In theory, our CVs should be a straightforward reflection of our careers to date, listing jobs, qualifications, and any particularly important skills. Simple, right? But if the versions of ourselves laid out in these documents were to come to life, chances are we probably wouldn’t recognise them. Instead, they’d appear as awful Apprentice candidate doppelgangers, whose grandiose claims definitely wouldn’t pass a bulls**t detector test.
“Highly proficient” in Microsoft Excel? The last time you opened a spreadsheet was in a secondary school ICT suite running Windows 95. Can your rusty Spanish really be classed as business standard, unless your line of business involves ordering beers? And as for that “integral role in high-level negotiation”? Well, you sat in on a few Zoom calls. With your camera off. In silence. Somewhere along the line, getting a little bit, ahem, imaginative with your resumé became commonplace.
