23 Employers Share Job Applicant Deal-Breakers

18. Laziness

I kid you not, but I have received multiple cover letters where they address it to someone else besides me. As in, they wrote the cover letter for a previous job and sent it to me without editing it at all. That’s happened at least three times.

19. Bar Tending Deal-Breaker

I used to own a bunch of bars and nightclubs. You are not getting hired as a bartender if you have “Bartending School” listed on your resume or application.

20. Nails

During the in person interview phase I tend to look at people’s fingernails.

21. General Deal-Breaker Questions

My father has designed this brilliant exam for all his applicants. It has nothing to do with the job, but it tells him enough about a person to accept or reject them. It’s surprising how badly people answer. Its a 3 page exam, can be completed in 10 mins. Some questions:

  1. What is 10% of 51.36 (an engineering student got this wrong)
  2. Name any 5 presidents (only 4 people out of over 50 have gotten this right)
  3. How much is a kilo of flour (within 10-20% is acceptable, just to grasp how many people are doing their own shopping, cooking, taking care of themselves, again, maybe 20% get this right)
  4. Who is your hero and why (most common answer is parents, second is a divine being)
  5. In a short paragraph, pretend you are in school and have just failed out, how do you tell your parents or supporter

22. Timing

Unfortunately enough, most of the resumes I trash get trashed because they come in at the wrong time.

A lot of people – frequently people both desperate and young – will turn in a resume to an establishment that isn’t actively hiring. I get that you want to work in this specific field, and I love that you love our company, but if I don’t have any need for extra personnel, I’m not going to be able to give you a job. The best you can hope for, if you absolutely wow me, is that I stick you in the fill-in folder. Furthermore, when we ARE hiring, you’re likely not going to notice or apply because, well, you’ve already applied at the wrong time.

23. No Social Media

I can’t find them on social media. – They are no longer interesting to me, and don’t seem like people I should invest my time thinking about. (I’m an IT Director, incidentally.) Thought Catalog Logo Mark

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