It should go without saying that you should always proofread before submitting a final draft of your résumé to any potential employer.
A college student realized too late that he forgot to remove a joke from an earlier draft meant for only their friends to see.
He was mortified that prospective employers were discovering he was willing to offer "frequent handjobs."
Now, he is convinced he will not be getting job interviews any time soon.
Redditor nic1229 wrote in the "Today I F'd Up" subReddit thread in which users share moments of doing "something ridiculously stupid":
"I'm preparing to graduate college, and as such, have spent hours and hours honing my resume before applying to my dream jobs."
"While working on the process, I've sent my resume to several friends to proof and critique it, which can get dull."
"So to give them a bit a of a laugh, and being the immature college boy I am, decided to add a line about offering frequent handjobs to my employer under the skills line."
"Obviously to be removed in the final copy."
"Well my friend got busy and didn't get around to the proof read for about a week, finally read it and told me it looked good."
"Well I forgot about the joke and immediately started applying to jobs with it... Needless to say I don't think I'll be getting interviews."
"Or maybe just not the kind of interviews I want?"
He set the record straight for the recipients of his racy résumé.
"And if you're reading this; Boeing, Lockheed, and a few other companies, I'm sorry and I will not be offering handjobs to my employer."
The anecdote was all too familiar for another Redditor.
"A friend once paid me to write an essay for him in high school, it was going to be half of a test he had to take. So the plan was that I'd write it out for him and he'd just smuggle it in his sleeve and copy it in his own handwriting during the test."
"In very tiny little notes throughout in miniscule little all-caps, I was writing funny messages to him that he would see while copying it, just to give him a laugh, s**t like 'You're gonna faaaaaaaail' and 'I can't believe you paid for this!'"
"Well come test day I asked him how it went. He told me he'd run out of time and just handed in the folded-up copy that I'd given him."
"He hadn't even glanced at it. I had the same teacher in another class and he recognized my handwriting right away."
"What a f*****g dummy." – BigShoots
Another wrote:
"This is awesome."
"Reminds me of the time when I asked my friend in high school to send me the study guide he created for the Spanish final exam."
"He is a brilliant guy so I figured I would just use his study guide, rather than read the book or my own notes."
"Few hours go by and I call him to check if he forgot. He said he sent it awhile ago and was surprised I didn't get it."
"Finally, he goes to check his Sent mail and realizes he sent the study guide to the Spanish teacher and not me."
"He begins to freak out, but I assure him there is no harm in sharing study guides, as it's not cheating on HW or a take home exam."
"That's when he reveals the following:"
"He thought he was emailing me the study guide and made the subject line, SUCK IT LONG AND HARD', instead of 'Study'. Funny guy, I know."
"At this point I can't stop laughing at his misfortune. The teacher is pissed (imagine a 10th grader emailing the teacher that)."
"Honestly, one of my favorite memories from high school." – TrollCityBlunder
What happened to those résumés?
"He's in the handjob pile."
"'Forward this to our Boston office.'" – Totalherenow
"'Ted, we've got a keeper!'" – Einsteins_coffee_mug
This person gave a helpful suggestion on circumventing the issue when submitting for a second time.
"Resend it but use a different phone number and email for contact info and just change the wording on a few things."
"With any luck they'll think it was two different people with the same name."
"But realistically those companies have dozens of people to review resumes, so if you send in a fixed one, the person who denied the handjobs probably won't even see it to reject a second one." – randomname19870618
Reassurances were made.
"I wouldn't freak out too much. In today's world, companies get flooded with so many resumes that a computer just reads them and spits them out if it finds keywords it likes." – Mindraker
"The job I have now and the company I'm working for is really amazing. Took me 4 applications and new resumes every 3 months for them to finally call me back."
"Completely worth it."
"It never hurts to reapply. Turns out it was my second resume that caught their attention but they get so many it can take 6 months for call backs."
"Then after I was working for this company for about 4 months I got a call from a different department wanting to hire me off my 3rd resume."
"So reapplying is completely worth it. The bigger the company, the longer it'll take without knowing someone, but if it's the job you want, eventually you'll get the wording right and your resume will pop up on top." – randomname19870618
Hopefully, the young man will land a job based on his improved résumé skills and not just from a stroke of luck.
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