Killian’s Cover Letters from Hell are out again with some highly entertaining fare.  This one does it for me:

I’m looking for work because even though my company was profitable last year, this year they are expecting a large defecate.

Comments(0)

This is from the Career News newsletter (sorry, no link):

According to the U.S. Census Bureau the difference in lifetime earnings between a high school diploma and bachelor’s degree is a million dollars. Add on a master’s degree and you can expect to earn an additional half a million dollars in earnings. Those with professional degrees earn much more – about 4.4 million dollars during their working life.

Jennifer Day, Chief of the Education and Social Stratification Branch at the U.S. Census Bureau says, “In 1999, average annual earnings ranged from $19,000 for high school dropouts, to $26,000 for high school graduates, $45,000 for college graduates and $99,000 for the holders of professional degrees.

The data is almost 10 years old so I can only imagine how it has changed since then.  Degrees do equal dollars and I suspect that is why education is the most misrepresented information on a resume.

Comments(1)

From the title of a resume posted online:

receptionist,homemaker,health aide,sales ass,youth counselor,or daycare aide

I know I have worked with many a sales ass.  In the resume, this person lists a job from years ago in which they worked the retail cash register at a drug store.  I particularly enjoyed their description of that work:

SALES ASSOCIATE:RECEIVE CASH FROM CUSTOMRES IN PAYMENT FOR GOODS.PROCESS SALES TRANSCATIONS AND ISSUE RECEIPTS.

“Issue receipts” just kills me.

Comments(0)

It isn’t always clear what the exact number is, but more than 50% of jobseekers lie on embellish their resume.  Forbes offers up an article titled Overachievement Without Achievement that contains a picture of Milli Vanilli.  How perfect is that?  The article quotes 53% as the number of people who lie on embellish their resume.

But check this out:

Some college students are encouraged to embellish items on their résumés. “They are taught to use the highest-level verb,” says Nancy Davis, a psychology professor at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. For instance, an intern who ran copies of an instruction manual might say he “created” the manual on his résumé, Davis says.

But the step from résumé embellishment to outright faking isn’t a long one. Awareness of résumé cooking could make job applicants feel they must push the envelope on their application, if only because everyone else is doing it (a frame of thought psychologists call false consensus).

“Highest-level verb” is a phrase for which I am not familiar, but it explains much.  My layman’s term for it was attempting to use the Queen’s English to sound smarter.  Of course, this approach can easily backfire with improper usage of unfamiliar words.

Comments(1)

The title of a resume I found online:

Experience Hard Warker

Comments(0)

From the outstanding resume file – a resume I received yesterday for a Project Manager position:

Personal Attributes
I am highly enthusiastic, hard working, opinionated and motivated to work under my own initiative or as part of a team.

1. I have extensive practical experience of fault-finding…

Which explains why his team wants him to work on his own initiative. In all fairness, the candidate goes on to finish item #1 with:

…and problem solving systematically.

Certainly  a lot easier to do once you’ve established blame.

There’s a sentence later in the letter that suggests English isn’t a strong suit –

My team were involved in maintenance, repairing and servicing of general electronic equipment down to component level, I was responsible for a team of ten technical staffs, managing them on a day to day basis, and helping them with any problems, and ensuring the team achieved their targets within set deadlines and planning work for staff and monitoring the progress, defining where appropriate, providing regular reports to my company board and conveying practical solution on designing systems to my R&D department and risk assessment of my work.

Well if that doesn’t get him an interview, perhaps his response to the ‘Are you willing to relocate?’ question will:

Yes, London 100% and Minneapolis 50%

That’s a shame, because our position requires 100% attendance, which might be tough if the candidate is always in England, but maybe it’s like that old Superman episode (and I mean Steve Reeves, not the guy from Smallville) where Superman splits himself in two through force of will.

The kicker is probably not as funny as the writing – the position the candidate is responding to has not been on an active job board for at least a week. But with credentials like that, who cares if you take your time responding to the opportunity?

Comments(0)

First off, the word “wacky” should not be used in any form of writing.  Second, this Yahoo Hot Jobs article – Wacky Job-Seeker Stunts – lists some . . . zany gimmicks for attempting to land a marketing/advertising position:

• Puts up posters of himself in your company parking lot.
• Attaches pineapple scratch-and-sniff stickers to his resume.
• Announces his candidacy with a singing telegram.
• Sends lottery tickets with her resume.
• Rents a billboard that you can see from your office to list his qualifications.
• Bakes cookies with icing to write several reasons why she should be hired.
• Delivers pre-paid Chinese food, including a fortune cookie with his name and number.

Yeah, it doesn’t work (emphasis mine):

Less than half of the executives surveyed — 46% in advertising and 34% in marketing — said they might consider an applicant with a gimmicky resume, and only 2% of marketing execs and 8% of ad execs said gimmicks would help a candidate get hired. In other fields, where creativity is a less critical job skill, a candidate who sends a shoe “to get a foot in the door” will probably be dismissed as unprofessional, recruiters say.

Standing out is one thing, singing telegrams are another.  I’m always amazed that candidates don’t do the simple things to land a job like simply calling in to a company if they provide a number.  A well-written resume with a focused cover email goes a long way.  A network contact may have an in or know somebody in the company.

Again, it is amazing how candidates will focus on gimmicks when content is king. 

Of course, they were marketing positions.

Comments(2)

This sentence is from a cover email regarding a sales position:

I am educated up to an MBA.

I still am not sure what that means.

Comments(0)

I have been searching through online resumes and came across this commentary in a cover letter:

I am a 63 year old male just recently let go from my job because I’m too old. Don’t worry, I’m fighting it but in the meantime, I need a job.

You know, some things are better left unsaid.

Comments(0)

I’m digging around the resume pile again and came across a title that I actually enjoyed (slightly edited by me):

Sales Pro Seeking New Dragons To Slay

I know, it is a bit quirky, but it stands out which is important in it’s own right.  I opened up the resume to look at the details inside and found this piece of information under the Education section (redacted by me):

_________ University
1986-2001
Liberal Arts

So much for the good title.

Comments(1)