What makes job seekers think I am interested in their hobbies such as swimming, bike riding etc?

Some of the things that I see regularly that can surely count against a potential recruit are:

Stating your age –its not relevant unless requested.
Stating you maritial status –since I am single I may sideline a married woman over a single woman with the same capabilities.

Irrelevant information such as: tribe, nationality (unless you are a foreigner), height, weight etc.

I also detest information that is clearly copy and pasted.

And when are individuals going to learn how to sell themselves?
If you work for a mutlibillion institution you should not state: sold ribena

thats enough for now

‘So tell us something about yourself.’ Sammie asks him.
He assumes the humblest expression and recites thus: ‘Oh, Lord of Minutes and Centuries. Allow me the privilege and pleasure to introduce myself. My names are Mr. Ecclesiasticus Lamentations Onyango Ongonya Maji Marefu…’
But he doesn’t finish. Sammie is on him.’ That ceremonious name won’t do! It’s intolerably cumbersome. It’s like carrying a donkey on your shoulders-such a name sounds good only on a gravestone.’
I add warily that there was no thought of pleasing the panel when he was christened such a tombstone family name.
‘But that’s an honorable and a brave title in my clan.’ Onyii protests. ‘It literally means ‘‘the-noble-one-who-killed -lions.’’ And that’s my grandfather. He killed so many tribes of lions.’

‘The panel doesn’t give a rap for your stories. The world is full of the so-called nobility nowadays, riff-raffs who take advantage of their own insignificance to imagine the earliest illustrious titles that pops up into their dreams.’ Sammie dismisses…’

i love the funny side of it. i’m all ears waiting how you go about shortlisting.

read the rest of my ‘pains shortlisted’ humour piece here.

http://myroundsquare.blogspot.com/2009/04/pains-shortlisted.html

I had pledged at some point to trip up the next person that ‘hits the ground running’

Applicants haven’t heard of the PDF technology yet, sending them in Ms Word (or Ms 3000) which makes the typos rather glaring.

The best is where an interview has a written case study, and the candidate produces a HANDWRITTEN paper (quite crumpled) with their answers. How now?

Talk about giving the CV a little nudge. Most give their dreams and aspirations a huge one and I wonder, now that working here is your dream, what happens if you don’t get the job?

Sorry for the mini post, your post was a perfect place to vent today’s frustrations.

To solve the problem of funny CV’s, we started forwarding our own skeleton CV templates to potential interns. Many never replied when they had no opportunity to tell some rather tall tales…