A former Amazon recruiter with about 20 years of experience in recruiting has revealed the most shocking thing she ever saw in a resume. Lindsay Mustain, who is now Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of talent development company Talent Paradigm, said that she has hired more than 10,000 employees and reviewed over a million resumes. However, one resume she came across a few years back still haunts her, Ms Mustain told CNBC Make It.
Speaking to the outlet, Ms Mustain said that she was working as a recruiter with Comcast in 2017 when she was looking to fill an entry-level call centre role. The job attracted a "variety of level of candidates," she said, adding that "sometimes you get some really interesting ones". But as she was rifling through resumes, one in particular caught her eye. "I honestly have no idea what he was doing," Ms Mustain said about the candidate. "It shocked me," she added.
The former Amazon employee said that although the first two pages of the candidate's resume were pretty standard, the third page took her by surprise. "The very last page was a picture, a full-blown picture of him holding a shotgun," she recalled.
The picture looked like an old-school selfie taken with a flip phone, Ms Mustain told the outlet. Although it had the candidate holding the gun without pointing it at the camera, Ms Mustain still thought, "What would go through your mind to think that this is an acceptable piece?" "It just blew us away," she told the publication.
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Ms Mustain then went on to share several things that were wrong with the person's resume. "Unless you're a model or a real estate agent, I recommend you not put a photo on your resume," she said. Moreover, including a weapon in your picture is extremely off-putting, she said, adding, "Honestly with a person like that, I would not want to be associated with him because they feel like they're a danger".
Ms Mustain also stated that even if you are applying for a job in which you would be expected to use a firearm, most employers will want proof of training on it, not a photo of you holding it.
Therefore, including a photo of yourself in a resume, especially a highly inappropriate one, reflects poorly on your judgment. That person is "unequivocally communicating they have no idea about true business standards of what is acceptable behaviour," Ms Mustain said.
