Recently, Reddit user u/justbrowsinbr0 asked the people of r/AskReddit, "Employers of Reddit, what can someone put on a resume that sends it straight to the shredder?" Here are some of the most-upvoted responses:
1. "I once received a resume in the mail that had no telephone number, address, or email. He called a few days later to ask why he hadn't received any reply."
"I asked him to get a copy of his resume so we could review it together. I asked him to tell me the address we might have replied to; then the telephone number and finally the email.
After a long pause, he said, 'Aww, fuck!' and hung up."
2. "Okay, I was a writing tutor at the college level for 10 years. We also helped graduates of the university. I swear I am not making this up."
"A graduate who had taught English in Japan for a few years (among other jobs) came in for help updating his resume. He reported that he'd been looking for work for a while, with no luck.
The profile section at the head of his resume listed accomplishments, including, 'I have climbed Mount Fuji fueled only by Quaaludes and caffeine.'
He was crestfallen when I told him that although I was duly impressed by this feat, he really, really needed to remove it."
3. "One applicant mentioned how much he could bench and the characters he played in high school theatre. He was in his mid-to-late twenties."
4. "This guy in an entry-level position — he was 19 I think — got his resume through fine. But then, his emergency contact info read 'Name - Mum. Relationship - Good'."
"...So like if we called your mum, and you were hurt, she'd care?"
5. "The only resume I have thrown right in the proverbial shredder was that of the wife of a friend of mine. She had no degree or relevant experience, but we needed a receptionist."
"Bottom line, I was doing this underqualified, unemployed person a massive favour by giving her a reference and a chance. We didn't have any other applicants. The job was hers to lose. She didn't know that, so she brought her A game. Here are some excerpts from her cover letter:
'I may not have a degree, but I have what engineers don't have, 10 years of experience.'
'Engineers aren't very organised people and I can keep them in line.'
'I have better social skills than engineers do.'
I am not paraphrasing. I was just like, 'You know I'm an engineer, right?' She did. I continued, 'You know the job you'd be applying for is a receptionist position, not an engineer position, right?' She seemed pretty sure she could move up and be an engineer in a year or so. That is not at all a thing in my field, but she was absolutely sure it was.
I told her that if she was going to submit this, she wouldn't be hired because the entire panel was engineers. She didn't listen, and submitted it. She even listed me as a reference. 'I've got what engineers don't have, 10 years of experience!' became the office joke for years to come. Every time someone reached the 10 year mark of their career, we'd be like, 'You can't be an engineer anymore. The lady said 10 years is the limit.'
6. "I received a resume last week that had notes on it like 'insert relevant skills here' and 'maybe change font' and 'fill this space with buzz words.' This was on his LinkedIn profile as well."
"If you can’t pay attention to the resume you send out I can’t trust you’ll pay attention to anything else."
7. "Make sure you attach the right file. I once had somebody attach his court summons for a DUI charge. Instant deny."
8. "I had a dude turn in his application with black marker lines redacting all of his info. The only things left were his name, a phone number, and a note saying 'We can discuss these details during my interview.'"
"He did not, in fact, get an interview."
9. "Their qualification was listed as 'military spouse' (with their partner's rank, no less)."
10. "This guy put a Tinder bio at the head of his resume. It included all his likes and dislikes, with a headshot of him holding an axe while looking sweaty."
"I do IT work..."
11. "When I was in high school I worked in a shoe store at the mall. We got a resume once for a sales job that had, under the 'Other Interests' section, 'Special relationship with the one they call Satan.' Yes, really."
"I wanted to interview her, just to see what she'd actually say in person. My manager vetoed that, sadly."
12. I have a friend who managed a shoe store. She received an application that said 'I play ukulele, sort of' under the 'skills' section.
"I think about it on a regular basis and it was probably 10 years ago."
13. "We were hiring a CFO and Googling their name revealed an SEC complaint for a nine-figure fraud. At the time, there wasn't a verdict on the books, but I wasn't gonna wait for one. See you never."
14. "One applicant's mother handed his resume to me with him just quietly standing beside her, looking like this wasn’t his idea."
15. "This guy got recommended for a lab technician job in my company, so we met with him. Before I could even introduce myself, he pulled this laminated piece of paper out of his folio, slammed it down on the table, pushed it across the table, and said, 'So when do I start?'."
"The document was a letter of recommendation from his CC physics teacher. A glowing assessment of the candidate which greatly conflicted with my assessment based on his behavior.
He did not get the job."
16. "I had a guy put on his resume that he invented the dollar, owned Microsoft, Google, and Ford, was an astronaut, and founded New Zealand."
"This was when I managed an Aldi store and he was applying as an associate. But he was clear to say on his resume that our business model could be vastly improved with his expertise.
I almost brought him in for an interview just for fun, but I couldn’t really find the time along with the real applicants."
17. "I had an application for a management position at a public library. The job listing specified that an MLIS (Master's in Library and Information Science) degree is required."
"We got an application from one person whose only 'management experience' was running a K-pop fan club.
Another person spelled the library's name incorrectly."
18. "The worst I've seen is from a girl named Clairfe. What an interesting name, is it Irish? My colleague showed me the application form handed in alongside the CV, where CLAIRE had managed to spell her own name right."
19. "An applicant with food service experience applied for our entry-level call centre job. She put as her daily duties, 'wept and moped at the end of every shift.'"
"I’m not gonna lie, I hired her and she was fine. I worked food service and was like 'where’s the lie'?"
20. "They mentioned their 'Atention too detail.'"
21. "The personal statement that began with 'as a large language model...' didn't get very far."
22. "I had someone once put 'mom to child actor' on her resume as a qualification. She listed that she homeschooled on set and managed their schedule and things of that nature."
"My absolute favourite was a guy who wrote his attributes landscape in italics on a piece of paper that had a background of a unicorn on a cliff with a sunset. He came and asked for it back when he wasn’t hired."
23. "I once got a resume written in crayon."
Thanks to u/justbrowsinbr0 and r/AskReddit for having this discussion.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.