.

  121. Casey*

    I once had someone applying for an entry level office admin job who had previous experience working at a daycare. That’s totally fine, I get that, especially early in your career. Tell me about how you organized the day, communicated with parents, or prepared lesson plans – all transferable skills to the admin job. But no, this candidate listed on their resume that they “Changed diapers”.

    1. Mrovka*

      I don’t know, I remember “staying calm while getting screamed at” as a key part of my admin jobs…

  122. ursula*

    Received a cover letter and resume from a person in their early 20s who repeatedly emphasized their “strong oral and written communication skills” despite the evidence being very clear in my face that their writing was shit to a clownish degree. On their resume, they claimed to have been the “Valid Victorian” for their high school.

    Probably not.

    1. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

      Now I am envisioning that they were walking around the high-school in corset and bustle gowns.

          3. iglwif*

            In order to be a valid Victorian *in high school* I believe they’d have had to graduate by 1901 ;)

            1. BikeWalkBarb*

              As opposed to an invalid Victorian, who would need to swoon gracefully onto the nearest fainting couch and wave at someone to bring smelling salts.

  123. Yo.Ms.R-H*

    The position: Social worker
    The application came on letterhead featuring a custom portrait of the candidate sitting on a park bench and speaking with Jesus Christ.
    His only experience was as a prison guard.
    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  124. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

    All the jobs listings were the various prison jobs held. Special skills were all related to personal growth and introspection and overcoming poor life choices.

    I think they were just trying to get ahead of the background check, so it wasn’t all bad, but definitely not what we expected.

  125. Oh No Not This Time*

    Does it count if it’s not on a resume — but on an Emergency Medical Technician’s Report?

    At VeryOldJob, the Executive Secretary (ES) was married to an EMT. One day during lunch, she was typing up his Patient Care Reports from his handwritten notes.
    At one point she called out to me:

    ES: “How do you spell ockstrammetys? With a ‘ys’ or an ‘ies’ ?”
    Me: “Wait, what? Tell me the whole sentence, for context.”
    ES: “The patient had rigor mortis of the ockstrammetys.”
    Me: “Oh…arms and legs?” So I spelled ‘extremities’ for her.
    And added, “It must be tough for your husband when the patient dies like that.”
    ES: (laughing at my assumption) “Noooooo, the patient didn’t die! He just had rigor mortis of the extremities.”
    Me: …

    2. Sarah Fowler Wolfe*

      Miracle Max has a pill for that. Chocolate coating makes it go down easier, but don’t go swimming after for an hour.

  126. Milo*

    Cover letter for a supervisor position stated, “I have showed the capacity to oversee, develop, train, and punish workers.”

    English as a second language I’m sure, but punishment is not what I’d wanted for the team.

    1. Ama*

      If you’re right about the ESL, what may have happened is they tried to translate whatever “discipline” or “correct” is in their first language and got “punish.”

    2. N C Kiddle*

      I’ve had at least one supervisor who thought punishment was part of his role so … points for honesty?

  127. ResuMAYDAY*

    I’ve been a professional resume writer for 24 years, so I’ve seen everything.
    Pro tip: if you work in public relations, make sure you’re not telling people you work in PUBIC relations. I catch this typo all the time.
    One client wrote in his cover letter, “…I’m white, NOT a minority…”. (This was a decade before MAGA.)
    Another listed ‘dodgeball’ as a skill. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and googled dodgeball, hoping it was possibly a software program. It’s not.

  128. Felicity Flowers*

    I’ve gotten some great ones. My favorites include:

    Some interesting items I’ve seen at the top of resumes
    “Hello my name is John my resume is not up to date”.
    “Bring it on life never back down”
    “I actively show an interest in a plethora of things”
    “I’m a super genius human encyclopedia”
    “I’m one aspiring person over lunch, dinner, and various other engagements I continue to charm” (to be fair I think this one fell victim to a translation tool but for the life of me I can’t figure out what they were trying to convey considering this was a data entry job)

    My favorites under special skills:
    can make 25 cups of coffee in 30 minutes
    oil painting
    fax machine
    agility

    Some job sites allow you to add soft skills to your application and ask you to list when this trait took effect. I’ve seen a lot of resumes that read things like “Enthusiasm (less than 1 year)”

    1. Quill*

      … There *was* a time in my life when I had less than one year experience in enthusiasm.

      Not sure I was writing resumes at the time though.

  129. TheOtherOne*

    Under “Other Experience” in the early 2000’s–“Moderator, National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance Message Boards”.

    1. ferrina*

      Honestly, that sounds like impressive experience. Message board moderation is tough in the best of circumstance, and with I’m sure this person had to deal with some unpleasant messages.

    2. Anon Career Services Person*

      I mean, that could demonstrate an ability to manage difficult people and/or moderate potentially sensitive discussions.

    3. iglwif*

      Honestly if the person was good at that mod job, I would expect some good transferable skills. (I personally would word this as “Message board moderator, National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance” so it doesn’t look like they worked for the message-board acceptance lobby.)

  130. DivergentStitches*

    A candidate for a graphic design position sent the hiring manager a lemon tree, like a potted baby tree, along with her resume. It had some quippy reference to lemons in the cover letter but I don’t remember exactly what, it was back in 2013. Sadly, the manager thought it was delightful and said “creative” positions really benefited from such things.

    1. Betta Fish*

      I think I’ve shared this one before. Many years ago someone who was applying for a special events role (like the kind that organizes private rental events) at the museum where I then worked sent the museum a live male Betta fish. In a glass fish bowl. With bright purple and fuchsia ribbons/bows on the fishbowl that matched the color of the fish. The note said something like, “Tired of fishing for the right candidate?” I don’t know if they got an interview, but I do know the poor receptionist then had to figure out where to buy fish food and how to care for it until it could be rehomed.

      The reception area had a Mies van der Rohe Barcelona table (which has an all glass top). The day after the fish arrived, the receptionist arrived to find water all over the table. The cleaning crew had lifted the bowl to clean the table and the bowl cracked when they set it down. (Thankfully both fish and table were unscathed.)

  131. Aspen*

    I’m currently hiring for a student worker position and received a resume that was just a screenshot of the candidate’s notes app on his phone. It included his full date of birth and age, at least 5 discreet fonts, and “good at video games” in the skills section. Also, the screenshot was not cropped, and his phone battery was at like 5%. We will not be interviewing this person, but I’m secretly kinda bummed I won’t get to meet someone who sounds like truly a top-tier agent of chaos.

    2. MMR*

      Somehow the weirdest part of this for me is the fonts. Like… that must have taken effort??

      1. iglwif*

        It might have taken effort, but it also might be copy-pasting from a variety of different sources and not making the effort to apply consistency afterwards.

        (I have worked with a non-zero number of people who do this in emails, and sometimes it’s just mildly irritating but sometimes it’s “I want you to think I am sending you an individual email, but it’s very obvious I’m using a template because your name and one specific sentence are in a completely different font and colour.”)

        1. Aspen*

          Yeah, I definitely think it wasn’t on purpose– the font changed within sections and in one case within the same sentence. The vibe I got was that he slapped it together and sent it off in extreme hurry (maybe before his phone died??). I’m extremely sympathetic to the fact that resume creation is a skill that takes time to develop and often isn’t formally taught, but still, I’m just in awe of this one.

          1. iglwif*

            It is quite awe-inspiring!

            And probably means this person needs to find someone to explain some resume norms to him pretty soon.

  132. the one who got away*

    We had this guy who applied for multiple open roles in our office over a couple of years despite being thoroughly unqualified for any of them (this was an administrative department of a university in the early 2000s). Among other things, he wanted to be an administrative assistant, a professor, and the VP of marketing. I don’t remember his work experience. I don’t remember his name.

    I do remember the address of his website (and just visited it again on the Wayback Machine). It was prominently displayed at the top of his resume and in every application he submitted.

    It was really something else. Imagine the worst of Angelfire/Geocities. Imagine alarmingly busy background images dotted with animated icons – such as the one I just saw which is a horrifying bald clown held aloft by balloons with a dancing SMILE next to him.

    It had (bad) jokes. It had a link to our local news station for news and weather. It had 9/11-themed poetry accompanied by animated crying eagles and images of the towers. It had a section called Reflections, which included many essays on Christianity and also colorology. On that page is an animated bird bath. It had kind of a weirdly framed photo of the author where clearly someone else had been poorly cropped out.

    It had fan fiction. It had regular fiction (with MPAA-inspired ratings including R). It had scripts for pilots that I assume were never picked up. It had a full length novel published on Angelfire that claimed all proceeds from its sale would be donated to St. Jude’s. There was no clear way to purchase said book.

    Oh. There’s a reindeer swinging a wreath around its antlers like a hula hoop.

    I miss this guy.

    1. BikeWalkBarb*

      I held it together until the reindeer. I’m sure the cat on my lap is now pretty unhappy about the laughter shaking his comfy nest.

  133. LCH*

    i once got a resume from Pauly Shore’s former assistant. they had no experience for the job i had listed. i can’t even remember if they listed any job duties, accomplishments.

    1. Special Specialist*

      Accomplishment: convinced employer to say yes to the “Biodome” movies

      1. LCH*

        haha, i think they were his asst long after he was popular. so i really did wonder what on earth they were assisting with.

      2. Panicked*

        I have seen BioDome about 100 times. Is it a good movie? No. Is it even a good Pauly Shore movie? Also no. Can I quote the entirety of the movie? Yes, yes I can.

        1. Manders*

          I attended a pre-release of that movie. Like before they finish the edits and all that stuff. Then they take a poll about certain aspects of the movie, what people liked and didn’t like, etc. Growing up in LA is weird.

        2. Excel-sior*

          even the presence of International Treasure Kylie Minogue isn’t enough to force myself to suffer through it ever again.

  134. TIME's Person of the Year*

    Once reviewed the submitted resume of a high school student that listed under honors, “TIME’s Person of the Year, 2006.” That was the year that TIME’s Person of the Year issue had a rectangle of reflective material and named “You” as the Person of the Year because of YouTube’s surge in popularity. I would have given the person a point for creativity and given it the preliminary pass if it had listed literally anything else of substance.

  135. Bunny Watson*

    I finally have one that is so spot-on, for this site especially. I am an academic librarian and was chairing a search committee. The cover letter started with a quote. The quote was about a woman screaming. I never did discern what the quote had to do with anything in the rest of the letter. This was followed by a fairly normal paragraph or two about qualifications. The kicker? She ended the letter by talking about how she always wanted to move to my state as she heard that it was a lovely place to raise llamas!

  136. Jenna Webster*

    On our most recent posting, instead of a resume, we got a note that he didn’t have a resume yet, but he did catering on the side, so he included his menu and asked us to let him know what we would like to try. The job had nothing to do with food or catering in any way.

  137. mimi*

    I have an educational background that is relatively unusual in my field– think someone who got a creative writing degree and then went to engineering school and is applying for work as an engineer– and had been encouraged to highlight this in my job search, as it indicated knowledge and skills other entry-level applicants were less likely to have. The way I chose to do this was to call myself “a unicorn” in my cover letter.

    I did eventually get a job, where it was common knowledge before my arrival that I had described myself this way. Cringe.

    1. mimi*

      I had an ex who included in his college applications that he was Time’s Person of the Year 2006.

      1. Camellia*

        Okay, just had to Google this. Oh, it’s “You”!!!

        In 2006, Time magazine named “You” as its Person of the Year to recognize the millions of people who contribute user-generated content to websites like YouTube, Facebook, and Wikipedia. The cover of the magazine was made of reflective Mylar so that readers could see themselves, and the article highlighted the year’s game-changers, including the World Wide Web and YouTube.

      2. vsco*

        woah – scroll up. Either someone who reviewed one of your ex’s applications already wrote in, or there are two people like this!

  138. LongAgo*

    I worked at an environmental nonprofit that focused on climate change. One applicant used to work at an oil major, and their generic resume and cover letter was focused on how they maximized profits for the oil industry. I would have been tempted to interview them if they had written a cover letter explaining why they wanted to make a major shift to climate work, but it was clear they hadn’t bothered to read the job description, let alone check out what we did.

  139. The Other Virginia*

    I have seen many strange things over the years including recently, an 18 page resume (don’t ask me what it said because I didn’t read it!) but one of the things that still stick out in my mind was seeing emojis in a professional cover letter– :-) ;-) :-0 , etc. That was a new one for me!

  140. LBlack*

    Received an email attachment (PDF) which I opened expecting to see a resume.

    It was actually a picture of the candidate, leaning back in a desk chair, with his hands pointing towards his chest. A superimposed box over his chest simply had the words: “Hire me!”

    No resume at all.

  141. Health Insurance Nerd*

    Not on a resume, but back when I worked in retail management someone filled out an application and in the education section wrote “I DID NOT GO TO SCHOOL!!!!”

    It was a million years ago and still makes me shake my head!

    1. rebelwithmouseyhair*

      At the same time, if it were true, I’m not sure how else to explain. I suppose the caps were too much.
      Poor kid though. Homeschooled by someone who wasn’t qualified to homeschool I suppose.
      (I have lots of homeschooler friends, all their kids have managed to pass their exams and go on to further education. In France now you have to have at least passed your baccalaureate, the secondary education diploma, if you want to homeschool your kids)

  142. Resume Cat*

    A 2-page resume, with a quarter of the second page taken up by a pie-chart under the headline “a day of my life”; two of the slices of the chart were “sleeping & dreaming about work” and “baking cupcakes”. This was in engineering.

  143. Moosed*

    My team has been hiring lately and for some reason I’ve seen a lot of resumes with hours worked per week and salary amount. I don’t know why this info is on there and I don’t want it. If something is part-time, sure, note it, but otherwise I’m going to assume full time. I’m also not giving anyone extra points for working more than 40 hours a week; we are government and working 40 is the expectation unless you have a very specific kind of role, usually temporary.

    1. Robin*

      At least for the US government, hours worked is explicitly required for many applications. I applied to some government jobs that said in the posting that your application would be rejected if you didn’t include hours worked on your resume. I forget where it was, but they also linked to a resume making tool that included this information. So people might have it on their resume for this reason, especially since you’re also government so they might assume it’s necessary from seeing it elsewhere.

      1. Moosed*

        Interesting, it’s definitely not a requirement I’ve ever heard of before. And a lot of these were in internal vacancies where there aren’t any specific resume requirements at all.

  144. Guava*

    My friend had someone apply to a graphic design position (for an IT company usually contracted to the federal government) and attach a portfolio full of Alf porn.

    1. Juicebox Hero*

      Alf porn.

      Alf. Porn.

      I mean, I know Rule 34 (“if something exists, there is porn of it”) but… porn. With Alf.

      Yikes.

    2. iglwif*

      I’m on the search committee for a new exec director of my congregation, and our resume pool included (along with the usual suspects: no cover letter, no relevant job experience, obvious failure to look us up and see who we are, etc.)
      – a resume that was 90% music gigs + 5-page cover letter with zero (0) paragraph breaks
      – a resume designed in bright blue with graphic elements

      We did also get some really good applicants, fortunately.

  145. Educator*

    When I was hiring for entry-level roles, objectives became my personal resume pet peeve after I read way too many ambitious, well-intentioned, and wildly out-of-touch goals. My favorites were the young man who wanted to “grow your profits exponentially” at our *nonprofit* organization, and the person who wanted to “save the world through education.” What she wanted to save it from was not entirely clear, but I immediately pictured someone brandishing a textbook against Godzilla.

    1. Lurker*

      Well to be pedantic, nonprofits can (and I would argue should) have profits. The difference from a for-profit is that the profits are reinvested/used towards the organization’s mission rather than being distributed to shareholders/owners. But yeah, that’s not language a nonprofit person would probably use.

      1. Educator*

        If he had referenced our net margin ratio, it would have still been weird, but at least less weird. Ha!

      2. MsM*

        Can/should have profits, yes. But if those profits are growing “exponentially,” that suggests they’re not being effectively invested in new and/or expanded ways to address the mission.

        “Save the world through education” person just sounds young and idealistic. I’d probably give that one a pass if the rest of the resume looked okay. (And assuming the nonprofit actually was focused on education in some way.)

    2. Elsewise*

      I worked at a college and hired student workers, and there was a period where half of the resumes I got had an objective of “to obtain a job at [position]”. I can only assume someone in career services was telling people to do that.

      1. Anon Career Services Person*

        Yes, there was a long stretch where career offices were telling folks to have an objective. That’s “advice” I’ve never given, on the grounds that if someone is reading your application for a job as a llama polisher, then they already know your objective is to get a job as a llama polisher.

      2. Aspen*

        I also hire student workers and have been seeing lots of objectives along the lines of “growing the profits at your company”. Like, sorry, we’re an academic library hiring students to shelve books and work a reference desk?

        Honestly I think a lot of it is using ChatGPT and then not customizing the results for the actual place you’re applying.

  146. ECBeace*

    The one who had his 30 yo HS stats: C average, one year of JV football, one year of SGA, etc. Oh, and he was researching the Kennedy assassination and was a member of the Three Stooges fan club.

    I also once got a HS “valid Victorian “.

    1. Florence Reese*

      I cannot believe that there are TWO “valid Victorian”s in this thread alone?? I mean, I can, but wow!

  147. Bitsy*

    Long ago a friend of mine was looking for jobs after finishing a graduate degree in philosophy. After he’d sent out a few applications he realized that his cover letter had not mentioned his knowledge of metaphysics, but rather MEAT physics.

    In fairness, we’re from Texas. Meat physics could totally be a thing.

    1. Juicebox Hero*

      If a 500 gram steak falls onto a plate at a speed of 9.8 meters/second^2 from a height of 4.2 meters and no one’s around to eat it, is it still delicious?

  148. FashionablyEvil*

    A few highlights:

    I had a candidate submit a resume with their name in size 35 font. The resume was four pages long. They had not yet graduated from college.

    Another candidate’s resume said they were fluent in both Icelandic and Mandarin, but sadly provided no details about this.

    And on a more fun note, one candidate included a link to his team’s drum line performance. It was enough to get him noticed, but sadly, he interviewed rather poorly.

  149. Dawn*

    When I was in middle school – and this should tell you the kind of people we were dealing with here, they were From The Other Side Of The Tracks for sure (and they were lovely people, but completely uneducated,) my friend asked me to look over her mother’s resume because she knew I was a good writer (I was not, but I was a good writer for a middle schooler.) Her mother had decided she wanted to get out into the workforce and try working a job other than the family business she’d been at her whole life.

    Under “Skills” she had included: “shrink-wrapping”. I had to recommend that she remove that one.

    I later had it explained to me that this actually referred to her experience in winterizing boats, but nevertheless suggested that unless she was looking for work where that was a requirement, she still leave it to the side.

  150. KT*

    When asked for his military discharge information, one guy wrote “Honorable Mention.”

  151. Secret Squirrel*

    I may have mentioned this here before, but at a previous job we got a resume from someone who said – on said resume – that they planned to run for the US Senate at the next opportunity. Even ignoring all the other problems with this, why would you announce that you were planning to leave the job you were applying to in a year or two?

  152. tree frog*

    When I worked in book publishing, we got a lot of memorable submissions. A couple that stand out are the cover letter with cat hair taped to it, and the series of very violent revenge-based stories along with a threatening note.

    Not to mention everyone who wrote in expecting us to give them a job because they found a typo in one of the books.

  153. Really Old Computer Fart*

    I had an applicant list one of their skills: “I am a faster leaner.”

    2. Captain Vegetable (Crunch Crunch Crunch)*

      If you’ve got time to lean, you may or may not have time to clean!

  154. NoIceCavesHere*

    When I worked at a temp agency I was tasked with organizing the binders of resumes from applicants who hadn’t made it to the second round of screening. The most memorable one was handwritten and included experience of living in an ice cave and leading spiritual journeys. Oddly, they weren’t called back for the office jobs the agency was offering.

      1. NoIceCavesHere*

        In case they started staffing different types of jobs and wanted to go back to those resumes to find a match. They tended to only take candidates to the second screen if they knew they would have jobs for them sometime soon, so it was useful to have a back catalog.

  155. Educator*

    The other big one that I am sure other people who hire in education have seen as well is the astonishing number of people who think that parenting is a qualification for education roles. Parenting is hard and important work, but it has very little relevance to professional instruction or administration. The best one I ever saw was a section of an application for an office assistant role that included a section written the way I assume this person spoke to her kid. It was something like:

    Mommy to Jaleigh, the bestest baby ever! Your mommy loves you sooo much!
    -Successfully completed sleep training for our brave girl.
    -Planned activities for a developing brain. We love the zoo!
    -Oversaw family calendar with Daddy.

    All the yikes. She did not move forward because I do not have time in my life to explain professional tone to someone like this.

    1. E*

      I used to see a lot of resumes for administrative positions where people who had been stay at home parents spin it as ‘Executive Director of XX Family’ or other strangely titled things. They would then list all the things the average adult does to run a household. I don’t see it as much, hopefully it’s fallen out of favor. Being a stay at home parent is fine, it is hard work but scheduling doctor appointments and making a grocery budget are things everyone does. Just put stay at home parent if you want to account for an employment gap.

  156. Daisy*

    I once got a cv that took the vitae part very seriously and included achievements from elementary school. Glad this person won the dodgeball tournament, I’m sure that was very exciting.

  157. Kels Bells*

    9-page resume where the first 1/2 of each page was a color headshot of the candidate. I assume the header settings were screwed up, but this was for an office job, not anything that requires a headshot, much less 9 of them.

  158. Pillow Fort Forever*

    1 -a candidate happily let me know “I just got laid this morning” (I assume he meant “laid off” but it made me laugh).

    2 – candidate had worked in the Singapore military in discipline with a 100% efficiency rating (no clue what that meant but wasn’t quite what our tech start up was looking for)

    3 – candidate bragged about his 94% accuracy in payroll processing

    None were even interviewed.

  159. HonorBox*

    Not particularly egregious, but this person has been my go-to example when talking to younger people about their resumes and things to consider. We had a candidate years ago whose email address was (favorite NASCAR driver + driver’s car number) @ _______.com.

    So I always suggest to people that their email address for job seeking not be something like that.

    1. Ama*

      I think that’s a good example because so often people only mention the emails that have “69” or other double entendre in it as the ones to avoid, when really what you want is to avoid any email address that doesn’t clearly feature your name.

  160. Bluebell Brenham*

    I honestly can’t remember much of the résumé that went with it, but the cover letter from the major gifts candidate who had “worked with all sorts of donors, from CEOs to royalty” made me roll my eyes so hard. My boss hired this person and she definitely didn’t live up to the hype in her cover letter.

  161. Little Bobby Tables*

    Listed a concealed weapons permit under other qualifications. For a job that had absolutely nothing to do with law enforcement, security, or firearms.

    To be fair, IIRC he was recently out of the military and may have been a bit out of practice at civilian resumes, and a lot of people at that company had concealed carry permits.

  162. Rogue Paginator*

    On a resume for a bank teller position, a candidate listed “copy writer for Playboy, duties included writing spicy stories” and also “regular blood donor”

    1. NothingIsLittle*

      Was your bank also a secret vampire stronghold? Lol, “regular blood donor” makes me consider whose blood they’re donating.

  163. No Longer a Bookkeeper*

    I worked for the career center during my senior year of college and there were some very memorable resumes, but the best one was so hilarious that it was passed around the whole office. The student had included clip art of a knight in shining armor at the top of the page, and listed “being a good husband and father” under the goals section. He was obviously offended when the career coach told him that was a nice goal to have, but it wasn’t a professional goal that should go on a resume.

  164. H.C.*

    The weirdest one I’ve encountered was definitely the one who spent almost a half-page listing all their workout personal records (fastest mile ran, max weight benched/deadlifted, rankings in various -athons, etc.) The position they applied for wasn’t one requiring significant physical activity (maybe they took the “occasional walking and light lifting” requirement of the job description & decided to go above and beyond?)

    1. i like hound dogs*

      Lol, I am an athletic person and some of my personal bests are my proudest achievements.

      But I would never list them on a resume!

  165. CSRoadWarrior*

    Not much of a story here, but when I was in college, when I was getting resume advice, I was told to have an appropriate personal email on my resume. Which I always have?

    The career coach said he once saw an email on a resume was “HotBabe(randomnumber)@email.com”. We had a good laugh but I knew obviously that kind of email name is very inappropriate on a resume.

    1. Rainy*

      The thing is, it’s not actually that obvious for a lot of people. Seriously, people put all kinds of stuff that’s “obviously very inappropriate” on their resumes, and anyone who sees a lot of resumes (like a college career advisor) sees things that would curl your hair.

  166. R-SWE*

    I reviewed a resume for a senior software engineer that included an entire page about the deck he built after he was laid off, with pictures.

    The team hired him.

    I also got an application for a team lead for a large group of engineers who described her only leadership experience, leading a girl scout troop, as a good piece of experience that would set her up to lead our team.

    It was actually kind of insulting to imply that the skills handling a group of pre-teens would transfer to managing fully grown adults in a work environment. I haven’t been a girl scout for over a decade!

    1. Lady_Lessa*

      How did the Sr. software engineer work out? My guess is pretty well because of both software knowledge(assumed) and how other folks do things.

      I often find that software and IT types tend to be more on the clueless side about normal users.

  167. Bunny Girl*

    Their Gmail address was fine. Generic. But the name that came with the email? Beef Supreme. Straight in the garbage.

  168. Junior Assistant Peon*

    I’m always amazed how many fraternity memberships I see on resumes. You might as well include a picture of yourself playing beer pong!

    1. Our Business Is Rejoicing*

      Oh, that’s one of the reasons often cited for joining a fraternity besides keggers: Networking after graduation. They’re hoping a fellow brother will spot that on their resume and give them the inside track.

    2. Anon for This*

      I belonged to three in college – one social, one academic (Phi Sigma Iota – foreign language), and one professional (Sigma Delta Chi – Journalism.) They aren’t all beer pong.

  169. EcoLogical*

    I had one where the applicant included on their CV that they were proud to have never contracted Covid! I genuinely didn’t know what I was supposed to do with that information – like, congrats on being either lucky or asymptomatic I guess?

    1. Enai*

      They may have wanted to imply they’re proud to still continue masking with an N95 or better? I have been harassed on the street and in stores for that choice, so I can see how they’d feel it’s an accomplishment. I don’t know how to write “will resist group pressure when it really matters” on a resume without implying “insubordinate at the worst time”, though.

  170. Nesprin*

    I had a CL from someone in a south asian country known for flowery language. Direct quote of first lines:

    It is with great fervor and conviction that I am applying for [position] at your company. It was Mahatma Gandhi who once said, ‘you must be the change you wish to see in the world’. It was this very credence that inspired my entry into the auspicious field of [science that I do]. ”

    It did not got better from there. Last line was:

    “I earnestly feel that an opportunity to excel my career at your renown organization [we were a small lab with a minuscule budget], will further facilitate my ambitions… stimulating the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly.”

    2. alle*

      I have gotten emails that said something like:
      “Dear Respected Professor, I am interested in your esteemed research on *subject* which inspired me so much….”
      where it is obvious they send the same mass email to everyone and just switch out the name and one key word from the job posting.

  171. Harried HR*

    I once received a cover letter that stated…
    I’m highly allergic to pet dander and I have 3 cats. I am determined and will bring this level of commitment to your company.
    WTAF !!!!!!
    I received another for a Training role for a restaurant company and the candidates only work history was 3 years as an Animal Trainer for an Aquarium !!!!

    1. RagingADHD*

      If it was a seafood restaurant chain, at least they’d have plenty of performance rewards on hand for the employees.

    2. Florence Reese*

      Oh nooooo LOL. I, too, am allergic to pet dander and have *mumble* cats. I try very hard not to mention it because it mostly reflects my poor impulse control when it comes to adopting cats. You couldn’t pay me to tell a potential employer that!

  172. Freelance Bass*

    The intern applicant who put a hexagon at the bottom of the page with the caption “I like hexagons.” It was giving #quirky. He did get the internship and was a true nightmare.

  173. lbd*

    I’m never quite sure where to put my work related goat hoof trimming experience on my resume.

  174. did not make the short list*

    We had a gentleman who I believe was a radio dj apply for an entry level position at our scholarly research project. In his cover letter, he did not describe any relevant experience with our subject matter, but he did want us to know that his recent experience judging a bikini contest was evidence of his ability to take on any kind of task with enthusiasm.

      1. did not make the short list*

        We did not bring him in for an interview, so we never heard. Further evidence that you should clearly explain how your experience is relevant to the job description in your cover letter.

  175. Rebel Girl*

    I am reviewing applications right now for a remote tech position, and under Key Competencies, in addition to the usual technological software, platforms, languages, etc. the candidate included, “I bake and decorate beautiful and tasty cakes.” Odd but not bad, and makes me wish we could be face to face!

  176. RCP*

    I work in Equal Opportunity at a large public organization and I read every. single. application. for every job posting our org has. Some highlights!

    The woman who included smiley face emojis after nearly every line on her resume

    An extremely formal and very well written cover letter for a very important and serious job that ended with, “And in conclusion, I make excellent tacos.” (The position was in no way related to food!)

    The woman who claimed she had 20 years of experience as a CEO, including complex logistical oversight, extensive budgetary experience, overseeing all facilities, and development of core programs and systems. The company? Her own household, which included six children.

    The guy who submitted a 36 page PDF including every press clipping that mentioned him, going back 20+ years…none of which was related to work or the job he was applying to.

    The applicant who devoted two paragraphs in his cover letter explaining in great deal the research and analysis he had done on the city we are based in (including governmental statistics!), and why it would be the perfect place to raise his three kids.

    The woman who wrote us a letter explaining, in detail, why she was such a horrible college student more than thirty years ago, and the exact circumstances of how she failed to complete her degree. In comparison, she spent about two sentences talking about the job she’d held for the last 17 years.

    1. ET Phone Home*

      To be fair, I once had a beautiful resume from a woman who described her job as CEO/CFO of Home Inc. It went a long way towards explaining a three year employment gap and why a former high-level manager was now applying for a part-time position. We hired her and she was a great worker.

  177. Cassielfsw*

    At a previous job, we got a resume that had a selfie at the top (this was absolutely not the type of job where an applicant should be sending us headshots).

    With duckface.

    1. Enai*

      Okay, the duckface makes this stand out. Did you hire the venerable Mx. Quack? Or at least interview them?

  178. So Very Tired*

    So many — but the one that immediately springs to mind was the applicant, when talking about his salary requirements, asked for an amount that would cover his entire budget — which he then listed out — including utilities, streaming services, groceries, and “being able to take my girlfriend out for a nice dinner from time to time.” He also made sure to tell us that our office was on the way to his girlfriend’s house. How convenient!

  179. Quill*

    I was once faxed the following, verbatim as far as I can recall:

    I am [full name] very qualified in [industry] and can be hired. Plz find my resume attached.
    – Sent from my iphone

    We were not, as far as I knew, seeking to hire. My boss still hounded me to find the attachment until I was able to find sufficient proof that faxes do not work like that.

  180. learnedthehardway*

    SO many, but nothing specific comes to mind right now. My favourites are really the LinkedIn profiles – so many that have completely inappropriate professional pictures. Memorable was the IT candidate in a Superwoman costume.

  181. HeraTech*

    I had to dig around in my journal, I because I just *knew* I’d written a post about the day at lunch where a bunch of us shared our best crazy resumes. My favorite was this candidate who was LARPING on their resume:

    [Name] was born in the small land of [state], den of thieves. After eighteen years of imprisonment in the shamefully small state he received his letter from the [redacted] School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. There he was taught the arcane knowledge of names and symbols of power, of registers and apis, of mystical languages. Of Perl: the language of the gods, which if read can drive one mad. After finishing his apprenticeship, [Name] went on many boring adventures in the wonderful land of IT.

    There was also the candidate who thought that their musical tastes, fondness for Dance Dance Revolution, and rock collecting hobby were relevant to finding a job in technology.

    1. HeraTech*

      And then there was the person who submitted an academic CV for a technical writing job. That listed their “areas of specialization.” Which numbered thirty-two. (That word, I do not think it means what you think it means…) None of which were relevant to technical writing. Their resume also pointed out that it was copyrighted by the author. Who had also locked the PDF so that it could not be printed.

      There was also the candidate who refused to submit writing samples. Because we might steal them.

  182. Spicy Tuna*

    Not resume or cover letter related, but a job applicant once came in for the interview in jeans and an ugly Christmas sweater!

    1. rebelwithmouseyhair*

      Save this for next week when Alison asks for the strangest interviews ever!

      Right, Alison?

  183. Lady Ann*

    I was involved in hiring for a job working directly with at risk youth. Most of our applicants had college degrees, but some had high school diplomas with some experience. We received a lot of interesting resumes for that position, including a recent college grad with a 7 page resume. The weirdest one, though, was a resume from a young man who was currently attending community college working towards a 2-year degree. His resume contained a paragraph of what I can only describe as business gobbledygook. It was so weird that I Googled it, and found he had copied it verbatim from someone else’s LinkedIn page. This person was a professor as his community college and while I also question their judgement for presumably authoring the nonsense, I had even more questions about why he plagiarized it. For better or for worse, he no showed his interview so I didn’t get to ask him.

  184. Professor Ronny*

    I was an elected city official on a committee to hire a new city manager back in the 90s. The job paid $200,000 back then. One person sent in a cover letter and vita hand written in pencil.

    Much later, I was a department chair hiring a tenure track accounting professor at a state university. A newly minted Ph.D. applied using the email address (I’m not kidding) HotChick69@email.com (Not actual domain.)

  185. They Call Me Patricia*

    I work in law. We once had an applicant openly state in their cover letter that their career goal was to work for opposing counsel, so they wanted a job at our firm to do opposition recon and learn how to better take us down in the future.

    2. Enai*

      Okay, I do not understand. You are working at a law firm, presumably able to be hired by all sorts of clients. The applicant was a lawyer who wanted to be hired by a specific one of your clients’ opponents and figured they’d basically do corporate espionage in preparation? And said so, in writing no less? Or they did not understand that in litigation, the lawyer for your opponent is opposing counsel, so basically any lawyer is “opposing counsel” for someone? Or just hated your firm for $reasons? What is going on here?

      1. They Call Me Patricia*

        My firm was a criminal defense firm. So the applicant (who was not yet an attorney) had a career goal of being a prosecutor, and wanted to get a job with defense counsel to learn how to attack us better once he was a prosecutor. And said so in writing.

        1. Enai*

          Ah. Um. Yeah, I would not hire him either. I’d worry he’d bungle his duties at your firm because of his prejudice. I mean, he *might* learn a few uncomfortable truths about the legal system, but then he might not. And you’re not the “disabuse fools of the Just World fallacy” company.

          1. They Call Me Patricia*

            He was not selected to move forward in the hiring process, much to his own (wildly misplaced) surprise.

  186. So they all cheap-ass rolled over and one fell out*

    Not sure this counts be we had an interview candidate in who had a particular skill listed on his resume. We asked him about it and he denied having that skill. Obviously we were confused, which confusion he only partially resolved by explaining that his wife had written his resume. We passed on the candidate though not only for that reason.

  187. Keyner*

    I hire editors. Something like 90% of candidates send in resumes and cover letters with typos.

    One especially memorable candidate that my boss decided she just had to speak with spent the entire interview complaining that he clearly wasn’t getting work due to age discrimination. He got very worked up and even said a couple nasty things about members of my (younger) generation while I sat there with a smile pasted on. The real problem was that his resume was four pages long with dozens of typos. I decided not to tell him. I did peek at his LinkedIn later and see that he also spent a lot of time posting there about how nobody wants to hire a guy his age.

    For what it’s worth, my boss was older than him. He must have known that at least one person in his age range was doing just fine.

    1. Secret Squirrel*

      I am reminded of the Monster listing I saw with the title “SENIOR QAULITY ENGINEER.” I did not click through to read the resume.

    2. Rainy*

      Sounds like my FIL. He was fired from his long-time job when Mr Rainy was in high school and basically never worked again. The first time I met my future in-laws, I ended up trapped at breakfast with my FIL while he ranted about how after he was unjustly terminated due to age discrimination (it wasn’t), he applied for lots of jobs at places that should have been grateful he’d even applied where he kept being interviewed by younger people and women who obviously knew nothing about his field who wouldn’t hire him because of age discrimination (they weren’t).

  188. Anne of Green Gables*

    Like many places, we have an online application system. There is a section where you can list skills. It displays as a chart, with boxes for the skill, how many years of experience with that skill, and details.

    We had a candidate list three skills. The second skill was Flatulence, 22 years experience (roughly matching the age of the candidate), with the details “I am widely known in the industry for my expertise, majesty, and overwhelming control in the field.”

  189. You're A Married Spud*

    I definitely also had the karate one…

    The ‘Status: Single’ one really threw me…

    And quick tip…please stop putting your full street address on your resume

    1. Manders*

      Yeah, I see tons of CVs in academia that list things like how long they have been married and how many kids they have. Especially with older people – like people with MD/PhD degrees who have 27-page CVs that are full of actual accomplishments. I think the idea (very old-school) was to show that they are a family-oriented person and therefore dependable. And yeah, I don’t get the address things on resumes/CVs.

      1. NotSoRecentlyRetired*

        Putting home address on resume is carry-over from prior to the internet (and cell phones) when applying for jobs was done via snail-mail. I hadn’t thought about it prior to these comments. I guess it’s not necessary anymore if you include email and phone number for contact information.

        1. You're A Married Spud*

          Yes, 100% and a lot of templates still suggest the full address. But it’s not needed and could actually be a safety issue depending on where exactly you’re putting the resume.

      1. A large cage of birds*

        I know someone who used to use an email address with “69” at the end. It’s the year of her birth, but I’m sure that’s not what other people assumed…

        1. Zona the Great*

          I’m still haunted by a ’69’ experience during my internship at a state agency. A sloppy looking old man who was on a state commission (so not employed by the agency but was a leader in the industry) kept following me around with a finger up shouting, “young lady, young lady!”. When I finally gave up and acknowledged him, he told me he had been trying to get the staff to update his email address from firstinitial.lastname@email.com to firstinitial.lastname69@email.com. This man was much too old to be born in ’69 and much too young to have graduated high school or college in ’69. I could see why no one wanted to deal with it. He insisted I change our records in front of him and I know I couldn’t get the look of disgust off my face. Could have been innocent enough — maybe he liked ’69 Mustangs or something. But it sure did him no favors.

        2. Distracted Procrastinator*

          My sister has a friend who was in her mid forties before someone bothered to tell her that her birth year was probably not the best thing to have on an email address. She was shocked that anyone would think it was anything other than a reference to 1969. She was a sweet, but somewhat sheltered lady.

  191. Anne Elliot*

    “Other interests: Cycling, organic gardening, cycling, tai quan dao, knitting, and cycling.” With sticky note from an assistant who did first review, “But do they like cycling?”

  192. Ingalls*

    Verbatim from the first lines of the resume.

    I want to create wealth.

    1. Must be a gun-friendly place. (Why would I want to create wealth for an organization that is working politically against me?)
    2. A non-union workplace, see above (in my opinion, a union workplace is a sign of management problems, for at least two reasons: A: They don’t know how to manage people, B. They hired people whose objectives don’t match with the employer’s).

    2. Rainy*

      You know, if I’m honest, points 1 and 2 pretty much just provide evidence for my opinion of someone whose life’s ambition is creating wealth.

  193. I licked your salt lamp*

    At my last company, we hired an accounts payable clerk who included on his resume that his college education was “100% self-funded”, which I guess meant his parents didn’t help him pay? I thought it was an odd thing to include, but my boss was impressed by this and hired him.

    1. No Longer Working*

      They’re very connected! It shows that he is good with finances, knows his debits and credits, and manages his personal accounts payable. I’ve been an accounts payable clerk, and I also paid for my own education. Someone with his personal finance experience will be as careful with the company’s invoices as he would with his own. I never put that on a resume but I can see why he did!

  194. Ama*

    Oh there’s been a couple that have stayed with me for years:
    – The person who wrote an 8 page cover letter (double-spaced as if it was a school essay), that I think took “if you’re changing careers/sectors, explain why in the cover letter” a little too seriously. (This was a nonprofit and the candidate was leaving a for profit career.) The letter included a two page story about how a *friend* of theirs left a legal career for teaching and was much happier. We were not a teaching related non profit, so the only relevance to the entire two pages was that the candidate had been inspired by their friend that money wasn’t everything in a career choice. I don’t even remember what was in the other six pages, I was so confused by the letter spending that much time on this story.

    – The person who decided to send as their writing sample for a position writing newsletter/web articles at a medical research organization a puff piece profiling a celebrity whose anti-vax/anti-medical establishment views were well known (this was way before COVID so it was less common for people to know where celebrities stood on that issue but pretty much anyone who knew of this celebrity knew her views, which were glossed over in the submitted piece). I would have given the candidate some slack if they’d put a note acknowledging that clearly they would never be writing about this person for our org but that it was the best sample they could share, but by not even mentioning it I had to wonder if they were really as experienced at writing about science as they claimed in their cover letter.

  195. Nurch*

    A bullet-pointed list of what seemed to be a mix of skills and just… items they owned, listed as “Highlights”. Copied exactly as shown on the resume –

    • Calculator
    • Copy Machine
    • Food Baking
    • Food Prepartion
    • Internet Knowledgeable
    • Labelmaker
    • Steel-toed Boots
    • Windows*

    *Not sure if this is referring to the glass things you look through, or the computer OS

    This was for a bookkeeping position

  196. pally*

    Cover letter talked about working with Dean Martin’s granddaughter on some projects.

    Then went on to say something along the lines of “but you’re probably too young to know who that was.”

  197. Anon-E-Mouse*

    Not super-weird but a law student included the following line in his cv to describe his summer job for a telephone company.

    “Dug deep holes in very straight lines.”

    It was brilliant: he conveyed a disciplined work ethic, high performance, pride in a very manual job well done, a sense of humor and a way with words.

    His grades and other experience put him a little below the cutoff for interviews. I interviewed him anyway and offered him one of our very few open positions.

  198. Alia*

    I screened a resume that seemed straightforward until the personal interests section, which included the sentence “Any sandwich can be improved with the addition of a potato product.” To be fair, the job description said a sense of humor was a plus…

    (Also, for what it’s worth, they’re totally right, and it would have been a great icebreaker if we moved forward with an interview.)

  199. StellaPDXAmanda*

    My all-time favorite of working in HR for over 15 years in employment was seeing hobbies such as “taking care of my salamanders” or “Winner of Hot Dog Eating Contest” these were Director/Leader position resumes. I don’t know if they thought this was a conversation starter, but it always made us stop and share with colleagues in the department….made us all chuckle for a moment.

  200. Lizard*

    I once received a resume with a section containing literary quotes and book recommendations. The book recommendations were straight off Oprah’s book club list. The position was in the tech industry, and literature review had absolutely nothing to do with the job.

  201. ExCon(sultant)*

    I’m a manager in the government, and I once interviewed an attorney with a 33-page resume. In it, she included the job description for each position (cut/pasted out of USAJOBS, complete with wacky formatting) with a long narrative description of how what she ended up doing differed from the job description. Then she explained why she left each job: mostly due to disagreements with her managers (in reading the details, I found myself leaning toward the side of the managers), plus one job that she said, with the benefit of hindsight, she regretted leaving and wished she could go back to (leaving me to wonder why she didn’t, since it had been at least a decade since she left). She ended it with an entire page of links to YouTube videos about her top 5 Gallup Clifton Strengths (note, she did not create or produce the videos).

    Other people did the pre-screening and first-round interview; I would have dismissed her based on the resume alone. I found myself wondering what Alison would do in the interview, and I decided to be straightforward and ask a direct question about the 33-page elephant in the room. I told her that a requirement of the job is being able to summarize information to present to senior leadership. I also mentioned that I had never seen such a long resume before and noted that the resume is usually an example of an applicant’s ability to condense information into a succinct package. She seemed to welcome the question, and replied that her greatest strength is also her greatest weakness–she is extremely thorough. She said her resume represents how she likes to work and if someone has a problem with a 33-page resume, then they shouldn’t hire her–she has been using the long resume to weed out jobs that will be a bad fit! It certainly worked in this case–we offered the position to another candidate with a normal 2-page resume who has been a joy to work with and manage.

    1. Elitist Semicolon*

      I’m less baffled by that “strategic” choice on her part and more baffled by how she managed to work all that extraneous info into the federal resume template.

  202. Aspiring Chicken Lady*

    One of my favorite job descriptions was for a nurse. “Responsible for closing down the department.”

    I pointed out that she may want to clarify that she was not actually the cause of the department being shut down.

  203. ShadowOctopus*

    I see a lot of applications from students about to graduate advanced degree programs for teapot design, so they’re adults(ish) but many haven’t been in the workforce yet other than summer internships.

    (1) A resume with a QR code to a website that looked like a video dating ad from the ’90s. The candidate was on a sheepskin rug in front of a fireplace. There was no information that wasn’t also on the resume other than a link to “additional information” that went to a 404 error page.
    (2) “Teaching my pet tricks” was listed as an interest. It was a specific, unusual pet that isn’t known for tricks. Cool, right? Definitely a fun nugget to ask about. The pet could do one trick: approach when a treat is being held out.
    (3) The cover letter had an address that was in a state far from the job, which didn’t raise flags on its own. I want to stress that no one asked about this. The candidate had back-to-back interviews with four people. He started each interview explaining that he doesn’t live in that state, but moved there temporarily after finding out his grandfather had a secret second family. Most of the interviews focused on how they were getting to know each other. (Honestly, it sounded like it went surprisingly well.) He was telling the same story to the receptionist later.

  204. Katy*

    Had someone apply for an admin position. The applicant had a very spotty job history, but my favorite entry was:

    Starbucks Barista (3 months) – Left due to Issues with my supervisor. Will provide details during interview.

  205. Elitist Semicolon*

    I was on a search committee for a technical editor position and one of the letters started off just fine, with an appropriate introduction and relevant experience, but then took a hard left in the third paragraph and launched into a lengthy discussion about how much the applicant liked beer. It closed by saying that they were really enthusiastic about the chance to work at {local brewery} and hoped we’d call them to help represent “our” brand. We did not.

    This is why we proofread our job letters. Especially if we are applying to be an EDITOR.

    1. Ama*

      I’m kind of curious if he had found a technical editing position at a brewery previously and sent the wrong letter (because I would like to know more about this job), or if he got halfway through editing the brewery cover letter for your job and either it didn’t save or he forgot he didn’t finish it before sending.

      (But yes, not great for an editor.)

      1. Elitist Semicolon*

        I think it was the latter, if I remember correctly. But I do like the idea of a brewery needing a technical editor; that would be perfect for someone who’s into science, writing, and beer.

  206. CTA*

    A few anecdotes from the art world.

    1. I used to work at an art gallery. My boss (the owner) was looking for a new intern. One cover letter was written and illustrated in the vein of a fairy tale…about Prince [insert gallery name]. My boss thought it was hilarious. She would have sent an interview request to the applicant because she was curious about the person. If only the applicant had made the letter about Princess [insert gallery name]. Lol, it’s called doing your homework, folks. The gallery website’s about page clearly stated the business was founded and run by a woman.

    2. The next year, my boss was looking for a new intern. By that time, unpaid internships were becoming very unpopular (especially if the business wasn’t a prestige business). [Yes, I know unpaid internships are gross, but that was the norm at the time.] We weren’t getting many applications. The ones we did get, my boss didn’t want to interview them. One day, my boss decided to post the internship on Craigslist because she was getting desperate. Even though it was explicitly advertised as unpaid (if you don’t count lunch and transit stipends), we still got a few strange applications. One person was a home-health aide. Another person sent a headshot with one sentence in the email (no cover letter or resume), “I think I’d be great for this role.” Lol for the headshot person.

  207. I don't work in this van*

    Over a decade ago, my husband got an interest list that I’ve never forgotten: giraffes, salsa, the Balkans.

    To this day, it haunts me to not know if they meant salsa the dance or salsa the food.

    1. I don't work in this van*

      Oh, and I got a resume that said the person had a master’s degree from my college, which does not offer master’s degrees.

  208. MMR*

    I worked in grad admissions at one of the most famous universities in the world.

    I saw SO MUCH weird stuff.

    For one very prestigious, niche fellowship program, students were encouraged to submit 2-3 letters of recommendation. In several places in the application materials there was large, bold print saying not to submit more than 3 letters, only the first three letters would be read, the committee did not have time to review additional letters, etc.

    One man’s application seemed very promising. We got three strong letters of rec and put him on the interview list. Then came a 4th, 5th, and 6th letter, still somewhat strong. By the time we got the 8th we cut his name from the interview list. We revived a total of 27 letters for this man. It became a running joke and even our somewhat stodgy director wound up on the email chain of updates. I was disappointed if I checked my email in the morning and there were no new Matthew recommendation letters.

    The letters started out impressive and got weirder and weirder. Highlights included a letter from his mom, who was a VP at a well known company in an unrelated industry where he had never worked in which she gushed about his many special qualities, and two from, respectively, a very well known senator and a very well known journalist, that both basically said “I met Matthew at X event, and he seemed like an upstanding young man. He requested that I write this letter and I obliged.”

    He called disappointed at the end of the application season to ask why he hadn’t gotten an interview when he knew his materials “were sure to have stood out.” I told him the committee had concerns with his inability to follow directions. He was polite but seemed upset that we didn’t understand that his ignoring our explicit directions was an example of him going above and beyond. He clearly thought someone smarter would have recognized his brilliance. I still kind of wish I had gotten to interview him in person.

    1. Elitist Semicolon*

      I sometimes assist in hiring interns and we also use our request for application materials as a way of gauging who can and can’t follow directions. One applicant wrote to ask to whom he should address his three letters of recommendation and how long his writing sample should be, and I wrote back and said that we would not read anything that we didn’t ask for. He was similarly miffed but at least listened.

  209. Ghee Buttersnaps*

    The one where the candidate spelled their own last name three different ways on their resume & cover letter.

    The one where the candidate referred to “elderly people” as “elderly peppers,” several times in the resume & cover letters, so it wasn’t just a typo. From that day forward, I have referred to people as peppers.

    1. i like hound dogs*

      Haha! I once read on a list of proofreading fails about a book that went to print with the line “freshly ground black people” instead of “freshly ground black pepper.” (Major yikes.) Maybe it was … the same person.

  210. Blarg*

    An old coworker has on her resume her record in the Guinness Book for an impressive and yet silly feat (something along the lines of fastest race while dressed as a duck). Boss said she was going to interview her anyway, but the Guinness Book mention guaranteed the interview. She’s awesome and was a great colleague.

  211. Butterfly Counter*

    We were hiring for an academic position, so I was going over CVs from the applicants.

    One person had decided to list all of their letters to the editor of their local paper in their “Publications” section. This is not A Thing in academia, so I looked them up. I am very glad I did. The majority of this candidate’s opinions ran counter to our university’s mission statement and a lot of basic humanity. Let’s just say this person was not a fan of diversity.

  212. Neysalmd*

    My sister got this one:

    In truth most who review my resume are terrified of it and me, it seems I instill terror in
    the hearts of men, women, children and small farm animals, as I am branded a monster.
    In short, I seem to scare the villagers and the livestock. One could almost hear the village
    crier yell “Hide the women and children!! Bring out the torches and pitchforks!! Dr. Low is
    on the hunt!!”

  213. UAdmin*

    I’m an administrator at a university and was chairing a search committee for an entry-level lecturer in our department. Most of the candidates submitted exactly what you’d expect until Pink Highlighter Guy came along. His badly constructed coverletter and resume were enough to make me roll my eyes, but the fact that he hand-highlighted the parts he thought most salient with a bright pink highlighter pen took the cake. He also implied in the coverletter that we should hire him so that he could stay in the country legally. After he was rejected, I got a scathing email from him suggesting we were discriminating against him because of his nationality and threatening legal action. I wasn’t too worried since he didn’t even meet the minimum qualification and we had a pool of much better candidates.

  214. Bureaucratic Hospice*

    The amount of resumes we’ve received by mid-career lifer federal employees listing “homecoming court X year” under accomplishments blows my mind. Not King/Queen – just the court.

    This is a state in the bottom 5 for population to be clear (and i grew up in the DMV) so not at all well versed in small town but still…

  215. Windaria*

    Oh I’ve got a couple from working in HR for years

    1. The applicant who included on her resume the reasons for leaving her past jobs. The most recent one was “they were doing drugs there”

    2. The applicant with multiple advance degrees who misspelled the name of his home state 4 times on his resume. Apparently he managed to get all those degrees without learning how to use spellcheck!

    3. The resume that was basically just a Jason Momoa collage. Still not entirely sure if they actually submitted the wrong document by mistake, or they were just insane.

    1. S*

      Are you sure the candidate was not Jason Momoa? Because he is part of the small, selective group of people who could get away with a resume in collage form.

  216. Anonychick*

    Many years ago, my dad was interviewing someone for a secretarial/office manager position. I have no idea what the name on the resume was, but let’s say it was Jalne. J-A-L-N-E. I don’t recall if he took his best shot at pronouncing it or if he asked the candidate how she pronounced her name, but either way, he was highly apologetic when she told him a bit snappishly that it was pronounced Jane. Not wanting her to feel as though he was judging the unusual spelling, which he assumed to be a linguistic/cultural difference, he mentioned something along the lines of how he should have realized it was simply an alternate spelling, as he’d been the one to give his daughter (me) an unusually-spelled name. All very jolly, let’s-move-on, whatever.

    The candidate, however, was confused: she absolutely spelled her name the “normal” way; how else would anyone spell it? My dad—a white dude then in his mid-60s—started floundering, worried he had somehow walked into some sociopolitical landmine: “I’m just used to seeing it spelled J-A-N-E, but of course—” The candidate cut him off: “I *do* spell it J-A-N-E.”

    Dad looked at the resume. He looked at the candidate. He handed the resume to the candidate. “Oh!”

    Y’all. She had misspelled/typoed her own name. On her resume. To be a secretary at a law office.

    She did not get the job.

    1. Doris*

      I definitely would’ve gone with Yalna and felt pleased with myself for figuring out how to say this clearly obscure, Germanic name.

  217. Seahorse Girl*

    One applicant’s resume listed space exploration as a hobby. We wanted to interview this person to find out if the Borg were really a threat.

  218. Rina*

    A favorite was a candidate who clearly took to heart the importance of quantifying accomplishments their interest section said something like “Exercise 6x/week for 3 years, increasing bicep circumference by 70% and decreasing waist circumference by 10%”

  219. Solayan*

    I used to have a job that involved a lot of resume screening and kept a file of the weirdest stuff that came in (anonymized of course).
    A few of my faves (all for office-type jobs) were:
    – A photo cloud of low res and sometimes stretched pictures of the candidate, including a baby photo and a photo of them holding a chicken
    – Detailed information about an internship as a fish inspector for a job that had absolutely nothing to do with fish or inspecting
    – a cover letter where the candidate offered to bring “many valuable chattels” to your organization
    – this gem of a cover letter from an external candidate who really should have gotten an English speaker to give it a once over:
    “I am interested in our posted job [job title], I have noted our famous corporate for a while
    now and would be happy to have this opportunity to contribute my knowledge and
    intelligence; and together we could create our wonderful dream”
    – and this masterclass what not to do when you notice the CEO and HR person are women:
    “I wish Both of you my Ladies a blessing prosperous coming week ahead to You My dearest Mrs [Name] and to You My Dearest Mrs [Name], and a blessing week of health and prosperity and success to Both of you and to your family and your Associates, and May God bless you all with health and long life, especially in this global pandemic and I want to thank you both of you my Ladies for giving me a few minutes of your both times to read my email, thanks.”

    1. BikeWalkBarb*

      I majored in English and worked as a professional copy editor for a while. I used to be very critical of non-standard English in applications. I’ve since come to recognize that with that filter I have an implicit bias built into my process that works against applicants for whom English is a second language. Since I also hope to recruit bilingual candidates to support language access for our programs (in a state agency) I need to be aware of that bias and consider whether perfect English is really a job requirement.

      1. Solayan*

        That’s a very good point!

        I think it does depend a lot on the job. The role the presumably non-native speaker above was applying for explicitly required the ability to do a lot of writing in English for both internal and external audiences.

        I suspect the one offering us chattels wasn’t an ESL problem (based on the rest of their writing), but more a matter of someone looking for a synonym for ‘assets’ and not understanding what the synonym they’d chosen really meant.

        The last one was clearly working from a different cultural context, which probably reads much better elsewhere, but in the female-dominated sector I was in it came across as old fashioned at best and a bit misogynistic at worst. They also weren’t remotely qualified for the job they were applying for iirc.

  220. IAAL*

    Nowhere near as interesting as these, but I had an early career applicant (as in, in their resume, they talked about being early career) with a six page resume.

  221. i like hound dogs*

    A lot of these stories are making me think I should include some more personal stuff on my resume!

  222. Maggie*

    I had an applicant for a department head position at a library who was about to graduate high school. The job posting explicitly stated that a MLIS degree and management experience were necessary. Their only managerial experience was running a K-Pop fan club.

    1. Daughter of Ada and Grace*

      I mean, they have to start somewhere. Of course, they also have to keep going in order to get there…

  223. LadyKnight*

    aw man, I am sad to be late to this party.

    In among the usual obviously chatgpt generated and horrendous spelling errors, I’ve had 2 that stand out.

    One was 7 pages long. Yes, 7 pages. The candidate had worked in industry for 6 weeks, on a temp contract for a friend, and had just loaded it with every industry-relevant term they could think of. In many ways it was impressive, just none of those ways were positive.

    The other I could actually publish here and be in no danger of GDPR or similar because…there was no personal details. Nothing. No name, work history, skills, interests, qualifications or anything. Were it not for the fact it had the word “Resume” across the top in bold underlined, I would assume they sent me the wrong file and instead gave me a draft for a blog entry about their weekend and how part of it was spent baking with the kids and the rest complaining to their ISP. Neither of those skills was relevant to the role.

  224. Elle Woods*

    Former job was hiring a community coordinator. One particular applicant stood out because her resume included coordinating her neighborhood’s National Night Out party and planning her family reunion.

    1. Bumblebee*

      Assuming this is Housing/Res Life, I might give credit for the NNO party, because in my experience all things Homeowners’ Association-related are pretty much like an especially bad college leadership experience. My husband was a member of ours for a while and I kept calling it SGA for Grown-Ups.

  225. Sack of Benevolent Trash Marsupials*

    My favorite resume ever (for a junior faculty position in public health) was about 40 pages long – which isn’t that unusual in academia EXCEPT that the pages weren’t filled with lists of prior positions or publications or honors or service. Instead, there were a lot of seemingly unrelated paragraphs about the candidate’s MANY accomplishments (as a medical doctor not related to the position), interspersed with inspirational quotes and graphics, and there was a center section of about 10 pages that was filled with photos of the candidate leaning against various academic institutions’ signs, to indicate – what? My very favorite part though was the cover, which included a graphic of wings with the inscription, “Dare to Soar.”

  226. Susan*

    “the candidate had been proudly celibate for several years”

    This was the orgy job, wasn’t it?

  227. VivKeill*

    A woman I worked with had previously worked at a daycare before becoming our on-the-job trainer and senior team member. When a team manager position opened, she asked me to double-check her resume for typos and in the experience section she listed “singing and clapping” as well as “coordinating nap times between 3-year old room and 4-year old room.” We worked at a bank, processing property taxes – there was ZERO relevance to our jobs.

    I did do the right thing and point out that it wasn’t relevant, but she insisted on keeping it. She did not get that job.

  228. Synaptically Unique*

    My “favorite” was the internal candidate who was a feasible option until he emailed me a cover letter after he’d forgotten to include it with his application. He explained that he wanted to move to a new position so he could get away from his current supervisor. Who was a member of the interview panel. And who the new employee would be working with closely on a day-to-day basis. Arguably with more interaction than her own staff.

    I immediately went to HR and made sure they had a copy of the cover letter since it was submitted outside the application system. Didn’t want to risk questions on why a highly experienced candidate wasn’t hired.

    A cover letter wasn’t even a requirement.

  229. Petty Betty*

    I used to work HR for a remote site catering/construction company. I would routinely get resumes from retail/customer service workers looking to get out of that sector. One resume/cover letter that stood out (19 years later) was the guy who stocked shelves at a local grocery store. His resume was riddled with spelling errors (not necessarily an issue for the work he was applying for), however, in his resume, he said “as you can see from my resume, I am a prolific stalker”. I can only assume he meant “proficient stocker”. He was applying for a kitchen aid position, so stocking would have been one of the many tasks required, but he had no kitchen experience, and we did need that.
    We never did call the “prolific stalker” in for an interview.

  230. Erin*

    I received a “resume” that was simply the candidates first & last name, phone number, and email address all nicely centered at the top of the page. Nothing more.

  231. sara*

    I worked at a science museum in a job that included everything from live science demos, school workshops, supervising the preschool play area, retail-esque roaming galleries (teaching/explaining stuff rather than selling but otherwise felt similar), etc.

    We’d quite regularly get academic CVs with all their publications, etc etc. 4+ pages weren’t uncommon. And zero information about if they’d ever had a job working with children or the general public.

    Also we weren’t adverse to hiring people with advanced degrees – I worked with someone who had a PhD in Chemistry and several people with various Masters degrees (physics, chemistry, biology, education plus I’m sure more I don’t know) also. But they all were doing this job because they wanted to do public education and so (I assume) their resumes etc reflected that.

  232. Ciela*

    In the mid 90’s my mother was frequently hiring people to work in a call center. She would often bring home redacted copies of resumes from people who didn’t make it to the interview stage. This was in the vein of “let this be a lesson to you, this is something you should not do.”

    By far the best (worst?), was the ~30 year old man who under skills listed how long it had taken him to build a variety of Mobile Suit Gundam models. Under current job duties he listed “wandering the halls and socializing with co-workers.” I guess he was being honest, but he did not get called for an interview.

  233. notadr*

    Someone who applied for a position cleaning cars and the top of the resume said “Interested in phlebotomist jobs ONLY”

  234. cleverusername*

    I didn’t recognize the university listed for a degree, so I looked it up and it was a fake. One of these sites where you send in $250 and tell them what your GPA should be and they send back a “degree” certificate. They cited their 4.0 GPA too. Folks, this was an opening for HR Specialist!! The very person who’d have responsibility for hiring standards and compliance. The person had enough experience to meet the minimum requirements so they could’ve dropped the fake degree–although maybe that was fake too. I didn’t move them ahead in the process so never checked the work history.

  235. notadr*

    A person who had been banned from our service for poor behaviour who applied for a job and listed skateboarding and photography as relevant skills to clean cars

  236. Mrs. Weaver*

    A friend in our HR at my last company mentioned getting a cover letter that started out expressing interest in the work our company did (we were a green energy company, with the company name including that, think Acme Solar Power). Then later in the cover letter, he asked what the company does. 30 seconds of googling us would have certainly answered that, if the name didn’t give it away.

  237. Bet You'd Like To Know*

    Right out of college and freshly relocated across the country, I was job searching frantically. The local paper had posted looking for a local government and police beat reporter. As an extreme classic literature nerd, I submitted classic literature crimes written in the style of news articles (ie; Crime & Punishment, Oliver Twist, and A Tale of Two Cities) as my writing samples. I’m actually exceedingly proud of those and although I didn’t get the job, the editor and I geeked out over novels during an extended interview. It was gimmicky but not obnoxious (I hope)!

    1. Enai*

      That sounds awesome. Did you upload them to AO3? That definitely counts as fanfiction and I for one would like to read it!

  238. Roller*

    I was recently hiring for a step or so up from junior role, think 5 years experience, in a technical and niche field.

    One guy gave great detail about his concert performances from high school (I was impressed he played oboe!), doing the Duke of Edinburgh award, sports, and various other achievements from school. Might have been acceptable if he was just out of school, but he had worked 2 jobs post university and had 6-7 years experience, so the achievements would all have been around 10 years ago. There was absolutely no mention of the actual relevant jobs in his achievements at all, just the high school stuff. I’d have thought he’d sent a very old CV, but he had the jobs and their start times there. No other details on the jobs, no mention of them anywhere else on the CV.

    Peaked in high school?

  239. LearningLibrarian*

    This isn’t as good as some others, but I got a cover letter for a copywriter position that said “I am the Michael Jordan of editing.” LOL. To be fair, we were in a Chicago suburb, so good job on relevance?

  240. Thank someone I no longer work there*

    I worked in police/fire dispatching for years. At one point was responsible for hiring. Entry level is call taking with promotion to dispatch. We were short calltakers that were interested in dispatching and the union agreed it would be better to hire from outside than force uninterested people to train as dispatchers. They did have to have police type dispatching experience elsewhere. 18 of 20 applicants did not. One applicant, per his application, had spent about 10 years living in mom’s basement helping out around the house for spending money. He was unable to find a job in his former profession as a housepainter due to too many fights with bosses. His career goal was “manage terrorism”. We could not tell which side he wanted to manage. His reason for job hunting? His brother, putting it more politely than he did on the application, had told him to get his lazy a out there, find a job, and quit mooching off mom. Yes, all this in one online applicaton!

  241. MG*

    I received the following cover letter for a freelance proofreading job – I feel like no comments are necessary:

    Hi, Im a newly married american girl. I live in . Your
    advertisment caught my eye, cuz i am an observer by nature and i
    think this may be a good idea. I was also always a grammer person.
    There were no details abt the location of the job and some other kind
    of important details. If this job is still available, I’d love to
    hear more abt it.
    Thank you

    1. Zona the Great*

      I hope she meant that she is an American Girl branded doll. Because if so, this was an impressive note the doll wrote.

      1. MG*

        Ha. No, since this was outside the U.S., she was mentioning her English-speaking qualifications (the proofreading job was in English), but honestly, just the description of “newly married American girl” was enough to make my eyebrows go up.

  242. Alianne*

    I may have mentioned this before in a similar/prior thread, but it remains seared into my memory.

    I am a paralegal, and my firm does periodically get unsolicited cover letters and CVs from folks looking to get a foot in the door somehow, either as an attorney or as office staff. One of these unsolicited resumes arrived with a QR code stamped on the back of the envelope. Upon opening the envelope, I found a two-page cover letter explaining that the author “made some mistakes”, both while in law school and in his first job out of law school. But! He’s found himself! He’s claimed his potential! He’s gone to treatment! And to therapy! And all he needs is someone to give him a chance to show that he could really be an asset to an up-and-coming firm like ours (our firm was at this time 9 years established and our founding attorney had won state awards and recognition)! He’d even be willing to start out as a paralegal (for the first month) to demonstrate his talent! Also included in the envelope:

    –Three business cards, extremely heavy and embossed card stock, and a pinch of glitter;
    –Another sheet with the QR code on it, indicating this would allow me to view “a video in which I tell my whole story”;
    –A resume which indicated that his last and only job was for three months, four years ago, and I was not advised to contact them for information or a recommendation.

    I received this resume, with variations on the wording of the cover letter, the number of business cards, and the amount of glitter, once every three months for a year. I never did scan that QR code.

    1. Aspiring Chicken Lady*

      I imagine this individual sitting at an antique roll top desk patiently constructing these mailings every day.

    2. Llama face!*

      Okay, glitter bomb resume guy wins the award for worst idea ever. How many years were you finding glitter in your office after that?

  243. Seen Too Much*

    I recently hired a graphics designer position. I can’t tell you how many resumes were unreadable. So many different fonts and boxes and flowers – why so many flowers – one person did not have a portfolio, but attached pictures (?) of web pages they supposedly “contributed” to. These were not screenshots. They were pictures taken with their phone of web pages.

  244. Alice Simpson*

    I had an applicant describe her experience as though she was running a business.

    ‘Coordinated transportation of stakeholders to relevant events. Managed catering for stakeholder organization. Managed recognition for relevant parties, etc.’

    She was talking about organizing car pool, juice duty and end of year ribbons for her kid’s soccer team.

    1. ferrina*

      This is impressive marketing, though. She could make getting breakfast sound like it’s a rare skill!

      “Sourced organic catering options to fulfil various dietary requirements. Ensured adequate resources for all participants, reallocating resources as necessary to fill participant requirements. Successfully delivered results and had high return rates.”
      (read: got cereal. made sure I had a bowl and spoon, and washed bowl/spoon if needed. fed myself, and kept feeding myself every morning)

      1. JustaTech*

        I got a resume once for an undergrad lab position (so everyone was in college and expected to have very little work experience) that made working at a Subway sound interesting and challenging, and demonstrated growth in the position. I really wish I’d kept a copy just to use as an example of how to be completely factual and honest with your resume but also make yourself sound really good.

    3. Noquestionsplease*

      I hope you hired her. Those managerial skills are seriously vital. I’d hire a SAHM any day of the week; if they’ve been wrangling a minivan full of little kids 24 hours a day they can deal with anything.

  245. CL*

    A resume that included a degree from my alma mater in a field they have never offered that degree in (think engineering from a small liberal arts school). Turned out that a recruiter had edited their resume and “corrected” the name of the school from a different school with a similar name.

  246. all timers patient*

    Was hiring staff to work in a residential facility, had a candidate apply who was working as a Direct Support Professional and listed their job duties as “Passing medication, take them to doctors appointments, and deal with dementia and all timer’s asshole behaviors.” I assume they meant Alzheimer’s, not all timer’s. They did not get a call back.

  247. Decidedly Me*

    I’ve had several people talk about how they have extensive experience in a cover letter only for their resume to show that they’ve had one job total, for less than a year, that is completely unrelated to the job they are applying for.

    I had another that listed some Lego coding toy (and just the one…) as proof of their experience to be a programmer.

    I’ve had multiple wax poetically about how excited they are to work at a company that is not our company name or even a misspelling of it.

    1. Sack of Benevolent Trash Marsupials*

      Yes!! I love the use of “extensive” or “proven” (?) experience from folks with literally one year of experience in the workforce. I always feel bad for them bc I am sure this is the result of bad advice.

  248. MG*

    Another memorable letter I got was for an illustrating job (I’m in publishing) – this was around 15 years ago, but it still stands out.

    My name is (…). I’m 23 and I live in (…). During the day, I maintain a full time position as an office administrator for a company called (…).

    I find myself to be very artistic (as a hobby) and can draw things from memory or make things up, as I did in the attached. It is not in color, it is a pencil sketch, but oftenI also draw with colored pencils for a nicer effect. I never do graphic art (on the computer).

    I was a teacher for 7 1/2 years and have experience with children of all ages (removed some additional totally irrelevant teaching experience listed here).

    Please see the attached and let me know what you think.

    As I have never done any illustrations as a professional except for when I taught, based on online research of professional illustrator rates, I would charge (…) per hour of work. I would expect a week/# of hours in which to complete a set number of drawings for a book, so I would then space out my work in that way.

    Besides the fact that none of the professional illustrators I’ve worked with have ever charged by the hour, and that not being able to do graphics was an issue even 15 years ago, her attached art was the most AWFUL drawing that you could possibly imagine. Like, my eight-year-old (artistic) daughter could do way better. And it was full of spelling mistakes, too! It was so bad that my assistant insisted on printing it out and hanging it up next to her desk (which no external clients saw) just for her ongoing entertainment.

    Even now, just catching a glimpse of that drawing, I have to wonder if this was a prank by a couple of tweens or if this candidate really, truly believed that she had any amount of artistic talent.

      1. MG*

        Good point – didn’t even catch that part! But it was for religious studies, so maybe yes?

  249. yeep*

    Bulletpoint under an internship:

    “Learned some things about how an office works”

    I mean, probably factual, just not terribly impressive or informative

  250. Noquestionsplease*

    I was hiring for a live-in dog/cat/pet sitter for a month. My job description specifically required experience with BIG, ENTHUSIASTIC DOGS. (One dog was capable of knocking you over and trampling you to get a squirrel.) I received a reply from a woman who started out: “I am reinventing myself and recovering from a New York Divorce (yes, capitalized.) I’m going wherever my new life will take me.” She went on in this vein for two paragraphs, and not once did she mention having a dog, a cat, or even a goldfish. Needless to say, I hired the person whose family had been raising Seeing Eye dogs for the past ten years.

  251. Artemesia*

    the guy’s whose resume began with a cover page in a sort of pale yellow vellum (the kind that does look like actual vellum) with a scrolled border and his picture in the middle with ‘Ourorganization’sname’s New VP for Finance’. The guy was really geeky ugly looking — it was an awful picture — not what you would want to lead with. I actually wondered if it was someone’s dissertation — like they sent out 5 such applications with different pictures (a black man, a white older woman etc etc) to see if the pictures surfaced bias.

    We had another applicant whose whole package was a large postcard with his resume written in a tight cramped spiral from the outer edge to the center of the car, so that to read it you would have to keep turning the card.

  252. Margaret Cavendish*

    I don’t know if this is “strange” exactly, but certainly the cringiest thing I’ve seen in a cover letter was one of my own!

    Once upon a time, my father self-published a book about llama grooming, which I imagine only my mother and maybe a dozen other people ever read. Also, there was a bookstore in my city that specialized in llama-related books. These two facts can barely be called a coincidence – there are millions of people all over the world who are interested in llamas; some of these people write books about them, and other people sell books about them.

    Unrelated to either of these two things, a few years later I was looking for a part-time job and discovered that the Llama Bookshop was hiring. I was in library school at the time, and loved the idea of working in a bookstore. And because I am not one of the millions of people who is interested in llamas, I asked my father for advice. Which…may have been a mistake. My cover letter ran as follows:

    Dear Llama Bookshop Manager, I heard about your store from my father, Sir Thomas Lucas, author of Llama Grooming Is for Everybody. He has tremendous respect for the work you do to support the llama industry. Therefore, I would like to submit my application for the position of part-time bookstore clerk…

    So basically, I laid it on with a shovel. I did end up getting the job, but that’s because I was actually qualified for it, and not because of my blatant sucking up in the cover letter. In fact the manager told me afterwards that she and the assistant manager had had a good laugh about it, and decided to interview me anyway. Lesson learned!

    1. Dark Macadamia*

      I forgot we use llamas as a placeholder here and really love the idea of a llama-themed specialty bookshop. I hope that’s the real topic and not like fishing or something!

  253. ArtK*

    It’s not surprising to me, how “out there” people get. That said, I probably could have included “Blue ribbon from the Los Angeles County Fair for Tablescaping” in my resume and nobody would have batted an eye.

  254. Lou's Girl*

    The Marketing candidate that sent a half of a dollar bill with his cover letter stating we would get the other half once we interviewed him. He was not interviewed.

    1. Margaret Cavendish*

      This is so funny to me. Like, did he really think your organization needed the dollar so badly, that this would be the difference between him getting an interview or not? What did he think you would do with two halves of a dollar bill? Tape them together and…submit them to the finance department, or something?

      Gumption, I guess!

      1. New Jack Karyn*

        Some sort of “I’m the missing piece your team needs!” kind of thing, maybe?

  255. iglwif*

    I’m on the search committee for a new exec director of my congregation, and our resume pool included (along with the usual suspects: no cover letter, no relevant job experience, obvious failure to look us up and see who we are, etc.)
    – a resume that was 90% music gigs + 5-page cover letter with zero (0) paragraph breaks
    – a resume designed in bright blue with graphic elements

    We did also get some really good applicants, fortunately.

  256. Elbereth Gilthoniel*

    I just got one this week.

    The person’s cover letter said: “I like cats. I mean, I really like cats”

    That was the entire cover letter. No introduction, salutation, nothing.
    This was for a position on a Financial team (nothing to do with animals whatsoever).

  257. Squirrel!*

    I was on the Pastor Search Committee at my church several years ago, and there are some expected cover letter quirks that would never be appropriate in the non-ministry world like talking about your spouse/family. Technically not relevant, but people think it is since the family will also be participating in church activities and whatnot, so whatever. The one that really got me, though, was the candidate who referred to his wife as “the former (firstname) (maidenname).”

    1. ag*

      My boss listed his wife and six children on his resume using his wife’s maiden name. So when I sent them a Christmas card I sent it to Dr. Fergus Juncture and Ms. Lucinda Parrot — luckily they were amused (maybe) rather than offended. Since I used my own name in the south 50 years ago when it was viewed by many as the choice of ideological cranks, there was a risk that they would read it as a political statement. But I was just using the name I thought she used. She had been Mrs. Fergus Juncture for decades. Apparently the wife listed by maiden name thing was common in the south.

  258. Confused Hiring Manager*

    I had a candidate whose resume included a pie chart of how they spend their time, including percentages for working, reading, self-care…and “Disassociating”… It wasn’t an insignificant portion, either!

  259. Space Lasers*

    When I was at a large, relatively conservative (in culture, not politics) non-profit, we got a sort of resume/cover letter that was an actual light bulb in a box that instead of being covered in copy about the lightbulb, had blurbs about the applicant. I think it was meant to show that they were full of “bright ideas” and was meant to show their unconventional thinking but it was not at all appropriate to the position which, if I recall, was somewhat PR-related, but not in a graphic design/visual sense. Also, this was a place that forbade colored pushpins and was very much not the culture to go with an applicant who applied via lightbulb. We all had fun passing around the lightbulb box and reading the various blurbs, but I’m afraid that the applicant was never seriously considered.

  260. The Other Sage*

    Some years ago I used to make some voluntary work petting cats in the local animal shelter. I included that on my resume, in the section “personal interests”.

  261. Aitch Arr*

    All the following candidates were applying for entry-level sales roles.

    One resume tagline was “$NAME, Car Salesman/Doctor/Hospitality Expert/Sales Development Rep”
    *record scratch*
    Yes, they did go to medical school. Sort of. The school closed about 7 years ago and most of the graduates are not eligible to practice.

    *
    As part of work experience:
    “Have persuaded over 50 students to do their first skydive”

    *
    “$COMPANY was a startup that ran out of funding and laid-off employees. They later obtained new funding and asked me back, but I choose not to return via my own choosing.”

    *
    Job title: “Director of Racquets”

    *
    Instead of “Experience” or “Employment History,” one candidate had a section entitled “Career Journey”

    *
    One candidate neglected to fill in the placeholders in a list of job responsibilities for a previous role:
    • Spearheaded creation and implementation of work instructions and procedures, which led to [Result].
    • Developed in-process data collection using [Software].
    • Oversaw [Number] team members responsible for inspecting all completed [Type] products.

    *
    One resume contained a Skills section, which ran along the right side of each page. It listed over 70 different skills, all of which the candidate rated themselves a 5 out of 5.

    *
    Volunteer Work:
    Veteran Head Stone Cleaning
    October, 2017
    Cleaned head stones at veteran monument

    *
    From the ‘Personal Interests’ / ‘Accomplishments’ sections:

    Scented Candles
    • I own 50+ scented candles covering every season of the year and give optimal recommendations using a calculated analysis on season, location, environment, event, personal preference, and vibe.

    *
    Exhibiting artist, oil painter. My pieces have been exhibited nationwide and have been sold into private collections.

    *
    Reading blogs

    *
    Joined a community since moving to $CITY.

    *
    Author of 5 books currently selling on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.

    *
    Phrases I never thought I’d come across in the context of a resume, and yet:
    “analytical prowess”
    “while giving succor”

    (Not in the same resume!)

    *
    Bonus funny typo:
    International Travel: Visited Puerto Rico, Bahamas, Mexico, England, Ireland, Egypt, Amsterdam, Scotland, Whales

      1. Aitch Arr*

        Not sure if it was a complete scam, or just that graduates can’t practice in the USA.

        I didn’t want to put in the actual school, but it was the Atlantic University School of Medicine in St. Lucia.

  262. Kez*

    I worked as a lead admin in a field delivering a life-changing travel-adjacent service that more people wanted jobs doing than jobs were available. My job (and the temp admin assistant jobs I was hiring for) had none of the glamor of our programming and all of the in-office boring data and phone reception work. I loved it but having been burned before, I was always wary of folks trying to land the admin position as a “foot in the door” for the more exciting program work, as they tended to resent and put minimal effort into all of the unglamorous things I needed their help getting done.

    Well we had one applicant submit a multi-page (!!!) cover letter that read as more of a personal essay. The gist? She had worked in a data-processing, phone-reception, admin-type position that she hated and found extremely stressful. Then one day she was sitting on a bench in a park during her lunch break after a panic attack (yes, the letter had this level of detail!) and realized she hated her work and her life, so it was time to quit and move to Paris.

    I really felt for this person because the letter was clearly heartfelt and she seemed to have gone through it during her brief admin career, but I couldn’t think of a less-appealing cover letter for a position that was largely admin work where we absolutely needed someone who was not going to quit without notice to move to Paris!

  263. Elarra Harper*

    My 3 favorites of all time (hiring non-attorney positions in a midsize, fairly conservative business law firm). None was invited to interview, but number 3 was very close.
    1. Perfectly fine resume for accounting position, but cover letter indicated they had been “screwed” by lawyers multiple times and wanted the job to prevent that from happening to others.
    2. Gentleman with a skill listed as strong research skills, with a recent 5 year “employment” stint listed as “Author” and a link to his self published fetish novel.
    3. Good relevant prior experience, but the current position listed was a year long stint as Miss BDSM OurState.

  264. Rural Juror*

    We received a resume with links to three videos. This was a while ago and I don’t remember all the details, but I believe the first two were some sort of video resume and a photography highlights video. The third was a “reference” video, in which puppets (operated by the applicant) provided glowing references for the applicant. These were very professional looking puppets, not just some hand puppets from the toy store, and they had goofy names and everything. The organization I worked for was in a somewhat fun industry, but the job was a professional office job that had nothing to do with photography, videography, or puppetry. He was not offered an interview.

  265. AsterRoc*

    I’m in academia, and I’ve been on multiple committees hiring faculty members. I’ve seen multiple applicants — sometimes even in the same search — plagiarize their Teaching Statement. The giveaway was this is for higher ed faculty, and the statement included a description of how they’d teach “the young child.”

    Oh, and that year where I got multiple teaching statement plagiarisms in the same search? They all plagiarized the same one, all about teaching “the young child.” For a college faculty position.

  266. JustADrone*

    The guy who listed his hobby on his resume. “Mulching.” Curious, tell me more. “You know, when I mow the lawn, I mulch. It’s great!” And he went on for like 5 minutes on the virtues of mulching. The role was for an audiovisual technician role at a research university.

  267. Marie Lobbezoo*

    I had a candidate whose resume went into great depth and detail about their religious journey and their “vision quest” to find Jesus. We are talking the whole first page after the contact information was all about this guy’s path to finding Jesus. We weren’t a faith-based organization, they had applied for a Janitorial position (so nothing having to do with faith whatsoever), and it was frankly pretty cringe worthy. I can appreciate the effort he made to create this very personal spiritual testament, but I can only imagine how many employers were put off by this – I know I was.

  268. lina*

    “Constructed and managed a placenta pit”.

    Yes, a pit where afterbirth was buried, relevant to the candidate’s role as a physician in their country of origin.

    1. Soft clothes for life*

      In a previous job, I had to inspect that placenta pits were maintained and properly covered. There had been issues with children and wild animals gaining access. It’s not on my resume (though I do mention the “environmental compliance checklist and app” that I helped to develop).

  269. alle*

    The weirdest resume I got (which happened just recently) was the lack of one! I had an open PhD position and I received an application email that said something like:
    “Dear My name, I am expressing my interest in your supervision as my advisor for *project’s name*. Your reputation and expertise make you a great candidate for this role. I look forward to working with you.”
    Like I was applying to them! And that was the entire email. No resume attached,no CV, nothing.

  270. IrishElizabeth*

    A former coworker said that on his resume he has somethingto the effect of “Although I am bald most people still find me to be handsome.” He was a horrible person so I hope it has hindered his ability to find a job.

  271. hellohello*

    Once, in a former very writing-heavy job, a candidate who was asked to submit a writing sample instead sent in several memes. (Worse still: they were pretty mid memes. At least make me chuckle if you’re going to ignore the actual request!)

  272. Sal*

    At a printing company many decades ago. Applicant said they were fired from their previous job because they brought a loaded firearm to work, dropped it, and someone was shot.

    1. RagingADHD*

      I think that if you lack both common sense and the hand-eye coordination to hold onto hand-sized objects, that really should be a disqualifier for a pistol permit. How were they even in a position to drop it in the first place? Did they have it out?

  273. Paul S.*

    I owned a board and video game store for about a decade. It turns out that EVERYONE wants to work at a game store, so in our relatively small town I would routinely get several hundred applications from folks as young as 18 (our minimum) and all the way into retirement age.

    I had one candidate that listed “Taught Sunday School” as a job. I emailed her and she confessed that she’d only taught one class as a fill-in for her mother, but that the kids really liked her.

    Another candidate listed “High social status” as a quality. I emailed him and he explained that he had a large following on Social Media.

    Finding employees was such a disaster that we instructed people NOT to contact the business about the position, please just use the form and we’d call you if you were selected for interview. We still got dozens of calls a day.

  274. AbbyJo*

    I work in higher ed. At a previous employer, someone applied to teach college English by handwriting a curriculum vitae on pages ripped out of a copy of Franny and Zooey (the J.D. Salinger’s novel).

  275. Surrogate Tongue Pop*

    Not a resume or cover letter, but a former co-worker changes his linkedin headline several times a week (and his accomplishments for each company, many of which are fiction, just made up numbers and…not even remotely what we did when we were at the same company). Current headline says “when you care enough to send in the very best”.

  276. Jason*

    Not my resume, but the email I used to send it. When my kids where little, I made them login to YouTube as me on their iPads, so no one knew they were kids online. Little did I know that when they changed my name in YouTube, it also changed my display name on GMail.

    The manager almost did not open the email with m resume, because it said it was from “RubiksCubeDad”. Oops.

  277. Medley*

    My place of work has an online application for candidates to fill out. Under their work history, one applicant answered the question of who was their supervisor at previous position with “Barbara”
    The answer to the follow up question “Why did you leave this position?”
    “Barbara”

  278. The Elf Intern*

    Back when I was a Fed, we got the annual pool of intern resumes pretty late one year, after the system had switched over from one that would auto-eliminate fancy designs to one that took a variety of more interesting formats. As the group was sorting through, we discovered the new system accepted photos.

    One candidate included a photo that showed long blond hair, an artistic crouched pose, and what were probably skinny jeans but with the rest made him look like a Renaissance festival runaway. His qualifications were actually pretty good, but as the panel was tossing around printouts of the resumes, someone asked why an elf was included for a technical position.

    I was the only one willing to look past the photo after the candidate became The Elf, probably because I love the Renaissance festival.

  279. lina*

    I had one that included their most recent performance evaluation. Internal hire, so kind of relevant. But… it wasn’t a great evaluation. And the way our hiring and performance systems are set up, the hiring manager doesn’t get to see past performance evaluations, and your current supervisor doesn’t get to see old ones either.

    I contacted the HR office to ask if I should include the performance review in my consideration of their candidacy, and they said yes, the candidate must have wanted the hiring manager to see it if they included it in the hiring package! It wasn’t the make-or-break thing – they were a weak candidate for a lot of reasons and didn’t advance to interview stage – but it certainly didn’t help.

    Same candidate included every. single. internal. training. certificate. in their package for the last ~15 years. I’m talking things like annual security training, annual building evacuation training, annual ethics training… the resume packet was about 200 pages, of which maybe three were relevant to my review?

  280. Gay son dad*

    I was involved in the process of hiring for a director level role for an LGBTQ organization. One applicant sent us a 4+ page cover letter declaring his deep relevant experience (it wasn’t at all relevant) and, in one paragraph, went in great detail about his support for his gay son and how other family members had disowned said son. I guess I’m glad his son has his back?

  281. Code monkey manager*

    I got a resume for a software engineer job that included the pints per minute the applicant milked from her goats. I was disappointed she was in no way qualified for the job and I couldn’t interview her, I really wanted to ask about the goats.

    Less amusingly, the candidate who included a motivational quote on his resume… from a famous scam artist.

  282. K-Chai*

    I hire college students, which means I get to see some…interesting things from people who have very little real-world experience.

    A very common thing is resumes where the applicant was clearly using a template and didn’t put any thought into the purpose of the section and whether they actually needed it. The highlight was an “awards” section that read, “I was not too involved [in high school extracurriculars] and did not gain many awards. I cannot see how this could be an issue, just being open.”

    A different resume contained three lines of lorem ipsum for part of their experience. This resume was no longer than half a page. The lorem ipsum was fully a quarter of the entire resume.

  283. Not a Detective, But...*

    Someone applied for a job on my team, lying and saying he had previous EXTENSIVE experience working in my program. Easy to catch that lie. He didn’t get an interview.

  284. Lorraine*

    Oh – I just had to go through 600 resumes last month and I have THOUGHTS on resumes in general:
    – I don’t care if you want to show off your design skills, but if you do: they need to be flawless. No weird margins at the edge or color blocks that hit your name weirdly.
    – That said, I will judge you if you make a giant color margin on the side and leave yourself less room for achievements
    – Don’t include an objective of “obtaining X job”. Again, you are wasting space.
    – Conversely, a career highlights space of 3 to 4 (no more) of the most outstanding achievements I should see up top? Surprisingly useful.
    – When I have to scan more than 200 resumes I will search for keywords in your resume. Not necessarily words from the job description, but things I need to zero in on quickly to make cuts.
    – No one outside your current job/industry knows what your acronyms mean. I am an executive in my field and I have no idea what B2B, NPS/CSAT scores, SLA, SDG, HL7, EMR, M&A, SaaS, DBA, xfn, ESSER, ESSA/ESEA, IDEA, APR, NSLP/SNP means, and I’m not going to spend time figuring it out. If you’re looking to transition into my field (and we don’t make applying easy – you have to fill out a whole portal, not just email in your resume), you need to write in language I understand. 
    – If I’m reviewing fewer than 150 applications, I will read every cover letter. Use it to tell me about gaps, your transferable skills, and why this job.
    – Apply early. We’re allowed to stop reviewing resumes once we get a large enough candidate pool. Also – do not trust LinkedIn closing dates – they have steered me wrong (personally) in the past. 
    – DO NOT RANK YOUR PROFICIENCY IN YOUR HOBBIES. I do not care (nor believe) that you are an 8 out of 10 on the flute. Why would you include this?
    – Do not send me a 6 page resume. That tells me I cannot trust you to write a succinct email to leadership.
    – Do not cram everything onto one page in the world’s hardest to read font with no margins. My eyes will hurt and I will be annoyed when considering your candidacy.
    – Please don’t list your strengthsfinder/mbti/other personal assessment test results. You are wasting space. 
    – PDFs are your friend. Don’t rely on word uploads. Definitely don’t use a weird format that needs opening in a browser. If I am hiring for a role that produces executive caliber documents and your resume has formatting issues, that’s a data point I’m going to use.
    – If you are applying for a position that is similar to your current role, assume that I have a basic understanding of your day to day. List out special projects or changes/improvements you have made to processes. 
    – When I have more than 200 applicants, a referral will mean I give your resume a closer read. 
    – If you job hop every 1-2 years for over a decade, I’m not interested. (No, I’m not including promotions in that. But also use a format that makes it clear that it’s a promotion at the same company.)
    – If you refuse to list your address anywhere in your materials, the application portal, or LinkedIn, I will assume the FBI is after you. 
    – If you use an application to try to pitch me your services, I will hate you.
    – If my business is not a touchy-feely cutesy business, don’t use cutesy section headers. 
    – If your secondary soundbath/backyard chicken/ayahuasca/missionary/rock climb pitch setting/yarn spinning business takes up as much real estate as your relevant experiences, I will judge your resume choices (not your life choices!)
    – The applications that really floor me are the ones with well written, incredibly impressive accomplishments in a sector far removed from my own with a totally different skill set than the posted job. Someone who is able to work on million dollar banking deals, or in HR for a known tech company (assuming these aren’t just random pathological liars) should also understand how wildly unsuited they are to my particular posting. Why are you sending me an application if you are a nurse? I can’t use you in my office. It is such a bizarre waste of time for everyone involved. 

    1. JustaTech*

      On the PDFs:
      Several years ago my husband pleaded with me to use LaTeX to write my resume rather than Word. I’ve used Word since middle school so I’m very comfortable with it, but he’s a tech guy and he’s been trying to convince me since college to use LaTeX (which is what you use if you’re writing a math or physics textbook – it really is great for symbols and stuff).
      And when he was finished with it, my resume did in fact look great. Beautiful font, really professional looking, and a nice PDF.

      That I could not edit without huge effort from both of us. (Did I mention the text editor doesn’t have spell check?)

      Then when I was applying for jobs I mentioned that some *required* uploading my resume and cover letter as Word Docs, so I was just going to run the PDF through Google docs.
      “Oh heck no! You need real Word for that!” And off he went to buy the full Office suite.

      So I’m back to using Word because 1) I can edit it myself, 2) it has spell check, and 3) it’s easier to turn my Word resume into an acceptable PDF than to turn my beautiful PDF into a readable Word doc.

  285. Comma Queen*

    I once received a resume that listed the fact that their children had quadruple citizenship because each parent had dual citizenship without overlapping (think American-Brazilian meets French-Vietnamese. I’m really not sure what we were expected to take away from that information.

  286. Ess in Tee*

    We had an applicant who was enthusiastic, but clearly hadn’t had anyone proofread his resume, cover letter, or the pages long Meet The Employee interview that was clearly intended for internal use at his current company.

    I don’t recall all the details, but what jumped out first was the large number of glaring spelling and grammatical errors. The position he was going for was language instructor for native speakers of other languages, so it was a definite red flag. The fact that he used a lot of winking emojis, “hehe,” and “lol” didn’t help either.

    He also used his two younger brothers and multiple hamsters to illustrate his point that he was a responsible person. In fact, the brothers thing meant he would be a fantastic teacher for children of all ages at our language school! Kids loved him! Unfortunately, we only taught professional adults, as was clearly indicated on our website.

    It went into the Do Not Interview pile because he would have needed a working visa, which we couldn’t provide, but I really hope this young man got some guidance on how to write a resume and cover letter.

  287. Lorraine*

    (In terms of single weirdest, we once had a candidate print their resume on a sheet cake and attach it to a balloon in a box.)

    1. Enai*

      Okay, I think this wins in the “Charming” category. Or “Bribery”, I can’t decide.

  288. Polly Hedron*

    A woman applying for a job as a computer scientist noted that she had been Miss Maine in the Miss America pageant.

  289. Aaron S*

    The attached file “resume.pdf” was not the applicant’s resume, but a letter from one of his college professors explaining that his failing grade was a result of his consistent failure to complete his assignments.

    He was not selected for an interview.

  290. Person of Interest*

    I got a resume from a young woman who listed as her Interests: Music, Cats, Reality TV, Clothes, Sustainability. None of these applied to the (office) job in any way but I was admittedly intrigued!

  291. S*

    One resume included the writer’s anticipated future work, in the form “May 2024 to August 2024: Intern at [Hiring Organization.]” The blurb underneath was taken verbatim from the job listing. I think he assumed this was a magic cheat code to bypass computer screening for keywords.

    In the same batch of resumes, we had someone with reasonable basic entry-level qualifications, but his cover letter was all about crypto. So much crypto. His experience and competence in crypto. His beliefs about the future of crypto. He went on for paragraphs. The job had absolutely nothing to do with finance, blockchain or crypto.

  292. Always Science-ing*

    Many years ago, so sadly I can’t recall all the details, I was involved with hiring for a number of somewhat junior office administration roles. In the course of my time there I can recall the following:

    1) A candidate with minimal work experience who submitted a 3-4 page resume which included being related to a possibly notable war veteran in their list of accomplishments. I can’t recall if their relative fought in WWI or perhaps the American Civil War (it was a great, great or maybe great, great, great+ uncle). And I say “possibly notable” because the paragraph (!!) devoted to this “accomplishment” implied that the reader would of course recognize their name… which I most certainly did not, nor did Google.

    2) A candidate who’s accomplishments section waxed poetic about their dental hygiene. Their resume also included several pages of quotes from family and friends describing their character. Unsurprisingly, this resume was 10-12 pages and the candidate had ZERO work experience, and only a couple of very minor highschool volunteer experiences.

    Unfortunately I wasn’t in a position to provide feedback to applicants in my role, but I still wish I could have gotten on the phone with these ones to provide them with some advice. I hope someone else was able to help them and that they both have fabulous careers now!

  293. Ess in Tee*

    An applicant wrote in his resume “I only write the personal pronoun ‘I’ as ‘i.’ Contact me to find out why!”

    Honestly, I was so annoyed by this I decided no matter what the rest of his resume looked like, we would not call him. Luckily the rest of it ensured he wouldn’t have gotten a call back anyway.

  294. Millie*

    I once read an application where someone had given an example of their conflict resolution skills by describing how they’d resolved a drunken argument between two friends that happened on a group holiday.

  295. Susan Sto Helit*

    The candidate’s CV and cover letter prominently linked to their website, which was doing triple-duty promoting them as an actor, self-published writer, and alleged professional in my field, all simultaneously. There were glamorous headshots/full body shots. There was a full showreel (the acting was…not great). There was a very recent blog post talking about my field, which might have been a more convincing demonstrator of their interest and expertise had it not been the only one, and not have been posted at around the same time as they applied for the role. It was A Lot.

  296. Soft clothes for life*

    An applicant to an entry-level staff position at a university repurposed her medical school personal statement as a cover letter. It was a bad personal statement, but even worse as a cover letter. Perhaps not very professional of me, but it was so bad that I kept a copy. Here’s the first paragraph, with some identifying details removed. Folks, this is the first paragraph of 3 pages:

    “Imagine being immersed in a developing world from the age of 11 to the present. Beginning in 2008, my parents have given up my family’s summers to travel to [developing country] with my brothers and myself, where we have done anything from building houses to managing eyeglass clinics and everything in between. While I have many memories from this time, there is one experience that stands out most to me. While I was at an orphanage in [country], I met a boy named [David]. Just by looking at him, you would not be able to tell the type of life David has had to live. David’s mother was a drug addict, and he and his sister had been rented out for prostitution so that the mother could have drug money. Because of his mother’s addictions, the family lacked both the money and the care needed, so he and his sister were forced to live on the streets and eat from dumpsters until they came to the orphanage where I met David. While the only physical scars from his rough life were ears that have been eaten away by mice, the emotional damage runs much deeper. This is David’s story, and there are too many other like it. You see, oppression is all around us.”

    My other favorite part of the letter was when the applicant sort of forgot that they were applying for an admin role: “I have just as strong a yearning as ever to work in the healthcare field with disadvantaged groups. That is why I decided to leave my previous job, a desk job. While you may look at my resume, and I may not be the obvious choice…”

    Yikes.

  297. TheBunny*

    I was going through resumes for a job that was being a LOT of traction due to the pay rate.

    In order to stand out…and they did but not in the way they meant…the “resume” included the following:

    1. A link to their LinkedIn page… which had no actual work experience and was set up more like a portfolio. (The job in question was not the kind of job one would have a portfolio or pitch deck for.)
    2. A link to their Calendly page allowing us to schedule with them a time for us to meet once we were suitability impressed with their application.

    We were not.

    Yes. I looked. Their calendar was WIDE open.

  298. Dina*

    Many years ago, my workplace at the time received a resume that included a photograph of the applicant playing a melodica. You know, that reed instrument that has a piano keyboard attached.

    This was for a receptionist position, not for a melodica player position.

  299. IrishElizabeth*

    I worked for awhile with a guy who put on his resume, LinkedIn, etc., that he was the “Firefighter” of his profession (very common office job). It then went on to talk about how he rushed in to save the day, blah blah blah. I found it offputting that he was equating problem solving and occasionally going above and beyond to a dangerous profession that directly saves lives. Seemed so arrogant. Not the only thing about him that was odd.

  300. MG*

    A job was posted where we needed someone with a very specific background and skills. One notable candidate:

    1) called me up at NIGHT on my personal HOME PHONE to inquire about the job. The job listing included an e-mail address, no phone number, but if they really felt the need to call, they could have easily looked up the company’s phone number. Instead, they chose to look my home phone number up in the phone directory. I was NOT impressed, to put it mildly.

    2) first thing, asked how flexible the job was (we noted flexibility in the hours / working days) because “I’m a mother and my children will always be the most important thing to me, and when you have children you might need to take off suddenly, for example, for dentist’s appointments.”
    Now, just to be clear, I’m a mother, too, as is the person who did get the position, and I’m all for flexibility. But the way the question was asked and the fact that it was the first thing asked and the fact that it was important enough to call me at home to ask that … not a good look!

    3) kept talking about how perfect she was for the job, because she had such amazing credentials. I asked her to send a resume and cover letter as per the posting. Her credentials were not amazing, certainly not as amazing as she though they were. For example, she was going on and on about her Masters in the field, but that wasn’t listed anywhere as a requirement, and we really didn’t need it – what we needed was relevant, current experience in the field, and she had a total of 4 years experience spread out over 20 years.

    4) sent her resume from an e-mail address highlighting her “mommy status” (no surprise after # 2, I guess) – think an address that starts with “mommy”, then notes the number of kids and referring to her kids with an endearment.

    5) sent a resume without a cover letter.

    6) then resent with the following cover letter (probably would have been better to skip it):
    Dear … Customer Service Team,
    I am applying for a job that was posted on our community website.
    I looked over your website and products. I feel that there are many updates that your company needs to be in the 21st century. Our technological advances in society have been racing than ever before.
    Attached is my resume.
    Some suggestions:
    Website needs to be updated.

    7) followed up on our polite rejection letter with an offer to update our website graphics. Now, our website isn’t perfect, but it suits our needs is definitely in the 21st century…

    The kicker? Her resume had the worst formatting I’ve ever seen on a resume, and I’ve seen quite a few. As in, there was basically zero formatting, other than generous use of the enter button. Size 8 font (yikes!) but still two pages long, no bolding, no different font sizes to indicate headers, nothing. It looked something like this:

    Experience
    2020-2021
    Llama Groomer
    Grade A Llamas
    New Orleans Llama Grooming Center
    2015­6
    Llama Groomer
    Furry Center for Llamas
    Grade A and Grade B Llamas
    Haircuts
    Manicures
    Pedicures
    2006-2008
    Random Company
    Secretary/Assistant
    2004­2005
    Llama Groomer
    Llama Zoo, Washington DC
    Camel Groomer

  301. AveryS*

    An applicant included inspirational quotes in a summary section at the beginning of his resume. Wise words from Thomas Edison, Babe Ruth, and the poet Rumi were included. “Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.” This was an IT procurement role. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to meet him because he decided not to move forward with his interview.

  302. Briana*

    I get to read a bunch of theatre resumés, which often include a “special skills” section at the end. You get a lot of the expected stuff (dialects, musical instruments, etc) but also plenty of more interesting ones: roller blading, juggling, “can make a balloon dog”, “Can touch tongue to nose”, “can burp the alphabet”…

    1. The Prettiest Curse*

      Definitely one of the few industries where it makes sense to list all your unusual skills on your resume! You never know when you’ll need an actor who can play Hamlet AND make a balloon animal.

  303. BaalLikeBocce*

    It’s not *exceptionally* weird but I once received a resume that listed their Library of Congress library card under achievements. Not only can any person over the age of 16 get a card (no residency restrictions, only need a valid photo ID) but we were at a federal agency in DC where everyone knew they could just walk down the street and get one themselves.

  304. This Is Fine*

    I hire college students for a research library. One person wrote in their cover letter, “If I am hired, there will be no regrets.”
    (I did not hire them, so I will never know.)

  305. Ran*

    My two favourite skills listed on CVs were:
    You should employ me because I have psychic powers

    I speak 5 languages: Cantonese, Mandarin, English, Hokkien, and the language of the birds

  306. EM*

    Just today I saw this under the “interests” section on a resume for a director-level role at a national nonprofit:

    ▪ Interests: Traveling; Sleeping; Exercising; Comedy; Homebrewing; HBO; Denver Broncos; Gaming; Music; Gardening; Kayaking; Spending time with family and friends.

    Bro, I like sleeping too, but it’s not an interest! I advise people to skip this kind of thing in a resume — if you are interviewed and someone asks what you like to do in your free time, then go for it—but don’t say “sleeping”!

  307. Helen Waite*

    In the TMI category was a resume that named the candidate’s spouse and three children and the information that Kid #2 was deceased.

  308. Confused*

    I once reviewed a graphic design applicant’s portfolio, which included some student projects. For one project, she had to design her own typeface. Her design featured letters formed from public hair… which she noted had been collected from her boyfriend and father….

  309. Weiner Dog*

    A two-page resume and the entire second page was a black and white headshot of the applicant with her dachshund. This was a project management role at a branding agency, so traditionally no headshots.

  310. vsco*

    Not a resume, but a reference letter – adding it here in the hopes of inspiring another topic.

    The community service center I worked at in college had student ‘project directors’ – the application process called for a reference letter. One of the letters we got was three lines long. It said something like “Student name works as a research assistant in my lab. He is responsible and does everything we ask of him. In fact, he has even been allowed to train his own cats. Thank you, professor name”

    1. vsco*

      Note – none of our projects had anything to do with cats or animal training of any kind.

  311. Sister George Michael*

    Under Accomplishments: “Rhodes Scholarship Applicant.”

    I guess it was an accomplishment to send the application in the mail?

  312. RetiredNumberCruncher*

    I was reviewing resumes with my manager & the best one was the man who provided a link to his Match or similar dating site profile.
    He was not interviewed.

  313. Sleeve McQueen*

    Headshots and other pictures of his modelling work. The job is in no way related to modelling. This was a long time ago so the icing on the cake was that it was just black and white grainy photocopies on A4 paper.

  314. Turanga Leela*

    I got a resume from a candidate who listed political campaign experience, but redacted the names of the candidates and parties. I asked about it when we interviewed her–was there an NDA or some other reason she couldn’t share details about the work?

    Nope. She just thought we wouldn’t approve of the candidates she worked for. I still don’t know why she didn’t leave off the political campaigns entirely. It wasn’t her primary career, and she gave us so little information that it wasn’t clear how the campaign experience was relevant to the job she was applying for.

  315. elefent1204*

    I have two from summer internship applicants that really stood out. One was a resume that included a picture, except it wasn’t even a good picture. It was just the guy’s head with a blank stare and his mouth agape. Another was a cover letter written in the form of a press release and formatted like a newspaper. Every sentence was written like “John Doe announced today that he is very enthusiastic about applying for this internship.”

  316. Coraline*

    We had an applicant for a web developer role. In his resume he’d listed websites he’d created and screenshots of them. One of them was a site our company had made, complete with our logo on the bottom. It was fun getting him to explain how it had arrived there. (Apparently it was a really good example of a website he’d *like* to make. Right…)

  317. Lionheart26*

    I was on the hiring panel for a school principal position. Candidates were asked to include a statement of Educational philosophy (which is normal for this kind of role). One applicant sent in a one page document that began “what even is a philosophy? I could list the books and theorists you expect to read here, but what’s the point? what you really want to know is what makes me tick, so let me just tell you.
    I like long walks in the rain…………”
    it went on for a full page. He did not get an interview.

  318. Zulema K*

    I work outside of the US where this is more normal, but I frequently receive CVs in a packet with numerous photocopies of certificates. Sometimes candidates attach their birth certificate, which, I assume they were born given the fact they are applying for a job?

    I think they do this to verify nationality / assume we need this for hiring purposes, but it always makes me chuckle.

    1. alle*

      I get that too with applications for Master internships. Passport copies, university registration documents, and in case of foreign students residence permits. I guess they think it increases their chances if we have no doubt from the start that they are formally allowed to do the internship?

  319. Sakemom*

    A cover letter accompanying a resume with a 5 year employment gap, saying “I was not in a Thai prison during that gap” but no other explanation

    (I definitely assumed he’d been in a Thai prison.)

  320. Lola*

    My favourite was under other experience.
    ‘I’m extremely reliable. I once had 17 tequila shots on a night out and still made it to work the next day’

    2. Margaret Cavendish*

      Same! But I was a 20-year-old university student at the time. These days I’m not sure if I could do *one* tequila shot and still make it to work the next day…

  321. Zyanya*

    Ooh I finally have a story for a submission thread!

    I received an application for a banking position where the cover letter was approximately 35 pages long. The candidate had attached a full unredacted client onboarding file as evidence of past work, including personal details of the company’s management staff (address, date of birth, etc.) and company financials.

    I grappled for a while whether to give them a heads up that this was Not Okay, but figured that self-identification as someone who couldn’t grasp basic data privacy tenets was probably for the best for the industry as a whole.

  322. The German Chick*

    One guy who had been out of work for 3 years stated that he was a MENSA member 10 years ago. It felt entirely irrelevant, out of place and somewhat entitled.

    1. Quirky Mensan*

      Yeah, the only time Mensa belongs on a resumé is if you ran one of the big regional gatherings and are applying for a job in event planning. Or possibly if you were involved with the gifted children resource program, and want to work in gifted education. Being a local group officer probably does not, and merely qualifying for membership? Even my cat is laughing at that.

      But you have to remember, Mensa tests for IQ, not EQ. He may have been clueless rather than entitled. “Quirky” is a kind description of a lot of us.

      I’m not using my usual name, because I do NOT boast about my membership.

  323. stratospherica*

    Every so often we get resumes that include some mention of a Japanese wife. Like, “spending time with my Japanese wife and children” under hobbies, “JLPT N2 (learned from Japanese wife)” under language abilities, etc…
    Granted, I’m based in Japan, but it seems so incredibly irrelevant. Even if you’re saying you’re on a spousal visa, there’s no reason to say your wife is Japanese!

    That, and the odd unfortunate typo (Lead Teat Engineer is the most recent) and template-submitted-as-final-cover-letter.

    1. linger*

      We got that frequently too, and interpreted it as an indication that this gaijin candidate had made a long-term commitment to living in Japan, which actually was halfway relevant to us when hiring, though certainly not one of the evaluation criteria for ranking candidates.

  324. Alice*

    I’m a bit late to this, but I can’t pass the opportunity to share the 40 page CV in which they detailed every single action taken. The CV wasn’t divided in the usual education, work experience, other sections. It was just a list of things that had happened to them. Highlights included being vice-president of the school Parents’ Association, presiding their HOA (in a country where the position must be renew every year by law), going to a theatre show and staying for the after-show conversation with the actors.

    Another CV had lots of short-term contracts with the same company. Each time, they included the company’s full address, so what should have been listed in a page or two extended over 25.

  325. track-changes-for-hire*

    One of my college part-time jobs involved looking through hundreds of resumes each week, so I’ve…seen some stuff. My personal favourites include: a resume with an under-the-sea theme, on blue paper, complete with seaweed and bubbles rising from the bottom of the page, crabs scuttling around his references’ details, and clownfish swimming amongst the ‘Experience’ section. Then there was the person who’d written their resume AND cover letter in the form of a talk-show script, with themselves as the guest being interviewed about their experience and qualifications for the job. (This seemed off the charts to me, at the time, but I’ve since learned it’s relatively common?) Finally, there was one guy who had given over the entire first page of his CV to a full-page picture of his face. This was back in the days of dial-up internet, so it took about 20 minutes to download the file. He had a very intricately braided beard.

  326. Jellybeans*

    The University of Chicago has a free online certificate course in “Rat Tickling”, which as a devoted rat owner I of course took. So my CV does have “Certified Rat Tickler” on it. (Under Hobbies.)

    I’m a playwright/screenwriter/theatre-maker which is quite a bit quirkier than most industries so it’s fine and people appreciate it – obviously I wouldn’t have it on my CV if I was in a more corporate industry.

    I actually did land a paid job as a rat handler for a film, so I could legitimately put Rat Handling on! Lol.

    1. RagingADHD*

      Performing-arts resumes are a whole different ballgame, particularly for performers. Conventional wisdom is that performers should list any visually interesting skill that they can execute convincingly on camera for one minute, even if they aren’t actually good enough to be competitive or impressive in real life.

  327. Rainy Cumbria*

    We had one candidate who used upwards of 20 exclamation marks in her cover letter and a rambling anecdote about baking hundreds of scones in one day. It was for an admin role, no scones required.

  328. Tuppence*

    The candidate had experience of working as a personal tutor for students aged 16-19, and included the statement “This role required providing not only academic but also emotional, physical, sexual, and mental support to students”

  329. UnderwaterShoe*

    More than 10 years ago so I can’t remember what followed, but I will never forget the cover letter that started “To whom it may concern, I have a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu…” this was for a project management job at an environmental NGO.

  330. Jack McCullough*

    For a job in our law office we routinely request a writing sample, so imagine our surprise at the application that came in accompanied by a sample of the applicant’s handwriting.

    1. Dancing Otter*

      I am sure there is a company somewhere that believes handwriting analysis offers valuable insight for the hiring process.

      1. Enai*

        Not just one. When I was in school, circa three decades ago, they taught us that a handwritten cv or cover letter was usually expected. For graphological analysis.
        Afaik that’s since changed, but more because computers now rule the business world in Germany than because rationality prevailed over pseudoscience. It’s still expected that you give them a nice passport sized picture of your face, though. Even for jobs where nobody should care what you look like.

  331. Anonymouse*

    Recently posted an announcement for an HR Specialist. Obviously, you have to show prior experience for the position.

    My two favorite, completely unqualified for resumes that were submitted were for the “human terrain specialist” and the “asylum officer.”

    I still have no idea what a “human terrain specialist” is (is this a fancy way of saying they are a doormat?), and while I am the first to admit my workplace sometimes resembles the (lunatic) asylum, I need an experienced HR practitioner… not an asylum officer.

  332. UnCivilServant*

    Strangest thing I’ve seen is not particularly funny, but more of a red flag – candidate claims a degree in Cyber Security – also lists their full SSN on their resume header.

    Made me question their judgement with regards to secure information.

  333. The Other Evil HR Lady*

    I’m late to the party, but I have so many!
    1) The guy that listed long-distance hiking on the Appalachian Trail – as a job, mind you. Impressive, but still…

    2) The Office Wizard. That is all.

    3) The one that said they have attention to detail but wrote, “I am a problem solver, attention detail and organized…”

    4) The one that came from the following email address (changed slightly for anonymity): doinbetterdenu @ email .com.

    5) The one that wrote “in lou of” which made me think of “skip to my lou” which I found adorable!

    6) The one whose major achievement was owning a Chevy Silverado 2023.

    7) The one that wrote: “Every [blank] has its own personality as stupid as it sounds.”

    8) The one from a vocational instructor (laudable!) who taught inmates “everyday things a being does.” I loved it!!

    1. Margaret Cavendish*

      These are all so great! I love “everyday things a being does” – honestly I could use that kind of instruction some days myself.

  334. Esmeralda Fitzmonster*

    In lieu of a traditional resume, a 10-slide Powerpoint presentation that contained almost nothing but images of Six Flags theme parks. This was for a position in higher ed fundraising.

    (The applicant had clearly worked for Six Flags in some sort of marketing/sales capacity. I assume they were trying to make a point about the applicability of those skills to the job for which I was hiring. Which, yeah — that’s a valid argument to make in fundraising, generally! But you have to MAKE the argument, not just compile a bunch of grainy jpegs of roller coasters and park maps.)

  335. heyella*

    Our job portal software requires applicants to fill out a form with all of their education, experience, and reference information in addition to uploading their documents. Oftentimes people will just copy/paste this info from their resume. Sometimes people will be lazy and put the barest minimum or leave lots of the fields blank. Then there was the guy who pasted his LinkedIn link into every single field on the form…

  336. angh*

    I once received an application for a junior computer scientist role, where the candidate started off his resume with name, marital status, etc, but he also listed his height in centimeters and his blood type. There was nothing special about his height nor blood type, btw.

  337. Kate*

    Not THAT weird, compared to some of what’s been mentioned, but one candidate for an administrator in higher ed listed his landlady as his sole professional reference.

  338. TL:DR*

    Not sure if the resume contained anything weird as I didn’t read it but I once received a thirty-one (31!) page resume for a data analyst role. It wasn’t a portfolio of their work either just pure text. Please response if you have seen a longer one.

  339. DollyCat*

    I once had someone apply to a job and instead of a resume attach photos of himself at previous jobs. Which was like 5 photos of him standing in front of semi trucks and one photo of himself in his underwear feeding a baby.

  340. Lois Lane*

    The best one was when the editor in chief and I were reviewing resumes to fill a position in our newsroom. We were reading silently, sorting applicants into Yes, No and Maybe piles. My boss stops on one and asks me, “What’s Quidditch?” I blink, sure I haven’t heard correctly and ask to see the resume. Nope. Right there in black and white is “Captain of Quidditch Team” for his college. My boss, who was vaguely aware of Harry Potter had to have it explained to him that this was the game played on flying broomsticks. “So, not a real athletic sport?” Me, laughing so hard now I can’t breathe, “No.” We didn’t hire the young wizard.

    1. carcinization*

      It is a “real sport” played on college campuses though… I remember seeing news reports with footage about the championships, etc., including mentioning that the name has recently been changed to “quadball” or similar due to some of Rowling’s recent choices. Still may or may not be a great choice for inclusion on a resume though.

  341. TeacherTeacher*

    I worked for a non-profit in a US city…I was leaving and helping our director review applications for my replacement.

    It was not a promising applicant pool, but then we got to a pretty solid cover letter. Yay! Her resume looked good as well…there were indicators (college thesis topic, activities) that made it clear this young person was queer. We figured this person wanted to make that clear so that non-profits in our politically driven city would screen them out if that was a dealbreaker. It was not a dealbreaker for us.

    Then we noticed there were writing samples (Reader, we didn’t ask for writing samples—it was an office manager job)—the samples were a letter to their younger self and a journal entry from when they were overseas. Both got VERY personal and very intimate about the process of discovering their queerness (I say this as a queer person). At this point, we decided to not move ahead bc the executive director had some bad prior experiences with employees with professional boundary issues.

    As I was closing the application, I noticed something and called the ED back. This was 2005-ish. You weren’t stuck with the email you chose when you were 14. This person’s email and website also linked in their signature were the equivalent of “kissagay@yahoo.com”

    This confirmed our prif

  342. LaughingSphinx*

    I had one resume (required to upload, and our ATS would pull contents into the application to reduce that obnoxious “why do I hafta upload AND type this?!” bit. The resume consisted of just “n/a” at the top of the page. This was for a professional role at a financial institution.

    The cover letters that get me the most are the ones (I get a couple per year) that describe the applicant as “detail-oriented” and will have either glaring typos, be addressed to an entirely different organization, or still have the brackets or prompts of [your experience here] from whatever template they utilized.

  343. urban planner*

    I am an urban planner, working on public transit. I once received an application for a junior position where the candidate included that they had a map of our city’s transit network tattooed on their back.

    1. My Cat is a Righteous Dude*

      NGL, that’s kind of cool (I also work for a transit agency).

    2. Dancing Otter*

      Now that’s just silly. Anyone knows the map should be where you can actually see it.

      Or were they planning to whip off their shirt to give directions?

  344. Mama Llama*

    Candidate applying to a small law firm as a receptionist indicated they were qualified for the job because they were “good with small animals.”

  345. Canuck Gal*

    I worked at a marketing agency hiring a summer intern. We got a resume on cheetah-print paper, scented. It felt like a nod to Elle Woods / Legally Blonde but either way, the candidate did not get the job.

  346. A perfectly normal-size space bird*

    I once got a resume and cover letter for an admin assistant position written entirely in crayon. Different colors, different text heights, headings all uppercase. They included their typing speed in their resume so at least they read the job ad description?

    Another cover letter for the same position had this gem: “I previously worked with my body but now I am ready to try something new: working with MY MIND!” followed by a fireworks emoji.

  347. Siren of Sleep*

    Teapot division is looking for a Designer. So they got in the most WILD resume I have ever seen from a Canadian man to our US based workplace. This resume included:

    -A full page spread of just his portrait including fancy frame printed around it

    -A page with his height, weight, age, blood type and race on it. This page also claimed how he, an octogenarian security guard for a boatyard, fights off pirates daily.

    -Two videos, one of which he berated his city’s Mayor and their design team for doing a terrible job. He also described the Mayor as “cute”

    -An essay describing how urban designers know absolutely nothing and he will be the most righteous savior we could ever have but also this is just to jumpstart his political career (we’re uh… very much rural)

    -This resume, by the way, was TEN PAGES LONG. We also have a questionnaire which is incredibly basic stuff but each question had paragraphs attached to them. The entire thing looked like Angelfire barfed on a PowerPoint presentation and just about every page had a background image. Not even relevant stuff, one had palm trees! WE ARE IN A DESERT!

    1. A perfectly normal-size space bird*

      “ This page also claimed how he, an octogenarian security guard for a boatyard, fights off pirates daily.”

      This feels like my new favorite comic book character.

      1. Siren of Sleep*

        Canada Man, fighting Somalian Pirates off the coast of British Columbia.

        (Literally Somalian)

  348. Monkey's Paw Manicure*

    Back in the days when I used to type resumes in a copy shop, there was a receptionist who boasted of her 14 years of fax experience. I assume she’s less likely to make the same mistakes that someone with only two years of experience would.

  349. BadAdmin*

    This one might need a trigger warning for antisemitism.

    In 2016, I was very excited to get my first non-admin role. I was not a very good admin and had been trying to change careers for years, so I was psyched to join the operations team of a small real estate firm. Shortly after I took the role, someone smashed the windows of the synagogue across the street from my former employer, which was shocking and extremely upsetting, even more so given that this synagogue is in a very prominent downtown location and has become a beloved institution.

    Several months later, my new company fired their receptionist and made me absorb some of her duties, so I was essentially an admin again, but with some operations work. One of my new duties was to screen resumes before they got to the hiring manager (why they have the receptionist do this is a story for another day). While they were looking for a new accountant, I reviewed a cover letter illustrating the applicant’s experience and education, as well as a resume that highlighted his volunteer work with a couple prominent non-profits focusing on the Latino community. The volunteer work started at the end of 2016. All good, right?

    In reality, the only reason I read his materials was sheer horror and curiosity given the opening sentence in his cover letter: “I was recently charged with damage to property and a hate crime in [redacted] and have a Swastika tattoo on my back.” Like… what? Did he think we’d find out, anyway? Did he think he’d be working shirtless? Was he forced to apply by his parole officer? Was the volunteer work court ordered (probably, given the timing)?

    After I’d recovered from the shock and disgust, I looked him up and lo and behold, he was the guy smashing windows across from my former employer. That synagogue has been there for almost a hundred years and will probably be there for a hundred more. Meanwhile, I’m probably the only one who remembers who he is, or at least the only besides his mommy who knows anything about him other than the worst thing he’s ever done. I wish I could conclude this by saying that antisemitism is dead and all is well. I guess I’ll just say that, if you’re ever in a city with a big lake and a loop, go check out the downtown synagogue and make a donation, or just enjoy the historic architecture and show your support.

  350. Heather*

    -The resume that included their social media influencer links (unrelated to the role).
    -The resume that included the gym, kickboxing, and weightlifting as “skills”.
    -The resume that was typed in wingdings with a cryptic message to “translate it”.
    -The cover that that was centered and had margins three inches deep on each side.
    -The cover letter and resume that had NO contact information at all.
    -The cover letter and resume that was for a completely different role than the one applied for. When I called to ask for an updated resume for my role, they said the original should work. (It did not.)
    –

  351. SpatulaSquid*

    We were hiring for an executive director. One candidate’s resume wasn’t great, but not terrible, except for one glaring error. Of all the words it’s not smart to misspell, “fluent” is up there on the list. It was “Fluenct,” which would get caught by any spellchecker.

  352. cioè*

    I fielded resumes for a position at a private school where we were hiring an assistant to a preschool classroom. Lots of basic little-kid wrangling involved, including managing behavioral issues.

    Someone applied and sent a long resume with an extensively detailed military history, much of which was so technical that I couldn’t understand, but what really jumped off the page was that it included a stint as a prison guard at…. I kid you not….. Abu Ghraib.

  353. Provolone Piranha*

    Someone wrote about overcoming extreme childhood trauma in the “summary” section of their resume. Obviously that’s commendable, but…on a resume?

  354. Dave*

    I am reviewing resumes for a Security Manager position. The job description does not mention weapons at all. One applicant provided an inventory of all his personally owned firearms on his resume.

  355. Moo*

    I have had a couple:

    The person who pointed out in their cover letter that they own their own home and their own car. They also claimed to be very punctual with great attention to details, but submitted their application several months late. (This was a habit with this person – same exact cover letter for every job they applied to, and they were almost always late.)

    The attorney who submitted a photo of herself on the cover of a fishing magazine.

  356. Quesofundito*

    A former employee I had managed but had to let go at a previous employer applied at the company
    I was currently at and her resume was sent to me. It had my job/responsibilities listed as her job. She did not get an interview.

  357. Traveler*

    In my high school life-skills class (early 90s) – we were taught about resume writing and were recommended to add some “souvenirs” on the last page that the interviewers could cut out and keep. Like book marks or a paper doll. I never took that advice, though.

    The teacher was completely, genuinely serious. She also brought in inmates from the local maximum security prison so they could talk to the students – about how cool their tattoos were, and how they ‘got away’ with sentence which was not nearly as harsh as it could have been. (ie …”at least the victim didn’t die”)

  358. Apples2468*

    I saw a resume that included the line, “Personal interests: none.” Not sure if he trying to signal how dedicated he was to his work?

  359. MonteCristo*

    I had someone apply for an accounting job, which required a degree and several years experience, and their only education they listed was that they were a cook for KFC and had been to KFC college. They way it was written it looks liked they meant “college where you learn to fry chicken the KFC way” though there is a chance they mean the KFC college program for their employees, but if so, they neither listed their University nor degree. But either way the weirdest one I’ve seen.

  360. Cover Letter Chaos*

    I work in a trendy part of tech that a lot of people want to work in right now (think AI or crypto) but in a non-software role (think marketing or product design). I receive so many cover letters from men (because it’s always men) who tell me they’re only applying to the open role “to get a foot in the door” and that they’ll move onto the “real work” of software engineering after a few months on the job. Unsurprisingly, they’re never qualified for the open role, and if they were, I still wouldn’t hire someone who doesn’t plan to stay in it and who writes about the career with obvious contempt.

    1. Cover Letter Chaos*

      I also received one in which the applicant said, “I’m not sure what [the role] actually is, but I know I’d be better at it than anyone else who has applied.”

  361. Confronted By An Idle Report*

    I once received a lovely cover letter about the candidate’s love of beekeeping and knowledge of bees and hives. Unfortunately, the role had nothing to do with bees. It was an indoor desk job in a completely unrelated field.

  362. A Little Sea Bathing Would Set Me Up Forever*

    This isn’t funny or wild but baffles me. My company doesn’t require cover letters, but we read any that people choose to submit. I’m surprised by how many people choose to upload clearly generic cover letters that are obviously being reused for every job, regardless of industry or function. Why bother attaching a cover letter if it’s not tailored to the job and isn’t required?

  363. Beepboop*

    We had a guy apply for a position on the operations team at a sports facility. His handwriting was a little messy and his spelling wasn’t the greatest so parts of his application were hard to read. When listing responsibilities at a previous job, he wrote “cleaning the wharehouse (sic)” but with his handwriting, it appeared to say “cleaning the whorehouse.”

  364. Annalisa*

    I will never ever forget the person (applying for a college-level teaching position) who included “Saved one Haitian child from drowning.” Somehow the specificity of “one” made it all the more hilarious!

  365. A*

    Applicant put in fake experience. Unfortunately, he put in my job as his current fake job- a job I’ve held for 10 years. I guess he didn’t realize he’d be reporting into me.

    Another applicant had one line of actual job experience, and a whole page of his tennis accomplishments, including children’s tournaments he’d won 15 years ago. As a child.

  366. flour + water child*

    An acquaintance of mine would apply to jobs and on his resume under most recent experience he would list the position he was applying for; implying that he was working in this role already when he had not yet even interviewed. He insisted that this was a great idea because it showed his confidence that he would land the role and be working there. We told him not to do this because he clearly doesn’t have the job yet and looks dishonest and delusional. He’s still job searching. Go figure.

  367. Millennial Bureaucrat*

    I was hiring for a direct report about five years ago and had to sift through dozens of resumes. I think the strangest/worst things I came across were a resume and cover letter that still had track changes in it, and a circa 2005 mall-style headshot on a resume.

  368. Pam Poovey*

    The “unauthorized edit” one is one of the funniest things I will ever read

  369. Adultiest Adult*

    The resume, for a counseling position, that was extremely focused on the candidate’s bartending skills, complete with various accolades they had received. It was unclear, actually, why this person was leaving bartending or how they planned to transition those skills to be relevant. (The candidate was not any clearer in the interview.) The resume which shortchanged the actual relevant experience to give me an entire page of detail about progressively-responsible jobs in a sports/party complex for children, down to the detail of “counted the children and served cake at birthday parties.” The resume which was already somewhat disjointed and then ended with a section named after three random things (like, Dyslexia, Mountain Climbing, and Gardening) and several paragraphs about why each of these items were important in that person’s life. Neither the mountain climbing nor the gardening were relevant, and the dyslexia section turned into a bit of an over-share that had me questioning their boundaries. All of those resumes were a “thank you, next!”

  370. Not Jane, I hope*

    Application form rather than resume, and what was so odd wasn’t what was on, but what was missing. The applicant had failed to mention their experience doing the exact job they were applying for with the same employer.

    And I should say applicants, because this has happened several times.

  371. Rain*

    Accompanying a resume for a position at the law firm where I worked, a picture of him in full boxing gear with his stats (I don’t know the official name, but it’s what they do for each fighter at an actual match). His resume was full of sports references. It was a tax law firm and not in any way related to sports.

    Also on a resume to that same law firm, in the skills section was “attention to detail.” He had spelled the city wrong.

    My other favorite was, also in the skills section, “Needs analysis.” Because, who doesn’t?

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