More office reports: Resume`s

mikmik · #1 (**permalink**) 10-08-2004, 09:28 PM

Great Lines from Great Resumés

"I have lurnt Word Perfect 6.0 computor and spreasheet progroms."

"Am a perfectionist and rarely if if ever forget details."

"Received a plague for Salesperson of the Year."

"Wholly responsible for two (2) failed financial institutions."

"Reason for leaving last job: maturity leave."

"Failed bar exam with relatively high grades."

"It's best for employers that I not work with people."

"Let's meet, so you can 'ooh' and 'aah' over my experience."

"I was working for my mom until she decided to move."

"Marital status: single. Unmarried. Unengaged. Uninvolved. No commitments."

"I have an excellent track record, although I am not a horse."

"I am loyal to my employer at all costs. Please feel free to respond to my resume on my office voice mail."

"My goal is to be a meteorologist. But since I possess no training in meteorology, I suppose I should try stock brokerage."

"I procrastinate, especially when the task is unpleasant."

"Personal interests: donating blood. Fourteen gallons so far."

"Instrumental in ruining entire operation for a Midwest chain store."

"Note: Please don't misconstrue my 14 jobs as 'job-hopping'. I have never quit a job."

"Marital status: often. Children: various."

"The company made me a scapegoat, just like my three previous employers."

"Finished eighth in my class of ten."

"References: none. I've left a path of destruction behind me."

ADAM Web Design · #2 (**permalink**) 10-09-2004, 04:30 PM

This is my personal favourite:

http://www.thestudentzone.com/articl...acdonalds.html

People seriously need to proofread their resumes/cover letters before they send them. I can't count the number of weird things I've seen that way.

esiegel · #3 (**permalink**) 10-11-2004, 10:23 AM

I once help a friend update their resume and included the line:

Responsible for fluid replenishment of the facility Oxygenation System.

Anyone care to take a stab at what she really did?

paulhiles · #4 (**permalink**) 10-11-2004, 11:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by esiegel

Anyone care to take a stab at what she really did?

She wasn't a tea-lady was she? I could do with a cuppa right now! :o)

esiegel · #5 (**permalink**) 10-11-2004, 12:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paulhiles

She wasn't a tea-lady was she? I could do with a cuppa right now! :o)

nope...not the tea lady.

paulhiles · #6 (**permalink**) 10-11-2004, 12:12 PM

Erm... did she supply bottled water to a firm's canteen?

esiegel · #7 (**permalink**) 10-11-2004, 12:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paulhiles

Erm... did she supply bottled water to a firm's canteen?

nope...
your missing the 'facility Oxygenation System' part.

paulhiles · #8 (**permalink**) 10-11-2004, 12:33 PM

Oh... she didn't water the plants did she? :o)

esiegel · #9 (**permalink**) 10-11-2004, 12:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paulhiles

Oh... she didn't water the plants did she? :o)

yes she did...
have to tell you...when she went for interviews...NOBODY asked what it meant.

paulhiles · #10 (**permalink**) 10-11-2004, 12:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by esiegel

when she went for interviews...NOBODY asked what it meant.

Hmmm... they probably didn't want to appear as dumb as me eh? ;o)

Paul

jdiben · #11 (**permalink**) 10-11-2004, 01:58 PM

When I used to work at a gas station pumping gas I put on my resume that I was an "energy transfer technician". I never got any response to those resumes so I gave up on embellishing the truth and just plain lied on my resume to get a good job.

Joe

wenwilder · #12 (**permalink**) 10-11-2004, 03:04 PM

Large words make any job seem important and can be changed - when it is the actual job title, you can't dumb it down. That is the problem I always ran into. You can't really write Knowledge Management any other way. (or can you? ;o) )

I love reading resume's it's like an adventure in creative writing.

eightfifteen · #13 (**permalink**) 10-13-2004, 04:30 PM

The company I used to work for used to receive resumes via our web site. I wrote about one particular e-mail for the Digital Arts Group web site. Here's what I wrote:

----------------------------

We received an e-mail message once that among other things said the following:

"During the past couple of years I have also gotten proficient in architecting and designing solutions for companies and also applying the necessary mythologies associated so that project were sure to get completed in time and within budget."

Yes, you read that right. That is what a potential applicant, we'll call him "Ralph," recently e-mailed to us, looking for work. I don't know the meaning of architecting, but I'm curious to know what exactly he's doing with mythologies. Is Ralph praying to Zeus to help him complete projects? Is he sacrificing a lamb to the accounting gods? Did he play Dungeons and Dragons a bit too much in his youth?

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Ralphie really meant methodologies, not mythologies. And I'm sure that he was trying to say that he was coordinating and designing solutions. Those are silly mistakes, and we all know what he meant to say, but this outlandish example proves that people treat e-mail correspondence more like an empty stream-of-consciousness flow than a formal written communication. In many cases, that may be fine, but for this unfortunate chap, it cost him any consideration that he might have otherwise received.

So how do we keep from looking like Ralph? The easiest way is to simply read your e-mail messages before you send them, and for important e-mails, such as an application for employment, have someone else read through what you've written. A quick second glance might have caught at least one of the mistakes, if not both of them. If our friend Ralph had gone one step further and had someone else read his message, he might have also decided to break up his sentence.

On the positive side, we could say that Ralph took one for the team, and served as a warning to others. Ralphie threw himself at the correspondence hand grenade, so we could write another day. Use that day wisely. Proofread your e-mail messages. Don't become Ralph.

mikmik · #14 (**permalink**) 10-16-2004, 04:42 AM

Stick to the e-mail variety, eightfifteen!
Job seeker's resumé really bombs

Quote:

MONTREAL - A job hunter who hoped his resumé would land him an interview was instead taken in for questioning by Montreal's bomb squad.

The 24-year-old man was arrested and charged with public mischief after he submitted his resumé in a ticking package left in a marketing firm's washroom last month, the Montreal Gazette reported.

It was his way of drawing attention to his application, one among 400 sent in by applicants competing for six paid internships at Cossette Communication Group.

On Sept. 15, police said, he handed the receptionist an Arabic newspaper and a note alerting her to the ticking parcel in the men's washroom.

Police evacuated the company's downtown offices and the neighbouring Ritz-Carlton Hotel.

The package contained a metronome – a device musicians use to help them maintain rhythm and tempo – along with the man's resume.

Internship manager Ghislaine Fallu said candidates were encouraged to be creative, not criminal.

"In the application we say, 'Send us your CV, include a letter of intent and explain your motives to us in an original manner,'" Fallu said. "But we don't usually expect crazy things like what happened this year."

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