I really don’t care about your windsurfing.

In my line of work I see a whole lot of resumés. In the grand scheme of things, recruiting is my least favorite part of my job. I have found myself more than once telling people that there are two sides to human resources; the Human, and the Resource. I am definitely the Resource. I will happily play with personnel information ‘til the cows come home. The Human portion of HR is the person who loves to recruit and solve people problems and play morale-booster, and I am just not that person. It’s all a little sales-y, and I’m a terrible salesperson. I can’t talk up company culture or entice someone towards an opportunity to save my life.

“Do you want a job?”

“Yes, please.”

“Can you do these things?”

“Yes.”

“Great.”

“Okay, but what abo—”

“Ssshhh, no questions.”

Unfortunately, when you’re the only one in your department you have to do All The Things, so even though it’s incredibly low on the list of things I want to do with my work time, I get to wade through piles of resumés and try to match people with job openings. I’ve noticed trends over the years, but there are a couple that I find particularly irritating, and guess what? I’m going to share them with you, you lucky things!

The first one, oh boy. I don’t know where this started, I don’t know when this started, but I do know this: it needs to stop.

Please. Please. For the love of all things holy, PLEASE stop listing your hobbies and extracurriculars on your resumé.

If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that this phenomenon began somewhere around the feel-good-startup-mentality-techie-company-with-all-the-bells-and-whistles boom. “You need to stand out from the other applicants!” “Everyone is applying for these jobs, you need to make yourself more human!” I can just hear the college career center counselors touting this as an excellent tool to raise oneself above the hoi polloi in the eyes of a hiring manager.

“Well, these 87,623 applicants are all extremely qualified for this position, but Joey here plays water polo in his spare time and that just resonates with me,” said no hiring manager ever.

I’m sure there are some jobs where including a ‘hobbies and interests’ section on your resumé would be reasonably appropriate. I suppose if you were applying to be an accountant at a natural history museum and you said something about you lifelong love of dinosaurs that might give you a boost because you’re expressing an interest in the foundation of the business, even though you’re applying to work behind-the-scenes. Honestly, though, that sort of information would be more appropriately placed in a cover letter.

Then again, I never read cover letters, so…

Another thing I have been seeing a lot of recently is the ‘first person narrative’ resumé. This is a section at the beginning of a resumé where the candidate will wax poetic about what they do, how they do it, and why they do it better than the next guy. This can sometimes go on for an entire page, thus pushing the part of the resumé that I actually care about--ye olde boring bulleted list underneath a company name and dates of employment--further down the document. This makes me work harder to see what I need to see. If you want to impress a recruiter, don’t make them work any harder than they have to. A resumé is not a treasure hunt. And don’t be sneaky and slip the ‘hobbies and interests’ section into the Great American Novel you’ve penned on page one. If I want to read your autobiography, I’ll buy it when you publish it.

These two trends leave a candidate looking either like they have far too much time on their hands or are completely desperate, and I can’t quite work out which is the case. I’ll tell you one thing, though; neither of those things is a good look on a job seeker.

I’m going to leave you with an excerpt of an actual resumé I received which, while only falling under the ‘first person narrative’ portion of Things In Resumés That Make Me Want To Scream, is an absolute gem of an example of DO NOT DO THIS ON YOUR RESUMÉ:

[APPLICANT NAME]

Versatile Media Pro – Writer – Video Producer – Content Creator – Media Strategist

IMPACT PLAYER But you can just call me [NICKNAME] … And, yes, you should hire me.

Why?

For starters: No BS here. I’m an accomplished writer, video producer, content creator and media strategist with extensive experience in advertising, marketing, journalism, broadcasting, education and more … But more importantly, in an era where so many need their hands held and expect to be catered to with office perks like ping pong tables, free snacks, team-building events and allowed every excuse under the sun as to why their ideas didn’t work, I just get to work and get results.

Whether it’s improving existing collateral or concepting and executing on something fresh, individually, or as part of a team, my record speaks for itself.

Congrats, bro. You’re a total dick. I guess I should thank you for signposting it for us.