“The Candidate Tried to Hypnotize Me!” and More: Hiring Managers Share Their Strangest Resume Stories

From CareerBuilder | Sept 19, 2010

While the current job market has left millions of job seekers frustrated and distressed, it hasn’t exactly been a picnic for hiring managers and recruiters, either: Readers often tell us how the wealth of resumes piling up on their desks – a significant percentage of which often carry no relevance to the job or company – leave them tired, frustrated and overwhelmed. 

Today, CareerBuilder released a survey that sheds more light into this issue, giving a peek inside some of the more bizarre – and exasperating – aspects of the job of screening resumes. 

In a survey of over 2,500 hiring managers nationwide, CareerBuilder asked participants to name the most memorable things they’ve seen from job seeker resumes recently. Among their more notable answers:

• Candidate listed God as a reference. (Alas, the candidate didn’t include a phone number.)


• Candidate listed her hobby as alligator watching.


• Candidate claimed to be a direct descendant of the Vikings.


• Candidate’s email address had “lovesbeer” in it.


• Candidate listed “Master of Time and Universe” under his experience.


• Candidate started off the application with “Do you want a tiger?”


• Candidate specifically pointed out that he was not a gypsy.


• Candidate’s condition for accepting the position was being allowed to bring his pet monkey to the workplace.


• Candidate pointed out, “I’ll have your job in five years.”


• Candidate sent a 24-page resume for a 5-year career.


• Candidate put a picture of her cat on top of her resume.


• Candidate declared himself “the LeBron James of table games.”


• Candidate sent a video trying to hypnotize the HR manager into hiring him.

Certainly, there’s an argument to be made that these job seekers were simply trying to stand out from the rest of the applicants (mission accomplished), but clearly, these applicants didn’t know their audience (perhaps “lovesbeer” would have better luck applying to a position at a brewery). This isn’t the first time we’ve seen bizarre applicant behavior and, I would guess, it won’t be the last. Would you agree?