Job Interviewers Reveal Resume Moments That Either Got The Person Immediately Hired Or Immediately Rejected (30 Answers)
Hiring managers have the thankless job of sifting through hundreds if not thousands of resumes, which most probably follow the same formula, style, and general information. The only silver lining may be the commonly accepted standard to keep a resume to less than two pages. But there are always candidates who break the mould.
So hiring managers from across the globe shared resume stories that either made them want to reject the candidate without a second look or hire them on the spot after an internet user asked for some details. So scroll through and upvote the ones you would hire or reject, no questions asked.
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I was hiring for a very competitive IT role last year and one guy, who didn't have the best real world experience, added a single QR code at the bottom of his CV. I scanned it and it took me to an online portfolio, including a secure lab with simulations he'd ran, allowing ME to test scripts he'd written and also play around in his lab environment. Honestly, I'd never seen anything like it. The guy got the job and has continued to be a great fit.
Once I received a resume that had "Raid leader for WOW in top guild of a server" this was about 9 years ago.
The other hiring managers laughed their as**s off and said this guy is a joke and they all dismissed him. Me, I asked the guy to come in for an interview and he did pretty well and I hired him.
The reason I brought the guy in for interview was because I'm an avid WOW player at that time and I know the s**t raid leaders go through. Trying to get a large number of people together, coordinate resources and rewards, getting guides together and telling people to up their healing/dps and not stand in fire. All done virtually via vent and forum postings (meaning you never met these guild members in person). You need some great leadership skills and project management. Also at that time I was dealing with a lot of people offsite so I thought this guy would be a good fit.
9 years later (I've left the company), the WOW guy I hired turned out to be great, especially in the last 9 years when corporations decide that working from home, virtual meetings is the way to go to cut cost. His skill set as a raid leader translated very well with remote project management and is now the manager of the hiring managers that laughed at his resume.
This was at a Fortune 500 financial company
TL:DR If you stand in the fire, I'm not healing your a*s.
My mom actually helped me learn how to 'translate' skills like this into business speak, I got lucky that way. I'm glad you saw what he meant!! People are so myopic about skills, they think you can only learn them in school, but humans always be learning and everything requires skills! RPGs are ALL about social skills.
Someone had on their resumé “I do not complain. I’ll do what you ask and I won’t complain. I’m willing to work hard and go the extra mile...without complaining. I do not like complainers and whiners and I will never be one.” I called him immediately. He’s been here 6 years now and is easily the most reliable employee we have. He complained one time though. Another employee accidentally set him on fire and he said he didn’t want to work with that guy anymore.
There was this cloistered convent. A prospective novice came in. The mother superior showed the young lady around, told her about their work, and told her it was a silent convent. There would be no talking at all. Well, the young lady entered, and lived there for five years. At the end of the five years, the mother superior calls her into the office. She told the new nun that she was doing great, and as a reward, she was allowed to say two words. After thinking a minute, the young nun said, "Food cold." The mother superior dismissed her, and she went back to work. Five more years pass, and the mother superior calls the nun in again, tells her she can say another two words. "Bed hard." After another five years, when the mother superior calls her in again, the nun says, "I quit!" The mother superior says, "Well, I'm not surprised. You've done nothing but complain since you got here!"
Of course, these stories are all good examples of why it can be hard to reduce a person to just a few lines of text. Just as a gravestone can’t capture the full essence of a life, a resume is at best just a snapshot, yet we allow it to dictate so much of our lives and futures. The word resume itself just means “to summarize” in French, yet we allow these summaries to decide entire careers. It’s as if the back of a book would be the number one decider in whether people read it or leave it on the shelf.
Despite the French name, Renaissance genius, artist, and inverter Leonardo da Vinci is credited with inventing the first resume, in the form of a letter to potential employers. So just to be clear, a man who was era-defining in multiple fields still needed to write out a brief biography of himself just to maybe get a job.
I received a resume from an applicant that included a letter of recommendation from his cat. The letter was hilarious and signed with a clipart paw print. I thought it was great and wanted to bring him in, but the manager for the position wasn't as crazy about it. I guess the point is, humor in an application can work for you, but it really depends on the person.
i so wish humourous applications were a thing, the world would be lighter and the companies would probably be way more pleasant to work at.
Had a kid applying to work at a Sam Goody as a stockboy write that he was a petroleum transference engineer for Exxon at his last job. His job was pumping gas, I hired him on the spot.
And now he’s telling everyone he was a stock exchange consultant for a big name in the music industry
I had a resume from a potential interview candidate that listed his reason for leaving his last job as: "I found a body." No further explanation. You bet your sweet patootie I called him in for an interview. (As a strategy to get an interview, it worked!) The condensed story is that he found a body while walking the grounds at his job checking to make sure all gated areas were secure and clear of debris. When he found the body, he called the police. He was fired because he broke internal reporting protocol. He was supposed to notify his immediate supervisor and not outside authorities. It was the supervisor's responsibility to call the police.
Law trumps company rules, and I'm sure the law states dead bodies must be reported to the police immediately
Some of the examples here listed things like how much they could bench, random physical features, and assorted fun facts. While it may seem strange, that was the norm in the last century, as a resume would be a sort of alternative or stand-in for a referral from someone who knew you. So maybe these resumes were simply doing it old school and didn’t want to conform to the monolithic professional standards everyone else follows.
“I have incredible attention to dealtail”
I had a funny typo on a resume I once reviewed. It read:
"Assassinated the lead florist on site"
Obviously it was meant to say "assisted".
I once saw under Achievements on a CV- "former worlds youngest person."
It made me laugh so much I gave them an interview. In the end they didn't sell themselves well enough to get the role, but it brightened my morning of filtering.
With UN estimate of around 385 000 babies born each day around the world, he held his record for about 4.5 seconds. Not bad!
Now we can just Google a person and find out all sorts of things unless they keep a shallow digital footprint, but in the pre-internet age, it was pretty normal to send a letter or letters of introduction to get the ball rolling. We still use cover letters, but these evolved from an older tradition where a known third party would give someone a letter from a stranger in the hope that they would find some interest in them.
I had one application dropped off by the applicant’s mother. She told me “If you hire him, you probably shouldn’t trust him with money.”
*update edit: I threw the application away after she turned around. I was hiring for a sales clerk position at my family bakery.
i'm not sure if i like the mom's honesty or if she's a control freak trying to sabotage her son
Not a hiring manager but I once wrote stuff like 'able to plug in USB on first try' and 'can do up to 10 push-up before going into sleep mode' in the Additional Skills section. They later told me I was invited because they wanted to see if I really can do the first one.
These days, some applicants try to get creative, to stand out from the crowd. In some countries, the numbers are almost astronomical. In India, around 220500000 applications were filed for government jobs, of which only 722000 were recommended for the next interview steps between 2014 and 2022. So getting someone to even look at your resume can feel like a challenge in itself.
I asked a guy why he had periods of months and years where he didn't list jobs. He responded "I don't really like to work. Look, if you treat me well, I'll treat you well and work hard." I liked his no b******t attitude and hired him. He was a great employee.
A guy put his bench, squat and deadlift numbers in his personal skills section for a bar job.
It spawned a long tradition of asking bartenders what they could bench when they applied for a job.
Guy submitted a resume claiming to be a 'ghost writer' for a local college.
In lieu of a college degree, he listed the units he wrote assignments for and the average grades his clients got.
As a result, people have started to make multimedia applications, using videos, songs and even skywriting. Creative, yes, but we all know that constantly rewinding a video to catch a piece of information is a lot more annoying than finding it in some text. And making a hiring manager annoyed seems like a pretty bad choice, all things considered, unless the position is literally related to video editing and creation or some more creative field.
I was an AV Engineering Team Lead for a startup for a time. A couple of years ago, I was hiring to fill about 30 slots of a very basic AV tech position. I had about 20 applicants at the time, so if you were reasonably competent, you were in.
I got one resume and cover letter through our website from a guy who I will henceforth refer to as "the f**kup". Every third word on this thing was spelled incorrectly, punctuation was optional, and spacing was randomized. Thinking "This can't be real", I called one of the guy's references.
Oh boy, did I ever get an earful from a grumpy business owner. The f**kup in question was so much of a f**kup that he was applying for positions in my area because he was effectively blacklisted from just about every job site and labor company in his hometown - a medium sized US city with a very, very large audiovisual job market.
The reference told me that he'd told the f**kup not to hand his name/number out as a reference because the f**kup had caused more than $200,000 of damages to the reference's company's equipment the previous year. He went on to name, correctly and from memory, the other references that the f**kup likely listed on his resume - friendly competition of the reference - and told me that they would all say the same thing. So I called around. The f**kup is apparently quite the liability.
We did not end up hiring the f**kup, but I made some new business friends in another city. We've since collaborated on a couple of larger conference gigs that hit their city first and then our city afterwards so... Thanks, F**kup.
I work at an Escape Room. We once received a resume that consisted in a webpage address protected by a password, and three well-crafted riddles that we had to solve to get the password. We spent an hour doing it with two colleagues, and it included decrypting a code from a specific frame of Zodiac by David Fincher. It was simply amazing.
Sadly, we weren't hiring at the time, and she had found another job we we started hiring again.
EDIT: David Fincher, not Lynch. My bad.
EDIT 2: since I'm receiving a lot of answers including pieces of advice on what we should have done, here's some important precisions:
* No, we couldn't have hired her on the whim. You can't create work from nothing in Escape Rooms. We have 6 rooms, we need 1 Game Master per room when it's running, that's all. Our building is full, we can't add other rooms, so we don't need to hire until someone leaves.
* No, we won't fire someone to hire that person. First, because we're living in a civilized country that doesn't allow people to get fired without any reason. Second, because firing someone that way isn't how you keep people motivated and invested, and our boss knows that.
* The fact that she knew how to create riddles doesn't mean she would have made a great hire anyway. We're already 13, and we **all** know how to make riddles, that's part of the job. We also all have other skills that contribute to that job. What made her application special is the way she made it, reflecting her motivation, not her skills per se.
* No, we shouldn't have hired her to design a room. First, because we didn't have any room to design, our building was full, and it was more than a year until we needed to create a room. Second, because we already have designers (remember, we're 13, plus the bosses, and we all have the skills she had). Third, because designing a room is a 3-4 weeks jobs, not a full-time one. Fourth, because it requires other skills than simply "creating riddles", and neither you and I know if she had them. Fifth, because you simply doesn't hire a newbie to design your next $20.000-$30.000 room that will be 1/6th of your company revenue for the next 3 to 6 years, that's absolutely nonsensical.
* To the people saying we're idiots for not having hired her: you know nothing.
I had a candidate who worked in couseling in the past, mostly with kids who had been through trauma. They had a line on their resume that said:
"Expert in child kidnapping"
I had to at least give them an interview because I understood the intent but the wording was just hilariously unfortunate.
Edit: For those seeking clarity, he was an expert in kidnapping *cases*.
No, he didn't get the job. Nice guy, but not a good fit for the role. :)
I got my first IT job because I put in additional skills modifying Fallout 3 using GECK. I just loaded custom packs and got them to work and they gave me the job miraculously even tho I was underqualified
Okay, I am a BIG-TIME game modder, especially in Skyrim. Never thought anyone would take me seriously if I added that to my resume. Right now I'm working on merging several large NPC replacer mods for the Good Old Games version of Skyrim.
Recruiter here. I have a few:
* Resume - "hire me lol"
* Video interview with another candidate, she was in a hospital bed and just gave birth to her son prior to her interview. HIRED
* Another video interview, the guy was chugging a tall boy Coors Lights...
Edit: Just to add little to the second story, she was looking for additional income for her move. It was a part-time, temporary job with very easy work. She was a very bubbly person.
thank you for hiring a new mom, that's rare and very kind
In response to our posting for a software developer:
SUMMARY OF QUALIFICATIONS
• 22 years experience as full-stack web developer
• BA in Organizational Management
• Spent too much time on the computer during childhood
He was hired within the week.
“I would like to work at your factory”
I don’t have a factory. Read the f*****g job description.
Bad emails. When interviewing for a professional position and your contact email is 69SMOKAHGURL420BLAZING it a terrible way to start the resume.
Second language was Klingon.
Too bad the guy was a total a*s during his interview
What did you expect from a Klingon? Suavity worthy of Fred Astaire?
not a hiring manager, but I was working at a job and my roommate wanted to apply. on the application he wrote "can make 3 minute ramen in 2:50"
he got the interview
Hiring a software engineer. Among his impressive list of skills were Notepad and Wordpad.
We used to do this, we would reject on a faux pas. Then we realized we were chewing through good candidates who didn't have the money to use a professional writing service. If we are hiring for a developmental role (someone we expect needs to grow) then we shouldn't hold them to the standard we would expect *after* they have developed. We decided to start picking resume's for experience we think we want and ignore minor mistakes or odd formatting choices. We have even re-interviewed people who we think just had an 'off' day. Now, we have to do this because qualified candidates for our positions are fairly rare so we have to be a little more flexible.
I remember when a company for which I worked had been bought out and they brought in a service to help us with resumes and job searching. The presenter told us very clearly that on a the first pass though a stack of resumes people are looking for a reason to reject you and you need to be flawless to get through that. Only on the second or third pass they are looking for a reason to interview you.
It was 14 pages...
ETA: finance position with 5-10 years experience. There’s only so many different ways you can describe finance responsibilities - and summarizing is a skill. Dude never pitched for the interview.
This woman had her preschool and elementary school graduation dates on her resume. It was a no from me.
Someone sent over their CV written entirely in the papyrus font from Microsoft word. May as well have gone all out and used windings.
Note: this post originally had 78 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
At my first job application I answered the Interviewers question "Why do you want to work with us" with "honestly, I dont. I am hoping for a position at Company XY but if that does not work out, I need a backup plan" The Interviewer said "wow.... thats a bit different of what I am used to hear..... but I like that honestly - youre hired" PS: I now work at Company XY
Not a hiring manager but here's a great story form my life. So there was a girl who bullied me and meddled in my life since about age 5. Sounds insane but it's true. In adulthood she even physically stalked me. I wish I had the time to explain it all. Let's call her "Kay" in this story. Anyway, my mom applied for a security supervisor job. In her interview the supervisor was using someone else's resume as scrap paper to write notes on. When he left the room for a minute my mother checked the resume because she thought she recognized the name. Sure enough, it was Kay's resume. He hired my mom on the spot. Then crumpled up Kay's resume and tossed it in the bin. My mother called me immediately to tell me. You're still a loser, Kay. :)
At my first job application I answered the Interviewers question "Why do you want to work with us" with "honestly, I dont. I am hoping for a position at Company XY but if that does not work out, I need a backup plan" The Interviewer said "wow.... thats a bit different of what I am used to hear..... but I like that honestly - youre hired" PS: I now work at Company XY
Not a hiring manager but here's a great story form my life. So there was a girl who bullied me and meddled in my life since about age 5. Sounds insane but it's true. In adulthood she even physically stalked me. I wish I had the time to explain it all. Let's call her "Kay" in this story. Anyway, my mom applied for a security supervisor job. In her interview the supervisor was using someone else's resume as scrap paper to write notes on. When he left the room for a minute my mother checked the resume because she thought she recognized the name. Sure enough, it was Kay's resume. He hired my mom on the spot. Then crumpled up Kay's resume and tossed it in the bin. My mother called me immediately to tell me. You're still a loser, Kay. :)
