You have to also be worthy of a job. Just being a human being is not enough. You must be a trustworthy human being.
The socialists and gullible among us always speak about the unemployed as diligent, honest, earnest people who just want to support their families once they are given a chance. Many of them fit this description, but it is neither fair nor just nor ethical to eliminate incentives for those who do not to change their ways, eliminate toxic life style choices, learn ethical values, become responsible, and to stop expecting to be given what they haven’t earned. Bernie Sanders-like rhetoric about how there is a “right” to a job is either pandering (dishonest) or deluded (incompetent and irresponsible.). There is no right to a job. There is a right to exercise one’s rights in such a way as to make one unworthy of a job, and to suffer the consequences.
Careerbuilder currently features an article called “Avoid These Resume Mistakes.” Most of the advice is standard fare, but it includes these “résumé mistakes” reported by employers. These are not really mistakes, but graphic proof of corruption, laziness and idiocy:
- Applicant claimed to be a former CEO of the company to which they were applying.
- Applicant claimed to be fluent in two languages – one of which was pig Latin.
- Applicant wrote “whorehouse” instead of “warehouse” when listing work history.
- Applicant’s personal website linked to a porn site.
- Applicant introduced himself [in the cover letter] by saying “Hey you.”
- Applicant vying for a customer service position gave “didn’t like dealing with angry customers” as the reason for leaving her last job.
- User name of applicant’s email address was “2poopy4mypants.”
- Applicant claimed to be a Nobel Prize winner.
- Applicant claimed to have worked in a jail when they were really in there serving time.
- Applicant who claimed to be HVAC certified later asked the hiring manager what “HVAC” meant.
- Applicant said to have gotten fired “on accident.”
- Applicant claimed to have attended a college that didn’t exist.
- Applicant for a driver position claimed to have 10 years of experience but had only had a driver’s license for four years.
- Applicant listed as a reference an employer from whom they had embezzled money and had an arrest warrant out for the applicant.
- Applicant’s stated job history had him in three different companies and three different cities simultaneously.
A job applicant who includes such items on a résumé doesn’t deserve a job and has no right to one. The way to teach that, other than to rebut hallucinating ideologues like Sen. Sanders, is to reject such applicants and encourage them to reform by doing so. It is unethical to require any responsible citizen to pay for the right of an American to render themselves incapable of earning an honest living, and to be too untrustworthy for a responsible employer to hire.
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Pointer: Fark
Ethics Alarms 
My cynical side says including “whorehouse” as part of your work experience just might get you a job in government or some corporations.
Secret Service comes to mind.
Keyboard!!!!
“Your resume says that you have experience ‘sorting and tracking units at a whorehouse’. Now, I’m not familiar with the workplace culture there, but isn’t calling them ‘units’ a little impersonal?”
I’m losing keyboards from coffee spurting out of my nose like crazy today….
I can empathize with the ‘whorehouse’ mistake. It’s easy to make typos that you then can’t spot, even when you’re proofreading. If it were the only typo on a resume I was considering, I might ignore it.
All the others, though… The best I can say of them is that they saved the employers from bad employees.
I’ll second that. If this was for blue collar work that didn’t involve written communication as part of the job, it doesn’t seem like a showstopper.
“Applicant’s personal website linked to a porn site.”
That seems a bit intrusive unless it’s for some kind of “face of the company” position. And before you respond, I’d like to point out that you and I both run websites that have links to porn sites.
Point taken. Although I think more details on the resume in question would show that it is materially different. True, I also have a links to Chimpmania, but nobody would mistake the intent of that, either.
I’m taking your word for it, but I can’t for the life of me think what the porn site linked to here would be. Unless you mean Salon.
There’s one at the end of this post:
https://ethicsalarms.com/2010/08/08/porn-finding-ethics-in-the-strangest-places/
For all I know, that’s the only one. But by the nature of this blog, you link to a lot of unsavory stuff.
I love that post! And had completely forgotten about it!
Jack, Jack, Jack. The applicant who claimed to have worked in jail while they were in jail did nothing wrong. They were probably stamping license plates or something. No problem there. I’m sure Charles will correct you on this.
And remember, this applicant surely shouldn’t have been in jail in the first place. They were doubtless over incarcerated. So, hiring this person is actually public duty.
Hahahahahaha.
(I love “over incarceration.” Reminds me of saying “I was over served” instead of “I drank too much.”)
This one could literally be true. This area is within five minutes’ drive of three cities.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/33%C2%B052'35.7%22N+118%C2%B008'33.6%22W/@33.876583,-118.142658,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0
Actually, Im in the exact situation currently (3 current jobs, in 3 cities).
Job 1) Teaching 2 days a week at a private school in Baltimore
Job 2) Working from home for a non profit, based in D.C.
Job 3) Working at remote sites, for another non profit, based in Silver Spring, MD
Sometimes it comes down to a matter of creative job description. Senior sales representative for a commercial recreational enterprise sounds a lot better than Numba One Pimp for Eliza’s Cathouse on the N’Awlins dockside, y’all.
In fact, my own resume includes a mention of doing “professional singing” for a government client. It is literally true: in the course of testing a network-based telephone system, I needed to “generate some data” while another engineer and I observed the network and confirmed that the data packets were being properly marked and routed. Since I needed to do this for a few minutes at a time, I sang some songs over the telephone . . . and was paid to do so.
I have that little offhand line planted there deliberately as a test to see if recruiters actually READ resumes. To my extreme disappointment, not one single recruiter has ever asked me about it in the roughly 3 years the line has been there.
–Dwayne
With parents and schools failing our children at an alarming rate, perhaps this list presented as non-threatening, but ridiculous mistakes is the last guard between naive job seekers and career stunting resume shenanigans.