Employers share hilarious CV blunders

Writing an attention-grabbing CV can be difficult in today’s competitive job market.

According to a new survey from CareerBuilder.com, 70% of employers spend less than five minutes checking a CV and nearly half (48%) spend less than two. The research also found that more than half of employers (56%) have caught a candidate lying on their CV.

Perhaps much more amusing was the survey, which polled more than 2,500 hiring and HR managers, asked employers to recall the most memorable CV mistake they have ever seen, ranging from innocent spelling mistakes to outright lies, the best of which are below:

* Applicant claimed to be a former CEO of the company to which they were applying.
* Applicant claimed to be fluent in two languages – one of which was pig Latin.
* Applicant wrote “whorehouse” instead of “warehouse” when listing work history.
* Applicant’s personal website linked to a porn site.
* Applicant introduced himself [in the cover letter] by saying “Hey you.”
* Applicant vying for a customer service position gave “didn’t like dealing with angry customers” as the reason for leaving her last job.
* User name of applicant’s email address was “2poopy4mypants.”
* Applicant claimed to be a Nobel Prize winner.
* Applicant claimed to have worked in a jail when they were really in there serving time.
* Applicant who claimed to be HVAC certified later asked the hiring manager what “HVAC” meant.
* Applicant said to have gotten fired “on accident.”
* Applicant claimed to have attended a college that didn’t exist.
* Applicant for a driver position claimed to have 10 years of experience but had only had a driver’s license for four years.
* Applicant listed as a reference an employer from whom they had embezzled money and had an arrest warrant out for the applicant.
* Applicant’s stated job history had him in three different companies and three different cities simultaneously.

Read CareerBuilder.com’s results in full at prn.to/1Jo2VtR