Funny Things You've Seen on Resumes? 361
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?"
Additional Accomplishments (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Additional Accomplishments (Score:3, Funny)
And I don't mind taking the karma hit to say so.
Re:Additional Accomplishments (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Additional Accomplishments (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Additional Accomplishments (Score:3, Funny)
Re:MOD PARENT UP!! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Additional Accomplishments (Score:2, Insightful)
And of course you have to include your slashdot karma rating. Nothing impresses a potential employer more!
Plus, if its a guage of how much you want to work for the company if they actually get it.
Mind boggling what people get away with (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Mind boggling what people get away with (Score:4, Funny)
he misspelled the names of the schools.
Let me guess: his previous position was writing copy for a spammer...
F R EE VI-AGRA 4 U !!!!
Re:Mind boggling what people get away with (Score:2)
You know that they deliberately misspell things in order to pass naive spam filters, right?
If the resume gets past the naive resume filters to a real live person, then they've succeeded.
As in, "I've always wanted to have 8 years experience C++, CCNA, 9 years project lead XML Web commerce developer..."
Mod parent underrated (Score:2)
Programming languages (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:Programming languages (Score:4, Insightful)
No, but it's a meta-language, and they usually don't include a space to include the meta-languages you are proficient in. It's easier (arguably safer) to just throw "HTML" in with C, C++, etc, and take a chance on having a nit-picker down you for it, rather than take the chance of it being a keyword some HR drone is looking for and not finding.
You bet I'm a nit-picker! (Score:2)
No, but it's a meta-language, and they usually don't include a space to include the meta-languages you are proficient in.
I'm talking about resumes so there are no "spaces" to fill out.
It's easier (arguably safer) to just throw "HTML" in with C, C++, etc, and take a chance on having a nit-picker down you for it...
I'd be really wary of hiring a program who displays this kind of "what I wrote wasn't exact but you know what I mean" attitude. IMHO the best programs ARE nit-pickers. I'd be much more impr
Re:You bet I'm a nit-picker! (Score:2)
Re:You bet I'm a nit-picker! (Score:3, Funny)
I'd be wary of hiring programs too...oh, you mean programmers. Sorry, didn't mean to nitpick.
Re:Programming languages (Score:5, Funny)
I dunno... there's always the Peace one. What was Mother Teresa's GPA anyway?
Re:Programming languages (Score:4, Funny)
Kissinger and Arafat won the Peace prize... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Programming languages (Score:2)
Re:Programming languages (Score:4, Insightful)
The Nobel Prize? Eh, if I ran the committee, you guys would have a chance. You make big guns, and the fact that we have those big guns makes our enemies too afraid to attack us, making the world a safer place. I hereby nominate you, GuyMannDude, for a Nobel Peace Prize! (or should that be "Nobel Piece Prize?")
Re:Programming languages (Score:2)
Does anyone aside from Larry really know Perl completely?
Re:Programming languages (Score:3, Funny)
You misunderstand. He's saying that he knows C, C++, PHP, perl, ++C, and lrep.
Re:Programming languages (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Programming languages (Score:3, Interesting)
If you really want to impress, you must say you know Befunge [mines.edu] backwards. In case you don't know, Befunge is a languge that allows the program counter to move not only forwards and backwards but also sideways. You can see some sample programs here [mtv3.fi].
Re:Programming languages (Score:5, Insightful)
Free hint: they list all the languages that they have heard about, because recruiters search keywords on the web-based job boards. The goal of a resume is not to prove your skills--the goal of a resume is to get to talk to a recruiter. The interview (or three) is the place to demonstrate your skills.
Anybody who keeps to a strictly modest resume simply hasn''t looked for work in the last three years--getting the recruiter to recognize that you're actually an ideal candidate for a position that they know nothing about is more than half the battle.
Re:Programming languages (Score:5, Interesting)
A resume isn't a resume any more, it's a list of keywords for some recruiter to search on. He doesn't know what the words means, he's just looking for matches.
It's not your father's job market out there. Employees are commodities, on about the same level as office furniture, except the office furniture gets to stick around longer. You are not a person with a unique set of skills, but rather a list of keywords that may or may not have any bearing on your skill set, or even worse, the intangible benefits of a well-rounded education.
What employers seem to want today is an idiot savant. Someone with superior skill in whatever particular item they are interested in (or think they are interested in), and they don't give a damn about anything else.
I know from experience that "thinking out of the box" may be an overused and supposedly virtuous cliche term, but most managers wouldn't know how to do it and would be frightened or angry if their employees actually did.
I just survived 5 months at a place where, based on my resume and interview (I'm a Windows C++ programmer with 16 years professional programming experience), they couldn't hire me fast enough, but insisted I work like an entry-level person. If an entry-level programmer couldn't walk in on what I was doing at any time and immediately understand it, they didn't want to see it. I probably pee'd a few people off when I suggested that the 4-programmer team I was on could easily be replaced by one programmer and a couple of QA people at about half the cost, and then explained how. But of course, this is government work, you aren't paid the most for getting the job done quickly, you are paid the most for billing the most hours before the deadline.
Sorry, but I'm just a bit cynical about it all these days.
Re:Programming languages (Score:5, Informative)
Actually... [216.239.37.104]
I count 16 Nobel Prize winners highlighted. Sure they didn't EXACTLY win for what their discoveries were used for, but still.
Re:Programming languages (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder how often this happens. I was surprised to learn the company didn't ask specific questions to test knowledge of the language, but I guess y
Re:Programming languages (Score:2, Insightful)
Moderators, please stop modding him up (Score:2)
Usually I don't respond to obvious trolls like this but people are modding him up for some reason.
You are doing a disservice your orginization by automatically writing off all 20-somethings as lacking excelent coding skills. Just because you were out playing football and drinking beer in your late teens and weren't working on commercial software products to pay your way through college doesn't mean all 20-somethings don't have years of experience and the ability to write and even design highly complex pro
Re:Programming languages (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, if you have a good general education in programming with a lot of hacking experience in a few languages, then you sure won't find it very difficult to pick up C#, even if you only have passing familiarity with its syntax.
Re:Programming languages (Score:2)
Re:Programming languages (Score:5, Insightful)
You do know how Alfred Nobel [lucidcafe.com] made his fortune, right?
Re:Programming languages (Score:2, Redundant)
> Novel New Method to Kill People".
Irony intended, I'm sure, but you do know what Alfred Nobel was famous for, right [britannica.com]?
Re:Programming languages (Score:2)
Re:Programming languages (Score:5, Insightful)
No. It takes years to learn how to program well. Once you know how to program well, picking up a new language shouldn't take more than a few weeks, except in the most baroque cases (INTERCAL, BrainF***, etc).
Re:Programming languages (Score:2)
Re:Programming languages (Score:3, Interesting)
I would also say that it takes time to learn a technology or tool used in programming. It takes time to learn the tools/programming techniques associated with Unix, Databases, and Networking. I think employers should look for people with a basic toolset that fills most of their needs and not worry if the person doesn't know their programming language of choice... or the precise toolset they have... but the problem is in the measure of skill.
How do you prove
Re:Programming languages (Score:4, Insightful)
If you program in C, you probably suck at HTML. (Yes, I know, the truth hurts, but so will the Troll or Flamebait mod this post will get, despite being Insightful *shrug*).
Re:Programming languages (Score:2)
Half the reason the job market is so bad right is because people like you don't give new guys a chance.
I give new guys a chance if they know where they are in their professional career. If someone straight out of school stresses that they are young and excited about work and they have a working knowledge of several programming languages, I'm interested in hearing more. If they claim are an expert in 10 programming languages, then (most likely) they do not know what they are talking about. And I still
Re:Programming languages (Score:2)
No way, Jose. Are you trying to contend with the example cited in the summary? You've expanded the acronym, now read it. HTML is a Markup Language. What's often considered the ultimate criterion of a programming language is Turing equivalency. Here's an example [canonical.org] of what I mean (l
Re:Programming languages (Score:2)
Re:Programming languages (Score:5, Interesting)
Umm, you're 100% wrong.
You bolded "language" - but the OP wasn't saying HTML isn't a language, he's saying it's not a programming language - and he's exactly right.
Exactly - XML isn't a programming language either. It's still just markup. Things start getting a little murkier with XSL, since XSL does have very programmatic structures like loops, (immutable) variable, and templates that can be vaguely analogous to functions.
No one is claiming PHP isn't a programming language because it's not compiled. Perl isn't compiled either (well, not the way you think), but you'd have to be smoking some powerful weed to think it's not a programming language.
A programming language needs data structures. It needs instructions and control flow. HTML has none of that.
Spoken like a true HTML "programmer"...
I know it hurts to hear that all the HTML coding you do doesn't make you a programmer - but get over it. Actually now that I think about it, you probably do some javascript too in your job duties and that DOES count as a programming language, so you can call yourself a programmer after all! Hurray for Kethinov the programmer!!
Re:Programming languages (Score:2)
Nope it's a way of storing data with attributes. Same with XML.
Nope, wrong again. PHP actually can be used to compute stuff and access databases. Can't do that with HTML or XML.
Re:Programming languages (Score:2)
I would consider PostScript to be a true programming language though. It has functions, loops, recursion, etc.
Re:Programming languages (Score:2)
Re:Programming languages (Score:3, Insightful)
What makes it "not a programming language" is that it's not Turing complete. It's a markup language, not a programming language. A complicated markup language full of browser-specific pitfalls and more standards documents than you can shake a stick at, but without flow control there's a real limit to how much trouble someone could get themselves into.
It may
Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
Time travel... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Time travel... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmm, then again maybe they're onto something in weeding out those who would lie on their resume to get the job.
Re:Time travel... (Score:2)
One listing I saw recently had 8 years of this and 5 years of that, etc, for a total of 39 years of experience.
Yeah, right. I had 5 years of Windows 2000 programming experience back in the mid 60's.
Re:Time travel... (Score:2)
Re:Time travel... (Score:2)
20 years programming C++
(FWIW, I actually 15 years of C++)
Re:Time travel... (Score:2)
Self Appraisal Goal List (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Self Appraisal Goal List (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Self Appraisal Goal List (Score:5, Interesting)
How is that world domination thing going?
ASR-33 printout (Score:2, Funny)
One of those resumes got me a decent job...
Re:ASR-33 printout (Score:2)
When I was in high school, supposedly someone (friend of a friend thing) got into the local state University by filling out the application form with an orange crayon.
I actually buy this story since large Universities get a lot of applications and I'm sure the endless forms start blending together.
Ph. D. (subject to litigation) (Score:2, Funny)
Not as dumb as you think... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Obviously not enough (Score:2, Informative)
> 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++".
Re:Obviously not enough (Score:2)
Re:Obviously not enough (Score:2)
That wasn't for class. I'd hoped including the phrase "utility programming" would have made that clear. This was the everyday programming to automate a task that just about every programmer does.
'Slashdot Editor'. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:'Slashdot Editor'. (Score:4, Funny)
Only if you list it twice!
Ah, good ol' Welles (Score:5, Funny)
On a related note... (Score:5, Funny)
"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."
Re:On a related note... (Score:3, Interesting)
Pathetic in the "I'm such a geek" kinda way... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Pathetic in the "I'm such a geek" kinda way... (Score:2)
2 funny ones (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Thank god for the interview (Score:2)
However, about 30 seconds into the interview (right after "Didja have any trouble finding us?") i figured out that he was either an outright liar, or suffered some sort of blunt-head trauma on the way to meet me. Not only didn't he have any idea about anyt
Re:Thank god for the interview (Score:5, Funny)
circa May 2000... (Score:4, Funny)
"Significant experience with Internet navigation."
That one went up on the company intranet's quote board!
Nonexistant institutions (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Clarity in CVs (Score:2, Funny)
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
The circus (Score:4, Funny)
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.
True but funny stuff on resumes (Score:4, Funny)
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)
Declining acceptance of honors granted (Score:2, Funny)
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
On C, C+, C++ (Score:4, Interesting)
Not exactly funny when it is on the resume (Score:2, Insightful)
Then there was the guy who listed an expert network programmer, with skills in Ethernet,
Best I've seen (Score:3, Funny)
Rus
For real (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Cut Paste Editing - No Really Cut and Paste (Score:3, Funny)
No. He didn't get the job but I still remember him a decade later.
been waiting for this topic (Score:5, Funny)
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!
Crime... (Score:5, Funny)
Had to blog it (Score:3, Funny)
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.
Unorthodox bits from a job ad (Score:3, Funny)
one that passed my way... (Score:3, Funny)
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.
Re:C+ Does exist (Score:2)
You may be right of course....
Or I could just put up a fake history for you to link to.
Sam
Re:C+ Does exist (Score:2)
As far as I recall the story, C++ was named because of the ++ (postfix?) operator in C. So, C++ is C + 1.
Re:C+ Does exist (Score:2)
Re:C+ Does exist (Score:2)
Re:Pulling Cable (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Mechatronics Engineering (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
How about this question? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How about this question? (Score:3, Insightful)
For those people, it's quite clear which platform gives you more data with that command.
I'd give half credit for someone that responded saying they'd need