One of my favourite feeds is Not Hired - which posts all sorts of job ad responses that explain  - well just that.

This one is apparently one of the favourites  and is a reminder to everyone to make sure that your personal notes are deleted before you press the send button.

I read a CV recently where the “change tracker” notes had been left on. In itself there was nothing incriminating but what a blooming mess it was. I was tempted to put it on the rejected pile because of lack of attention to detail but I realised that  it was really clear that that applicant had spent ages tailoring the CV to the job. And that is commendable. I am constantly amazed by how many people still think that a “one size fits all” CV will work. It doesn’t in the boom times so it is even less likely to attract attention when times get tough.

Putting in “stuff” that you think the hirer might want to hear if it doesn’t fit with the rest of the CV won’t make it look like you’re really keen either.

Oh -  and check and check again when you ”cut and paste”. A while back I took part in a corporate treasure hunt event. The clues sent us to somewhere called HQ. This was confusing as our company HQ was in London and we were in Edinburgh. There were about 20 teams from my company and each one were set to trek into the only building that fit the bill. After about 6 such visits security at that building stopped anyone else coming in. Turned out that the corporate events company that organised the treasure hunt had cut and pasted the same one that they had delivered to that company the week before  and it was their HQ that we were now bombarding with visits. The damage to the relationship with both companies was significant!

If you want some more examples of what not to do you could do worse than read this list of entries!