We’ve all heard the stories about job interviews gone wrong, like the eager young applicant¹ who brought a sandwich to the interview, because, after all, it was lunch time.

But a candidate’s first impression begins long before the interview. It starts with cover letter and CV or resume, which often are far from blemish-free.

BBC Capital asked recruiters, hiring managers, and career coaches to share some of the most egregious² errors they see in applications — and how to fix them.

I can’t take a gamble on someone who can’t follow the first instructions I give. — Emily LaRusch

Cut and paste isn’t your friend

Matthew Lanier, a Boston-based corporate³ recruiter at technology staffing firm Eliassen Group, recalls the resume of an applicant in her twenties, who had mostly retail⁴ and customer-service experience. So he was surprised when lower down on the CV, he found an executive-level position with a major finance company and dates of employment spanning almost 10 years. Turns out the applicant had searched professional-looking resumes online, found one she really liked, and cut and pasted her own experiences over it. But, she mistakenly left some of the other person’s work history and personal contact information on the document.

“You have to assume that your entire resume will be looked at prior to being contacted, and that a careless mistake could be the difference between getting the job you want or being passed over,” wrote Lanier in an email.

There’s also another important reason to take the extra time—you can more easily support your story in interviews, according to Lanier.

“There is a huge difference between the candidate who can naturally apply their experience to the questions being asked of them versus⁵ one who is looking down at their resume for every answer,” he said.

Toss the form letter

When Ed Zitron, founder⁶ of EZPR, a public relations firm in San Francisco, listed an opening for a paid intern⁷ on InternMatch.com, he received more than 100 applications. Not one contained a personal cover letter.

“Every single one was a form letter, clearly copied and pasted,” said Zitron by email. Worse, almost none of the applicants⁸ even bothered to “put my name, or the firm's name, anywhere in the body” of the cover letter.

“I'm so easy to Google: you type my name in, there's my Twitter, there's my personal and my professional website,” Zitron said. “Getting even the most basic facts… is easy.”

His advice: Don’t send a generic⁹ cover letter, ever. Instead, share a bit of who you are and how that might relate to the position for which you are applying. Spend a few minutes Googling the firm. If you have a contact’s name, Google that person, too.

Be selective

Executive career coach Irene McConnell has clients who tell her they apply to more than 100 jobs per week. This is a big mistake, according to the director of Sydney-based Arielle Careers.

“The recruiters remember your name and begin to associate it with ‘that dude/gal who spams me every time I put a job ad up’,” McConnell said.

Think of it like a house that’s on the market for too long. You start wondering what’s wrong with it and why it won’t sell.

Don’t think recruiters don’t know which applications have made the rounds. Some tell-tale signs: a resume and cover letter that are completely non-aligned, the wrong recruiter's name or an incorrect role of interest, according to McConnell. The recruiting world is a lot smaller than you might think.

“If you damage your reputation in the eyes of recruiters, it will be more difficult to get a call back even when you put a thought-through application in,” McConnell said.

Keep photos to yourself

Roy Cohen, a New York-based veteran career counsellor and executive coach, remembers when a new client included an image of herself in a bikini in her application packet.

She had come to him for job search advice and strategy because she was frustrated¹⁰ that she wasn’t getting beyond the first round or getting many interviews.

“In advance of our first session, I asked her to provide me with a little background, a resume, and a sample cover letter,” said Cohen in an email. “That's how I discovered her very wrong approach.”

She wanted to work in marketing¹¹ for a hedge fund and told Cohen that she knew that hedge funds typically hired "babes,” so she thought the photo might give her the upper hand.

While it is quite common in Europe to include a photo of oneself when applying for jobs – and sometimes it is even requested by companies – it is not expected and is often frowned upon in the US. Even where it is expected, keep it professional and current.

Cohen counselled his client against the use of the photo, not just for its inappropriateness but also because it was quite dated. “Imagine the awkwardness when you discover that a candidate has misrepresented the facts. In this case, by submitting a photo that is 10 plus years old,” said Cohen. “In addition to feeling like a ‘bait and switch’ occurred, interviewers are likely to wonder if the candidate is delusional¹² or simply prone¹³ to lying.”

Shikha Arora, senior recruiter with SAP Asia, who is based in Singapore, has had other photo issues. “I received [an] application from an experienced professional from Hong Kong. The file size was 14 MB and I was taken aback to see more than 10 pictures shared in the document,” she wrote in an email. Some of the images were of the applicant receiving rewards and other showed him doing a favourite hobby.

“In my opinion, not the best way to tell and sell your story,” she said.

Follow instructions

Emily LaRusch, founder of Phoenix¹⁴-based virtual receptionist services firm Back Office Betties, likes to test applicants’ attention to detail right from the start. Recently, she included in a job posting two straightforward¹⁵ instructions and a mention that anyone who didn’t apply as instructed wouldn’t be considered.

She received more than 30 applications in two days; only three people followed the instructions, and only one of them had a good command of English grammar. She is the only one who LaRusch is even considering for the post.

“This is supposed to be where applicants put their best foot forward, so I can’t take a gamble on someone who can’t follow the first instructions I give,” said LaRusch.

Don’t be too sure of yourself

Amy Silverman, managing editor of Phoenix New Times, recently advertised a food critic opening on the newspaper’s food blog. What she quickly learned: “Everyone eats so everyone feels like they could make a great food critic.”

More troubling, Silverman found that a lot of people out there don’t take the application process very seriously. Whether it’s refusing to submit a resume or making up excuses, she’s seen it all. As one applicant put it, "I don’t have a resume. I’m a business owner and, quite frankly¹⁶, have complete disregard for resumes. They’re snapshots of what a person wants you to know, not a synopsis¹⁷ of who a person really is. That type of understanding can only be gained through interaction."

Needless to say, Silverman didn’t give the applicant a second glance. Another applicant talked about “wetting” one’s appetite and another who mentioned her own “little to none experience in food.”

Her advice: “If you want a job writing, don’t send a cover letter with typos and grammar errors.”

我们都听过面试失败的案例，比如一个青年应聘者觉得午餐时间到了，兴冲冲地抓着一个三明治就去面试了。

事实上，应聘者的第一印象早在面试前就形成了。一封求职信、一份简历都会是敲门砖，而这往往又是错漏百出的环节。

BBC Capital咨询了招聘人员、招聘主管以及职业生涯教练，让他们说说自己见到的简历中最离谱的错误——以及如何补救。

以下是记者伊丽莎白·加隆（Elizabeth Garone）撰文报道。

我可不敢雇佣一个连我第一条规定都做不到的人——艾米丽·拉鲁希

复制粘贴？不！

来自波士顿技术人员配备公司伊莱亚森集团（Eliassen Group）的招聘人员马修·拉尼尔（Matthew Lanier）想起他看过的一份简历。应聘者年纪尚浅，二十多岁，却拥有着零售和客服方面丰富的经验。让他大吃一惊的是，继续往下看，却发现简历上印着一家大金融公司的行政岗，应聘日期几乎有十年之久。原来，求职者在网上搜了一份看上去很专业的简历，觉得挺满意，就把自己的经历剪切上去。但是，她忘了把别人的工作经历和联系方式删去了。

拉尼尔在邮件中写到：“你要想，在收到面试通知前，你的简历是会被仔细考量的，而这种低级错误可能决定了你是否能得到工作。”

拉尼尔还说，在简历上多花点时间还有一个重要原因——在面试时，你要对自己的工作经历对答如流。

拉尼尔表示：“能轻轻松松用工作经历回答面试问题的，和那些问一句，看一眼简历的人真的差很多。”

扔掉千篇一律的模板吧！

旧金山公关公司EZPR的创始人艾德·基特隆（Ed Zitron）在实习生求职网（InternMatch.com）上发布了一个带薪实习岗后，收到了一百多份简历，但竟没有一份附有求职信。

基特隆在邮件中说道：“每份简历长得都一样，全是复制粘贴，”更糟糕的是，几乎没人想着要把“我的名字，或是公司名写在求职信上”。

基特隆说道：“在谷歌上搜我易如反掌：你输入我的名字，我的推特、个人和专业网站就都出来了。就连想了解一下我的基本信息也是……小菜一碟。”

基特隆的建议是：绝对不要用千篇一律的求职信。你要做的，是简单介绍一下自己，以及这和你所申请的岗位有什么关系。花点时间搜索一下公司。如果你有联系人姓名，也搜索了解一下。

要有针对性

行政人员教练艾琳·麦康奈尔（Irene McConnell）说，有的客户表示，他们每周会投100多份简历。而据悉尼Arielle Careers公司的主管所言，这可是求职大忌。

麦康奈尔说道：“招聘人员会记住你的名字，然后觉得‘怎么我每放个招聘广告，这人都来，”。

联想一下那些市面上总卖不出去的房子。你会觉得，这房子到底有什么蹊跷，怎么总卖不出去。

麦康奈尔表示，不要觉得招聘人员看不出谁是费了心思，谁是随便投的。一些细节问题往往出卖了你：简历和求职信的格式七歪八扭，招聘人员的名字写错的，又或是应聘岗位填错了的。招聘圈子没你想得那么大。

麦康奈尔表示：“如果你在招聘人员那里把名声搞臭了。即使你以后再投一份精心准备的简历，想要重获岗位恐怕也是难上加难。”

照片就自己留着吧，别贴了！

来自纽约的资深职业顾问兼行政人员教练罗伊·科恩（Roy Cohen）表示，他最近的一个客户在自己的求职文件中放了一张自己的比基尼照。

她来向科恩咨询求职建议和策略，是因为她总是第一轮面试就被刷了，或者根本是石沉大海，杳无音讯，为此她很沮丧。

科恩在邮件中写道：“在我们见面前，我让她先给我些背景资料、一份简历和求职信。我就这样发现了她的天大错误。”

她想应聘市场营销部门，负责对冲基金。她还说，对冲基金一般要的是“美女”，所以她觉得照片能给她更胜一筹。

虽说往简历里附照片在欧洲还挺正常的——有时还是应聘公司的硬性规定——但在美国可没这种习惯，甚至有时还会招致反感。就算有的公司要你附上照片，也要记得贴一张正式的个人近照。

科恩建议那位顾客不要放照片了，不仅因为这不合适，还因为照片看上去也过时了。科恩说道：“想想吧，如果你发现应聘者扭曲了事实，会有多尴尬。就这件事来说，那位顾客是附上了一张看上去老十岁的照片，”科恩还表示：“除了有一种‘诱导转向法’之感，面试人员可能还会觉得，这个求职者是不是有点妄想症啊，还是本身就爱撒谎。”

来自新加坡的SAP Asia资深招聘人员施凯·阿罗拉（Shikha Arora）对照片一事也有话说。她在邮件中写到：“我收到过一份香港的简历，应聘人看上去是经验丰富的专业人士。但他传的文件居然有14MB那么大。看到里面十多张照片，我真是吓到了。”有的照片是应聘者的获奖照片，有的是关于他个人爱好的。

阿罗拉表示：“我不觉得这是推销自己的好方法。”

说什么，做什么

来自凤凰城虚拟前台服务公司Back Office Betties的艾米丽·拉鲁希（Emily LaRusch）表示，她喜欢从一开始就考察应聘者对细节注不注意。在最近的一次岗位招聘中，她清楚地写明了两条注意事项，还提醒应聘者，凡不符合格式要求的，将不予以考虑。

短短两天，她就收到了三十多份简历，但只有三个人按她要求做了，而仅有一人英语语法掌握得不错。这也是唯一一个拉鲁希考虑的人选。

拉鲁希说道：“这本该是求职者最用心的环节。我可不敢用连我的第一步要求都做不到的人。”

别自视过高

凤凰城新时代》（Phoenix New Times）的主编艾米·西尔弗曼（Amy Silverman）最近在该报的美食博客上公开招聘美食评论家。但她很快发现一个问题：“会吃饭的人都觉得自己能成为一个美食评论家。”

更让人忧心的是，西尔弗曼发现，许多人不把应聘程序当回事儿。不管是拒交简历的，还是编造借口的，她都见识过。有个应聘者直接说：“我没简历。我是个生意人，说实话，我觉得简历根本没用。简历上都是对方想让你看到的，而不是这个人的真实概况。要想较为全面地了解一个人，只能通过亲身接触。”

不用说，西尔弗曼肯定没再考虑那位应聘者。另一位应聘者说起自己“破坏”他人食欲经历，还有一位求职者甚至提到自己“对美食几乎是一无所知”。

西尔弗曼的建议是：“如果你想找个文书岗。记住，求职信上不要出现拼写和语法错误。”