Recruitment managers share 12 most bizarre CV blunders

Youíve used all your creative juices to build a CV that stands out in the crowd ñ but have you gone over the top? Recruitment managers across the UK shared the most unusual CV blunders they came across in CareerBuilder.co.ukís latest survey:

1. Candidate explained a conviction by simply saying - ìI killed my spouse.î

2. Candidate included a picture of herself in swimwear.

3. Candidate stated that he was sacked from his last job for stealing.

4. Candidate submitted CV on ìGarfield the Catî paper.

5. Candidate explained that she is financially incompetent.

6. Candidate clearly stated they were single.

7. Candidate included eight pages describing all the tasks done at previous jobs.

8. Candidate applying for a chef position discussed in-detail a salmonella outbreak at his previous job.

9. Candidateís hobbies included going out with his mates every single night.

10. Candidate included his chest and shoe sizes.

11. Candidate included holiday plans for the next three years and made it clear she would not be changing them.

12. Candidate explained that if he was going to be working with aggressive people that he would require additional fag breaks.

ìRecruitment managers do appreciate creativity in job applicants because sifting through piles of CVs often times can be a monotonous task,î said Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources at CareerBuilder.co.uk. ìHowever, the key is to balance that creativity with professionalism. You want to stand out as someone unique but also as someone with applicable experience who can add value to the company.î

Haefner offers the following tips to get you started on your road to CV success:

Your personal life is just that ñ personal.

Recruitment managers donít need to know personal information such as what your waistline measurement is or where you spend your summer holidays. Instead, include information on activities that are business-related such as memberships in professional organisations and community service involvement.

Simple. Bold. Professional.

Three key ideas to keep in mind when formatting your CV are: simple, bold and professional. Instead of flashy formatting and stationary with borders or graphics, create a clean and polished document on CV paper with consistent formatting for headings and bullet points. Additionally, to gain attention from recruitment manager, use strong action words such as ìachievedî and ìmanagedî instead of unconventional fonts or coloured text.

One size does not fit all.

If youíre applying for a sales position, it wouldnít make much sense to focus on your experience in an unrelated field like education or information technology. Not only do you want to play up achievements and experience specific to each individual job to which you are applying but also be sure to provide quantifiable results. For example, itís easy to say that you have experience in sales, but employers will take note if you say that you were responsible for a 10 percent growth in overall sales.

Two sets of eyes are better than one.

After you have proofread your CV a few times, ask someone else to review it. A second pair of eyes may be able to catch mistakes you missed and could provide a fresh perspective on how to improve your CV.

Methodology

This survey was conducted online by Harris Interactive on behalf of CareerBuilder.com among 421 workers (employed full-time; not self employed) and 224 recruitment managers (employed full-time; not self employed; with at least some involvement in hiring decisions), ages 18 and over within the United Kingdom between November 17 and December 11, 2006. Figures for age, sex, education, location (region) and internet usage were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondentsí propensity to be online.

With a pure probability sample of 421 or 224 one could say with a ninety-five percent probability that the overall results have a sampling error of /- 5 and /- 7 percentage points, respectively. Sampling error for data from subsamples is higher and varies. However that does not take other sources of error into account. This online survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no theoretical sampling error can be calculated.