Foo - Stupid things people put on their resumes...

http://madconomist.com/stupid-****-people-put-on-their-resumes

None of this is made up. People really did put this stupid crazy **** on their resumes or job applications.

1. I am very detail-oreinted.

2. My intensity and focus are at inordinately high levels, and my ability to complete projects on time is unspeakable.

3. Thank you for your consideration. Hope to hear from you shorty!

4. Enclosed is a ruff draft of my resume.

5. It’s best for employers that I not work with people.

6. Here are my qualifications for you to overlook.

7. I am a quick leaner, dependable, and motivated.

8. If this resume doesn’t blow your hat off, then please return it in the enclosed envelope.

9. My fortune cookie said, “Your next interview will result in a job.” And I like your company in particular.

10. I saw your ad on the information highway, and I came to a screeching halt.

11. Insufficient writing skills, thought processes have slowed down some. If I am not one of the best, I will look for another opportunity.

12. Please disregard the attached resume-it is terribly out of date.

13. Seek challenges that test my mind and body, since the two are usually inseparable.

14. Graduated in the top 66% of my class.

15. Reason for leaving last job: The owner gave new meaning to the word paranoia. I prefer to elaborate privately.

16. Previous experience: Self-employed-a fiasco.

17. Exposure to German for two years, but many words are inappropriate for business.

18. Experience: Watered, groomed, and fed the family dog for years.

19. I am a rabid typist.

20. I have a bachelorette degree in computers.

21. Excellent memory; strong math aptitude; excellent memory; effective management skills; and very good at math.

22. Strengths: Ability to meet deadlines while maintaining composer.

23. I worked as a Corporate Lesion.

24. Reason for leaving last job: Pushed aside so the vice president’s girlfriend could steal my job.

25. Married, eight children. Prefer frequent travel.

26. Objective: To have my skills and ethics challenged on a daily basis.

27. Special skills: Thyping.

28. My ruthlessness terrorized the competition and can sometimes offend.

29. I can play well with others.

30. Personal Goal: To hand-build a classic cottage from the ground up using my father-in-law.

31. Objective: I want a base salary of $50-$60,000 dollars, not including bonus. And some decent benefits. Like a retirement plan, health insurance, personal or sick days.

32. Experience: Provided correct answers to customers’ questions.

33. Education: Graduated from predatory school with honors.

34. Never been fired, although it could happen anytime now.

35. I have happily been a “kept man” for the past 10 years.

36. Have extensive experience in turkey manufactures as well as new product development and implementation.

37. I am accustomed to speaking in front of all kinds of audiences. I make points as well as I can.

38. Personal: Five children. Dog: Jasper. Cat: Morris. Gerbil: Binky.

39. While in military, was instrumental in creation of a treat detection system.

40. My compensation package at my last job included a base salary of $64,500 with excellent benefits including flextime. I am looking for a position in which I can work a more flexible schedule.

41. Hire me and you won’t regret it - I am funny, cute, smart and creative… really.

42. Referees available upon request.

43. Previous rank: Senior instigator.

44. I have recently sold my home and I now live in a large RV so I will be able to relocate quickly.

45. Reason for leaving: They stopped paying me.

46. Cover letter: Desire the chance to showcase my delightful personality, intelligence and superior judgment, which are so hard to find these days.

47. Personal achievements: Successfully played “Chop Sticks” on a toy piano with my big toes.

48. Objective: To obtain a position where I can make a difference, infecting others with my professionalism, enthusiasm and dedication.

49. Strengths: Impersonal skills.

50. Special interests: I like any projects that are fun.

51. Please explain any breaks in your employment career: 15 minute coffee break while working at a home improvement store.

52. Vocational plans: Sea World.

I will add to this with this little fact.
if you leave the 1st i out of the word depreciation, spell checker will not catch the error. deprecation is a real word. (doh!)

I bet shorty wonders how he knew him.

10. I saw your ad on the information highway, and I came to a screeching halt.Never apply for a job ever again. In fact, never type or say anything ever again, and don't use the internet.

One funny one I've seen.

"I have 4 years of constant in depth Windows experience. I played World of Warcraft since 2004."

I've taught at two major universities over the past six years and I'm not surprised at all. There is an incredible sense of entitlement in this generation.

And arrogance, don't forget arrogance!

More than a few years ago I was the Senior Tech person for a consulting company so I would interview job applicants. Since most of the time I worked from home, I would show up dressed very casual. If it was college students, I would at times introduce myself as the janitor. :lol: I was always interested in their reaction. If they treated me like I wasn't worthy to talk with them - boy did they have a surprise when they were brought into my office. :rolleyes:

^^^ You are a wise man!

Very funny. It's a good thing I read this at home or the boss would want to know why I was laughing so hard.

More than a few years ago I was the Senior Tech person for a consulting company so I would interview job applicants. Since most of the time I worked from home, I would show up dressed very casual. If it was college students, I would at times introduce myself as the janitor. :lol: I was always interested in their reaction. If they treated me like I wasn't worthy to talk with them - boy did they have a surprise when they were brought into my office. :rolleyes:That's pretty awesome. :)

And arrogance, don't forget arrogance!

More than a few years ago I was the Senior Tech person for a consulting company so I would interview job applicants. Since most of the time I worked from home, I would show up dressed very casual. If it was college students, I would at times introduce myself as the janitor. :lol: I was always interested in their reaction. If they treated me like I wasn't worthy to talk with them - boy did they have a surprise when they were brought into my office. :rolleyes:

This is why I don't like other IT guys. They can be real smart*****es at times. :eek:
BTW...that would be hillarious to watch.

Hmmm, I may need to redo my resume.

This is why I don't like other IT guys. They can be real smart*****es at times. :eek:
BTW...that would be hillarious to watch.

Yeah - you should have seen the looks on their faces as they were escorted into my office. It was priceless. :lol:

In consulting, most of the success is in the soft skills - not what a wonderful programmer you are. And besides - for the vast majority of people just leaving college, they have no skills compared to someone with 20+ years experience.

Since our clients could have been janitors, I sure didn't want anyone who couldn't treat everyone with respect.

Yeah - you should have seen the looks on their faces as they were escorted into my office. It was priceless. :lol:Man, I'd pretend to be hiring once in a while just to be able to pull that.

Man, I'd pretend to be hiring once in a while just to be able to pull that.

The owner of the company accused me of having to much fun doing it once. I told her she was just jealous that she couldn't pull it off. She replied that she would take it as a compliment that she couldn't pass as a janitor like I could. :lol:

Anyone else ever read overqualified? http://www.asofterworld.com/oqindex.php sort of in the same vein, they generally keep me chuckling.

I'm a recruiter, and I see stuff like this every day. I'd contribute a few, but I have a memory like the guy who contributed #21.

I notice the sense of entitlement as well. I think its how some people are raised where they live like little kings or princesses on their parents' salary, cruise through college. Then, when it finally comes to hitting the real work world, employers end up with people who have entry level skillsets, but corporate officer egos.

Personally, I rather hire someone who may not be as skilled (but who is able and willing to get up to speed), but not have the attitude of entitlement that I see so often today.

#4 must be an UCF graduate - a few girls i work with came from there and, well, lets just say they've never had to attach a file to an email, and they think you spell 'rough' of 'rough draft' this way: ruff

I notice the sense of entitlement as well. I think its how some people are raised where they live like little kings or princesses on their parents' salary, cruise through college. Then, when it finally comes to hitting the real work world, employers end up with people who have entry level skillsets, but corporate officer egos.

Personally, I rather hire someone who may not be as skilled (but who is able and willing to get up to speed), but not have the attitude of entitlement that I see so often today.

I wish you could speak to my classes every semester.

I see the entitlement constantly too.

I also see a lot of resumes from the East, and find it amusing that many of them say things like, "2.4 years of experience with Java" or "3.2 years of Oracle". It always makes me think of kids who say things like, "I'm seven and three quarters years old".

I wish you could speak to my classes every semester.

Maybe its the college/university marketing that says 'give us 70K and you'll get a good job/paycheck' that is responsible for the sense of entitlement?
I don't know about everyone else, but if I spent 70k on a bike I would expect it to work.

I see the little prince/princess syndrome in my classes [1], and from what professors have to go through. Professors almost have to go to the level of high school teachers in the way they interact and discipline disrupting students. When I heard about people actively disrupting a class, my jaw dropped -- I think someone should be reminded perhaps once (if that), then asked to leave the classroom in a college environment.

[1]: Oddly enough, the computer science majors don't do this type of garbage. I think its because CS people know they are not going to have everything handed them to a platter when they get out.

Maybe its the college/university marketing that says 'give us 70K and you'll get a good job/paycheck' that is responsible for the sense of entitlement?
I don't know about everyone else, but if I spent 70k on a bike I would expect it to work.

^^^ Definitely. It translates into, "I'm a good customer so you can't possibly fail me." The uni is a credit hour factory and we are its customer service agents. We are supposed to uphold academic standards, etc. etc. but really we are expected to respond to consumer demand.

Another aspect is that they feel entitled to a nice middle class life like their parents' enjoyed. I gave a B- to a student who was sliding by, doing the bare minimum. After the final, he sent me an email, asking for an A. His reason was: "I want to go to law school because my dad is a lawyer and he says I need As to get in. You seem like a good guy, can you help me out?" I wrote back: "We just spent a semester analyzing various arguments and that's the best you can come up with?" I then realized that I had done him a disservice by not giving him the C- that he had deserved. Sometimes failure is educative.

^^^ Definitely. It translates into, "I'm a good customer so you can't possibly fail me." The uni is a credit hour factory and we are its customer service agents. We are supposed to uphold academic standards, etc. etc. but really we are expected to respond to consumer demand.

Another aspect is that they feel entitled to a nice middle class life like their parents' enjoyed. I gave a B- to a student who was sliding by, doing the bare minimum. After the final, he sent me an email, asking for an A. His reason was: "I want to go to law school because my dad is a lawyer and he says I need As to get in. You seem like a good guy, can you help me out?" I wrote back: "We just spent a semester analyzing various arguments and that's the best you can come up with?" I then realized that I had done him a disservice by not giving him the C- that he had deserved. Sometimes failure is educative.

I used to bust kids cheating in a class I TA'ed. I'd tell the professor and he'd just tell them not to do it again.

I'm glad I chose not to go the prof. route. Univ/Colleges mostly just hire adjuncts now to do the teaching so they don't have to pay full-time salaries and grant tenure. I guess they finally figured out that they could treat profs like grad students.

I see the little prince/princess syndrome in my classes [1], and from what professors have to go through. Professors almost have to go to the level of high school teachers in the way they interact and discipline disrupting students. When I heard about people actively disrupting a class, my jaw dropped -- I think someone should be reminded perhaps once (if that), then asked to leave the classroom in a college environment.

[1]: Oddly enough, the computer science majors don't do this type of garbage. I think its because CS people know they are not going to have everything handed them to a platter when they get out.

If you teach CS, you're likely teaching mostly majors and they know that they're going to be dependent upon you over the long haul.

If you teach a bunch of gen eds, you're likely to be teaching a number of students who don't take the class/professor very seriously.

For example, this semester I am teaching logic which is where all the students who fail math end up. They either don't come to class or they don't pay attention when they're in class. They certainly don't do the homework. Unless they are disrupting class I let them fill out crossword puzzles, play on their phone, etc.

I've never asked a student to leave class, although I've gotten close a few times. The problem is that you actually have to follow a set of due process procedures if the situation doesn't involve a physical threat.

Fortunately, disruptive students are not as smart as they think you are. Generally you don't have to wait very long for an opportunity to publicly humiliate them. What is more, their classmates usually resent them as well and are eager to join in given the opportunity. Peer pressure and humiliation work wonders on trouble makers who are, at bottom, motivated by a need for attention. What shocks me is that they go from being the class jerk to the class sycophant.

I used to bust kids cheating in a class I TA'ed. I'd tell the professor and he'd just tell them not to do it again.

Although the academic integrity committee can veto my sanction, I generally recommend a student be given an F for the course if they are caught cheating / plagiarizing.

My take is that if you knowingly put me in a position where I either have to pass you as if you did nothing or follow due process by filling out a bunch of silly reports, etc., I'm going to ask for the stiffest sanction just so I don't have to see your face again.

I suspect that for most people, going through the committee is just too much of a hassle. On the other hand, if you decide to sanction a student for cheating/plagiarizing and you don't follow due process, you've left yourself and your school vulnerable to a law suit.

"I stalked the storeroom"

-- a resume left by a young woman at The Nature Company nearly a dozen years ago. It's my favourite.

Although the academic integrity committee can veto my sanction, I generally recommend a student be given an F for the course if they are caught cheating / plagiarizing.

My take is that if you knowingly put me in a position where I either have to pass you as if you did nothing or follow due process by filling out a bunch of silly reports, etc., I'm going to ask for the stiffest sanction just so I don't have to see your face again.

I suspect that for most people, going through the committee is just too much of a hassle. On the other hand, if you decide to sanction a student for cheating/plagiarizing and you don't follow due process, you've left yourself and your school vulnerable to a law suit.

That is sort of why I'm glad for stuff like turnitin.com, although I do get concerned about what IP rights I'm forced to give up when sending stuff to them as required. Its almost immediately obvious after they do their checks if a paper is plagiarized or not. Its cool when I send in a 15 page paper, and it gets 100% originality as a score (means nothing is copied

I abhor plagiarism, because of the fact that other people have spent large amounts of time and money to do research and experimentation and for me to claim their work as mine for gain is actual theft (where I gain value, the real source loses value). Its not hard to read stuff, get the concept, then write it as how one sees it. If a source has a better explanation, there is no harm in citing it. If I have to, I'd rather turn a paper in that is a mishmash of quoted text than try to pretend other people's stuff is my own.

I wish my plagiarism cases were a simple matter of not citing sources.

Generally they're cut and paste jobs where a student has merged two or three internet sources together. In most cases I don't need turnitin.com because they're easy to spot: 1) they use vocabulary/concepts not in the book or covered in class 2) they're off topic 3) the paragraphs have nothing to do with one another. At that point I just punch a sentence or two into google which produces the smoking gun.

The funny thing about it is that these students cannot be bothered with paraphrasing. They are so lazy that they put zero effort into cheating. At least go to the library and paraphrase a source that cannot be so easily traced. But that would actually require them to read and comprehend at least one article.

Ugh. You must have the patience of Job when dealing with that sort of stuff. Where I go to college, they have zero tolerance on that sort of stuff, and if overt ripping off is seen, the offender would be lucky to just get a non-droppable "F" for the course. In some cases, if its bad enough, its grounds for immediate expulsion.

And arrogance, don't forget arrogance!

More than a few years ago I was the Senior Tech person for a consulting company so I would interview job applicants. Since most of the time I worked from home, I would show up dressed very casual. If it was college students, I would at times introduce myself as the janitor. :lol: I was always interested in their reaction. If they treated me like I wasn't worthy to talk with them - boy did they have a surprise when they were brought into my office. :rolleyes:

Which reminds me that we had a janitor at my high school that looked like Gordon Freeman from Half Life after getting a little chubbier, he was awesome.

Also we had a singing janitor, a good voice.


Frankly, if you wanted a job at that school that involved the least amount of drama bull****, you were the janitor. ;P



@CS College discussion:
Here's something to make you want to hurl, my last semester C programming class had a teacher who ENCOURAGED plagiarism, said it's "How programmers work" (it's how bad ones do...), so a whole class of kids got the idea that stealing other people's code is an excellent way to get by, someone brought this up in my video game programming class professor and he just had this look on his face like "WTF? Who taught you that?".


Also, what plagiarism came down to on our group project was that other students were finding code they could barely compile, then wanted me to get it to work in the project, my first question was "Do you understand how this works?" which was always answered with "no", and I'd ask how they expected me to implement it, and they say "can't you just copy and paste" without even trying such a technique themselves.

I wish my plagiarism cases were a simple matter of not citing sources.

Generally they're cut and paste jobs where a student has merged two or three internet sources together. In most cases I don't need turnitin.com because they're easy to spot: 1) they use vocabulary/concepts not in the book or covered in class 2) they're off topic 3) the paragraphs have nothing to do with one another. At that point I just punch a sentence or two into google which produces the smoking gun.

The funny thing about it is that these students cannot be bothered with paraphrasing. They are so lazy that they put zero effort into cheating. At least go to the library and paraphrase a source that cannot be so easily traced. But that would actually require them to read and comprehend at least one article.
:lol:

When i was in college i had afew papers that i worried about since i had used ZERO sources (it literally was a 3 or 4 page paper straight from my thoughts, one of which was about how would you go about acclimating a foreigner to your part of the world, i mean, what sources would/could i even cite?)

And arrogance, don't forget arrogance!

More than a few years ago I was the Senior Tech person for a consulting company so I would interview job applicants. Since most of the time I worked from home, I would show up dressed very casual. If it was college students, I would at times introduce myself as the janitor. :lol: I was always interested in their reaction. If they treated me like I wasn't worthy to talk with them - boy did they have a surprise when they were brought into my office. :rolleyes:

One of my favorite sayings: "You can tell a lot about the character of a person by how he treats those who have nothing to offer him."

So freaking true.

What's wrong with no.42?

42. Referees available upon request.

It's supposed to be "References" insted of Referees... :)

I thought he was joking:lol:

And arrogance, don't forget arrogance!

More than a few years ago I was the Senior Tech person for a consulting company so I would interview job applicants. Since most of the time I worked from home, I would show up dressed very casual. If it was college students, I would at times introduce myself as the janitor. :lol: I was always interested in their reaction. If they treated me like I wasn't worthy to talk with them - boy did they have a surprise when they were brought into my office. :rolleyes:

I too did interviews for the consulting company I worked for. I just happened to be in the office one day when they asked me to call a candidate, no problem, most people just put up with the BS. It has nothing to do with tech knowlege. So I ask the guy a stupid question, his reply was stunning; "Hey listen, I've been doing this for 10 years, I know what I'm doing, I don't have to answer those trick questions."
Well that will about do it, thank you very much, we'll be in touch. I walked in to the reps office, she just look at me and said "Oh my God, what happened". I told her the short, but unpleasant story, the guy didn't get the job.

What's wrong with no.42?

42. Referees available upon request.

Nothing. It is the correct plural of someone who provides a reference.

It's supposed to be "References" insted of Referees... :)

It could also be referees.

What do you call someone who gives references? Is this an American English thing?

It could also be referees.

What do you call someone who gives references? Is this an American English thing?

A referer? I dunno. :lol: Whenever i see referee i think of sports...

A referer? I dunno. :lol: Whenever i see referee i think of sports...

It depends on context I suppose.

And arrogance, don't forget arrogance!

More than a few years ago I was the Senior Tech person for a consulting company so I would interview job applicants. Since most of the time I worked from home, I would show up dressed very casual. If it was college students, I would at times introduce myself as the janitor. :lol: I was always interested in their reaction. If they treated me like I wasn't worthy to talk with them - boy did they have a surprise when they were brought into my office.
It's dumb not to make friends with janitors and secretaries. Especially in a job interview situation, they are an excellent source of information about the personalities and will often share critical information about the people you are about to meet with. Besides, if you get hired, you'll be depending on them. Between the services they provide and what they know, they're pretty important people to your well being. Tick 'em off at your own peril.

It's dumb not to make friends with janitors and secretaries. Especially in a job interview situation, they are an excellent source of information about the personalities and will often share critical information about the people you are about to meet with. Besides, if you get hired, you'll be depending on them. Between the services they provide and what they know, they're pretty important people to your well being. Tick 'em off at your own peril.

So true.

I'm glad i'm on good terms with the lab clerical/secretarial staff. They do have the coffee machine... ;) I bring the coffee creamer, they make the coffee. Speaking of which, i really need to bring creamer tomorrow...

As for the janitor, i'm pretty cool with him, though alot of people don't like him (he's actually the one that starts s*** with people then acts like the victim but i never give him anything to start with). :D

It's dumb not to make friends with janitors and secretaries. Especially in a job interview situation, they are an excellent source of information about the personalities and will often share critical information about the people you are about to meet with. Besides, if you get hired, you'll be depending on them. Between the services they provide and what they know, they're pretty important people to your well being. Tick 'em off at your own peril.

I was thinking about that in the shower today (I think a lot in the shower...), anyway yeah if you wanted the low-down on how people around the job felt about a job, the janitor knows it all, he's probably all over the building, knows a ton of people, and they generally seem to stick along longer than other people at times. ;P

Being someone uneducated - at least formally - I understand someone who works as a Janitor might be the smartest person in the company. I didn't have a chance to go to college when I was younger, and then I got moving so fast I never could find the time. Now it just seems a bit silly to go to college when I own my own companies and if I am curious about something, well there is the Internet and books. Or, I hire someone with a degree and absorb their mind... :rolleyes:

When I worked as an engineer, I would have lunch with production, pretty much everyday. One reason is that most engineers went out to lunch and I liked to brown bag it. The other reason is that if production had questions about what they were building, I liked for one engineer to be available. Because of that, I would almost all the time end up with the job of continuing improvement of the product and quality assurance - and that position usually ends up reporting to the upper management of the company if the business is smart.

Not exactly a resume, but I just flashed back 33 years.

In boot camp one evening, the drill instructor was looking for people to take on specific duties during boot camp, so he asked if anyone had special skills.

One big guy raised his hand and told the DI about his special skill... he could tear phone books in half.

I thought he was joking:lol:

Well... you'd better not be applying for jobs in Australia, then. Employers usually request that at least one and up to three referees are supplied in the application. Not just written references, but the authors of those references and their contact phone numbers. So you'd better not be supplying the local little league ref's number! :D

"I stalked the storeroom"



42. Referees available upon request.

When I'm hiring and I see spelling errors on a resume, It immediately goes into the
"shred in one year" file.