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Funny Things You've Seen on Resumes?
noackjr asks: "Everyone wants a great job, but writing a quality resume requires creativity and a fair bit of work (we won't go into actually having the proper skills, qualifications, or experiences -- let's not cloud the issue). Alternatively, sprucing up your resume with a few choice pieces of quasi-truth might set you apart from other 'qualified' candidates (the HR person will never figure it out, right?). A friend from college included knowledge of 'C, C+, and C++' on his resume. He had worked in C and C++ and just figured there had to be a C+ as well (too bad he didn't list C+-). He ended up getting a $50,000+/yr job with a major US tech firm using that resume. Anyone else come across funny/pathetic attempts to improve a resume?"
First Post on slashdot.org
Operator, give me the number for 911!
Saw a resume once with a lot of bogus stuff on it. Not only had the guy listed degrees from schools he never attended, he misspelled the names of the schools. Didn't stop him from getting hired at the height of the dotcom bubble.
I grow weary of seeing lots of young 20-something applicants fresh out of school who claim they have excellent coding skills and then proceed to list about ten different languages including HTML. First, HTML is not a programming language. Secondly, it takes years to learn how to program WELL in a complex language like C++. You may know the basic syntax for ten different languages, but that doesn't mean you're an expert programmer in all. And I'd argue that if you think listing tons of languages makes you look impressive, I would argue you're not much of a programmer at all (unless you've been working for decades).
Another applicant wrote in his cover letter than his goal was to get a Nobel prize. We are a defense contractor. They don't give out Nobel prizes for "Most Novel New Method to Kill People". Besides, this guy had a GPA of less than 3.5. Better get cracking if you want that Nobel prize, pal.
GMD
watch this
We all know that the HR people put the impossible into their resumes (5 years of Java back in '96, anyone)?
And we also all know that HR does keyword searches on resumes, throwing out any that don't have the keyword.
So why would't turnabout be fair play?
5 Years experience administrating Windows 2000 server.
_______
2B1ASK1
Not exactly a resume, but during our evaluations every year we have to fill out a form, which amoung other things asks us to list our goals for the year. In an attempt to see if my manager actually reads these things, I listed one of my goals as "world domination". Needless to say this went unnoticed for three years. When he finally did recognize it and questioned me on it, I replied that I didn't like to set my goals too low.
Fish do not make good desert travel companions.
I once ran off a batch of resumes on an ASR-33 Teletype -- no lowercase, crappy canary-yellow roll-feed newsprint paper, etc.
One of those resumes got me a decent job...
This is the bizarrest thing I have heard of - mind you, I have also seen software misspelt (as 'Soft Ware' and 'SoftWare')
Here's one to watch for: watch for television advertisements where a product is pictured as reflected in a mirror, but the product name isn't mirror imaged. The eye will be drawn to the product name instinctively as the mind is saying "shouldn't that be backwards?"
Some people consider a Resume to be a sales tool; an advertisement for themselves; and in keeping with our long-standing tradition of skirting the truth when advertising, consider it more important to get noticed than to be truthful.
After all, the truthful ones who don't get noticed stand less of a chance at getting the job (or making the sale) than the untruthful ones which make it to the interview.
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
> ...knowledge of 'C, C+, and C++' on his resume.
> He had worked in C and C++ and just figured
> there had to be a C+...
He obviously had not worked with either long enough to understand the humor in the name of "C++".
assert(birth_date<time-86400)
That one's good for hours of laughs! ;>
A friend of mine applied for an IT job with "DoubleplusC" as a programming language. Needless to say, after explaining the humour to the interviewers he got the job. (Soulless bastards they turned out to be)
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
Once, when I was being interviewed simultaneously by one technical person, and one non-technical person, the non-technical person, reading my resume and finding acronyms and other technical jargon he was unfamiliar with, asked me:
"So, tell me, did you implement LRF 1.0 in project xyz?"
I replied that I had not. I told him I was not familiar with LRF, and asked what it was.
"Little Rubber Feet. It's a bulls**t filter."
assert(birth_date<time-86400)
Usually in the extra skills/info section I like to add a little blurb about how I like to play around with writing Operating Systems. It's one of the few things in todays world that instantly lets people know that I'm really a computer geek and not just a normal person working in IT. It was probably what got me the interview for my current job.
My Hello World is 512 bytes. But it's also a valid Fat12 boot sector, Fat12 file reader, and Pmode routine.
First funny one: we had a guy list as an accomplishment on his resume (for a DSP software engineer) his marriage to his wife.
Second funny one: A friend of mine was part of the team interviewing folks where he works. During one inDUHvidual's interview, my friend closed his notebook and put down his pen 5 minutes into the interview. The higher muckitymucks noticed this, and after the interview said to him "OK, you noticed something we didn't - what was it?"
The inDUHvidual kept talking about how she had worked at "bom-BUH-deer" aerospace here in town. Yes, she was really a good worker at "bom-BUH-deer".
Bombardier is a Canadian company, and is pronounced according to French rules - "bom-BAR-dee-AY". And they are VERY clear about that to their employees.
www.eFax.com are spammers
"Significant experience with Internet navigation."
That one went up on the company intranet's quote board!
In my field, the canonical example is the degree from Princeton Law School. A Google search turns up several references that are not obviously jokes or fictional -- like this or this (though those are not resumes).
I Can't Believe It's A Law Firm, LLP does not necessarily endorse the contents of this message.
In a resume writting class, which are great by the way, a girl was upset about using DOS.
She wanted to use Disk Operating System in case the interviewer didn't know what DOS stood for.
She was adament about expanding all acronyms. TCP/IP, Perl etc
What if they don't know?
What if they think it is something else?
What if they think she doesn't know what it means?
The instructor assured her that DOS is good to have experience with but will not be a deal breaker when getting a job.
I wanted to ask her why she thought she could get a job.
I was actually in the circus at one time, though it never applied to the jobs I was interviewing for. (Not directly anyway.)
I'm not sure how much it helped in getting my resume noticed, but it was great for interview small-talk. "Were you really in the circus?" was my most common interview question.
I'm looking for a HEPA media filter for my TV. I'm alergic to reality shows.
My favorite piece on a resume was an application I got for a junior developer position. We're talking ground-level work for a very small firm...
:-)
This fellow was over here from China on a Visa, and getting a job was obviously key to his continued stay here. He had a decent amount of background in web programming, resume looked good. I finally got to his job history from China itself, and his formal schooling.
He listed 'Resident Neurosurgeon' as his last job title before coming to America.
Me: "Umm... is this correct? You worked as a neurosurgeon?"
Him: "Oh, yes."
Me: "But... you weren't operating on people, surely? You were training to be a doctor?"
Him: "Oh no, I operated on patients for two years there. I worked on people's brains."
I resisted the urge to make a joke about who did he think he was, some sort of brain surgeon? I later on got a similar opportunity when I hired a Chinese girl who had a PhD in (you guessed it) rocket science.
(No, I didn't hire the brain surgeon. We found a candidate with more experience and less likeliness to jump ship from us if a job opened up in his true area of expertise)
It's a strange world -- let's keep it that way
It is becoming more and more common in science to see resumes that list the honors one has been offerred, but for some reason the recipient denied them.
An example of this is in post-doctoral fellowships, which are generally quite prestigious. A person may only accept one at a time (it isn't considered fair to recieve double income for the same work, and it helps to spread the wealth), so one lists the fellowship accepted, and all the others that one turned down. I've come across several resumes that read:
"Hubble Fellow, 2001"
"Chandra Fellowship, 2001, denied"
"Jansky Fellowship, 2001, denied"
etc.
You'd think that just being a Hubble Fellow would be enough to convince people that you're a top-level scientist. We're just one step away from:
"Would have recieved Hubble Fellowship, 2001, had I not been too lazy to write a good essay."
or
"Deserved Chandra Fellowship, 2001, but some jerk on the committee thought otherwise!"
On another note, I've also seen people list "invited talks", in which they had invited themselves, or were obligated to give the talk as part of a class.
MAN, i W1$H i HAD M0D P01NT5 RITE N0W!!!!!! :P
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
The funny thing about that, is that it possibly did help him get the job. In a big corporation like Motorola, the resumes are scanned and then HR searches for keywords. Your friend managed to get in one extra hit for "C" in the programming section, and quite possibly came out on top of the search.
...
I'd be wary of hiring programs too...oh, you mean programmers. Sorry, didn't mean to nitpick.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
MCSE.
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
I am *NOT* making this up.
A few years back we were hiring for Java development. One of the lead programmers had a military background so naturally a resume of anohter fellow with a similar military background rose to the top of the pile. After a phone interview by somebody here, the candidate was scheduled for a full day of interviews on site (He was located several states away).
The big day came and he shows up 3 hours late, dressed like a car mechanic - grease and all. His excuse? "I don't trust airplanes so I had to take the train" (Keep in mind that there are no commuter rails anywhere near our part of the state). Umm okay, well lets get started. One of the first questions I had was about a descrepency on his resume. It stated that he had recieved a BS from Yale, but those same years it also listed him as being active in the military. (served in the Navy off the coast of Libya)
"Right, well I was wounded in action and took correspondence courses while in the hospital" was his response. I think I was more surprised to hear that he was wounded in action in Libya than the correspondence courses supposedly offered by Yale!
Anyway, the interview quickly went down hill after the started throwing buzzwords haphazardly around the room. And then came the kicker... during a lull in the conversation, between discussions of his C++ past, he leaned forward and said "You know what? I really can't stand n*ggers. They cause all the problems"
WTF?? Who says things like that, let alone during an interview! I was so shellshocked that the only thing I could manage to say was "Well... okay..." as I slipped out of the room. The worst part was we still had him scheduled for the rest of the day (another 4 hours)
(and I'm posting anonymously because he might be reading slashdot. the dude was a Freak!)
Oh, and he didn't get the job.
Had a guy come in with his resume. He had one. It was worn like tissue that's been in your pocket for a few months. He had taken an Exacto knife and cut out mistakes and changes and he had pasted on little pieces of changes here and there. It was so funny that we passed the guy around to various people to interview just so they could see this limp paper with holes. It looked like a joke from a WWII comedy - "after the censors".
No. He didn't get the job but I still remember him a decade later.
I collect bad resumes. hehe..
...
Keep in mind. I work in retail. Retail electronics sales. Thank God we do all of our application processing over the Internet now, and no longer accept resumes, except when pasted into the Internet Job Application Form. But now I don't get the utter hilariousness of people seriously thinking they are going to get hired with things like the following (remember. Retail. Electronics.):
"Objective: Seeking a job in Food Services.
Major: Novell Networking"
(ok, majored in college in novell networking? and seeking a "fries with that" job? and applying in an electronics store???)
"Objective: To be an asset to an organization who needs I can fulfill and obtain a position or responsiblity in the sales feeld." (this is exactly how it was typed)
"I have very good communication skills, multitask oriented, self motivated can get along with various people, I do what im supposed to do when it be done and i'm experienced with dealing with people. I'm willing to travel."
"Education: I received a diploma from holy Redeemer in which I studied college prep classes on June 4, 2000." (this person didn't go to school very much?)
"In January 2001 I attended Henry Ford Community college where I studied basic English"
"responsibilities included help elders with personal care keep them company do thnig around there homes if needed. I did not quit or get fired."
"In January I will be starting school at NIT and taking computer classes to help me until I go to school for my real Major."
"Education: Fordson High School. [Enter your major here] GPA: 3.0 [Enter additional school information including honors, campus involvement and other activities here]" (oops, gotta check those default fields!)
"Responsiblties: Install new, used, and repair tires." (huh?)
"Objective: To obtain full time employment as a Prep Cook or in a Hotel Banquet Facility where my abilities will be utilized and where there is room for growth and opportunity." (I figure this guy could make us lunch every day.. hmm.. think: retail. sales. We don't need a cook.)
"Reason for leaving last employer: School stared back!" (I think she meant school started back.. but that still doesn't make sense in any brand of English that I know.. although I know what she meant.. I'd like to see a school that stares back, though. Maybe a good Stephen King novel.)
"Reason for leaving last employer: Hair cut." (????)
"Previous employer: Financial Administrator for the Yemen National Government." (ok, what the hell are you doing applying for a Retail Sales job?)
I've got a hell of a lot more, but these are the ones easily accessible from where I'm sitting right now. Enjoy!
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
I had a friend who on his way to the interview got into a car accident. He had a concussion. This was his second interview and had decided to go to it anyway. Needless to say, he didn't get the job. I asked him what the hell he was thinking why didn't he call them and tell them what happened. He said well really I wasn't thinking very well.
I thought it was funny too when i mis-read it as "ruining" instead of "running".
You were supposed to post that to the next /. story in this series--"dumb interview questions and the fucks that ask them."
It's a pretty cool field. I took some classes on it while in college. It's a good field for CS people who have some interest in electronics but don't particularly enjoy all the nitty-gritty details of EE.
At my high school job (retail sales), we received an application where the applicant had filled out "Mister Meaner" next to the Have you ever been convicted of a crime? question.
The expression is "I could NOT care less." Think about it.
Considering I'm not in a management position, I have had to interview and review the resumes of way too many people. I continue to be amazed by spelling & grammar errors. I expect them on Slashdot but not in a document which one has had time to craft and upon which one's future may depend. We don't automatically toss those resumes, they're never applying for positions which require strong writing skills, but if they get an interview we ask more questions related to paying attention to details ("rm -rf / tmp/, what's wrong with this?").
This sentence from a recent cover letter caught my eye and I felt compelled to blog it.
I am very hard worker and a stickler for details. (Yes, English is their first language but even if it wasn't, that would be no excuse.)
I still have a big stack of resumes and cover letters for people I've interviewed over the years. I'll review them for do's and don'ts next year when I relocate and have to update my own resume. Maybe I'll compile a list of the funny stuff I find along the way.
A mall clothing store I interviewed at gave a written test to measure morality & ethics. One of the questions was something like, "when you take drugs, do you prefer: (a) marijuana, (b)cocaine, or (c) I only drink alcohol." Waitaminute! There wasn't a choice for "I don't do drugs."! I wrote my answers in on the Scantron form. Got the job, though I never did understand what they were testing for.
If you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right. (Adapted from Henry Ford)
People often forget that, it's not the language you know, but the system that you program for that's important.
.NET evangelist. All of the concepts are the same.
Learning the syntax of any programming language is incredibly easy, and once you understand the fundamental concepts of programming, you can apply it to any new language that comes out. Whether you're a C++ genius, a Java guru, a Perl hacker, a VB monkey, a Python hippie, or a Microsoft
What's much more harder, and what takes much more time, is to learn the intricacies of the system that you're programming for.
Writing solid C++ code for Linux, is incredibly different than writing solid C++ MFC code for Windows. The syntax might look alike, but the system calls and whatever else you need is different. The same goes for Java, except with that language, you are more abstracted from the hardware layer, and you program for the Java platform. But still.. you gotta know the "Java system of programming."
At last job I got to see a few of the resumes that came in, mostly the dumb-asses handed them to me so I could give them to the boss. On my little pre-reads I came across one of the best "skills" I believe is read like this: Experienced in Winzip. What the hell? I should be adding stuff like "10 years experience with text files" to my resume... see what that gets me. Needless to say we did not hire that guy.
...so then there's hope for defense contractors, too!
- You will be told different things by different people...
- Obviously, nobody has four years of experience with HTML 4.01, since the specification came out in 1999... [this was in 2002]
In short, I wrote the sort of ad I'd want to read, and we found a great webmaster."What's in my pocket?" That is about as fair as your question. How many people have the fields that come up for commands for every argument combo memorized? That is why we have reference manuals and man pages.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
At a former employer, a very small company, we had one resume for a sysadmin position come in that (in violation of good ethics and probably a law or two) was so funny we passed it around for everyone to see. The guy had listed every single bit of hardware he'd ever touched.
I mean, he listed a twenty different brands and models of monitors. I think he even listed different keyboard manufacturers.
IIRC the whole thing was like seven pages long.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood