# Worst Job Application EVER
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-job-application-ever/183811
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [June 23, 2003, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-job-application-ever/183811 "2003-06-23T17:14:13Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@istara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/istara)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2003, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-job-application-ever/183811/1 "2003-06-23T17:14:13Z")
Please find below arguably the worst application letter ever written in the history of employment.
The first point to make is that the company applied is:
(a) not a bank
(b) not even remotely connected to financial services
© a dotcom, so it would be piss easy to visit it and discover the above
> [@](#):
>
> **-----Original Message-----
> From: [THICK DIMWIT]** [mailto:[THICK DIMWIT]@hotmail.com]
> Sent: Mon 6/23/2003 2:50 PM
> To: istara@a\_company.com
> Cc:
> Subject: Ask for Job
> I send to you letter becausse I wold like to have a job in this bank.
>
> ```
> I'm [THICK DIMWIT] from UAE. I attach my CV and as u see. I have cerificate in computer Information and Processinf in Higher college of Technology. I study Businees organization,Computer applications, Gernal english, Datababase, Hardware, Network and help desk.I can use Mic, words, Excel, Access and power point. I have skills in Win 95,98, 2000. I can use intrnet and send email. I have workplacment in Abu Dhabi Chamber of commerce and Industry.
>
> I hope you read my letter and answer me very soon.**
>
> ```
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### Author:  [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2003, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-job-application-ever/183811/2 "2003-06-23T17:28:26Z")
my guess is someone for whom ENglish is not their native language.
but, I do have some other entries in the ‘worst ever’ category:
“Have you ever worked for this company before?” answer? “Know”.
and on another, they misspelled “VCR” while claiming to know how to fix them.
---
### Author:  [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2003, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-job-application-ever/183811/3 "2003-06-23T17:28:59Z")
> [@](#):
>
> I study Businees organization,Computer applications, **Gernal english** …
Yeah, right. _snort_
Bolding mine.
---
### Author:  [@Michael\_Ellis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_Ellis)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2003, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-job-application-ever/183811/4 "2003-06-23T17:29:16Z")
Did you check the letter for white powder? 😃
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### Author:  [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2003, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-job-application-ever/183811/5 "2003-06-23T17:37:08Z")
um, before y’all go really nutso, please review **istar’s** location, then compare it to the studies the person claims (“General English”, misspelling it), and I think you will agree that my assesment is correct. this person is learning English vs. native speaking.
However, I will also grant that for an application purpose, they really should have checked spelling etc.
However, let me point out that **my** examples were both done by people for whom English was as close to a native language as they got.
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### Author:  [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2003, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-job-application-ever/183811/6 "2003-06-23T17:43:48Z")
**Istara** , does this mean I don’t get the job?
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### Author:  [@Waverly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waverly)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2003, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-job-application-ever/183811/7 "2003-06-23T17:45:12Z")
I’ve seen this nonsense about being able to use Word, Excel, and MS Windows on resumes and applications often.
My response is always the same: "Great, so you have the computer skills of the average 5th grader. Convince me you can do _this job_.
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### Author:  [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2003, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-job-application-ever/183811/8 "2003-06-23T17:45:21Z")
They say they can use words. In the context, I’m assuming they’re referring to Microsoft Word, which unless you take steps to turn it off, has an over-active spellcheck that would certainly have filled the page with red squiggles.
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### Author:  [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2003, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-job-application-ever/183811/9 "2003-06-23T17:50:36Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Waverly \*
> \*\*I’ve seen this nonsense about being able to use Word, Excel, and MS Windows on resumes and applications often.
>
> My response is always the same: "Great, so you have the computer skills of the average 5th grader. Convince me you can do _this job_. \*\*
So, are you saying that one should **not** put MS Office under the Computer Skills heading? Every job listing I see has proficiency in at least one, but usually two or three, of these programs listed as job requirements.
---
### Author:  [@lno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lno)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2003, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-job-application-ever/183811/10 "2003-06-23T17:53:25Z")
Datababase. Is that an Oracacle product?
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### Author:  [@badmana](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/badmana)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2003, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-job-application-ever/183811/11 "2003-06-23T18:23:55Z")
They want a job at a bank and you dont’ work for a bank? Are you even remotely related, in any way, to anything that resembles a bank? Maybe the building looks like a bank? 😃
You should put WORD on a resume if you truely are good with Word. I used to support 95. I think people believe that being able to SAVE AS is a special skill.
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### Author:  [@istara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/istara)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2003, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-job-application-ever/183811/12 "2003-06-23T18:39:05Z")
Obviously English is not this person’s first language (the name was an Arabic one).
However: given this person is IT educated, they should know how to spell Internet (it’s the same word in Arabic).
Given this person knows MS Office they should be able to run a spell-check and grammar check.
And given this person claims to be so IT savvy, they should at least have bothered to visit our website and figure out it’s not a bank.
To be honest, I am starting to wonder if my email is on some bulk job-seeking spam list, the amount of wackos I get. I’m not even the appropriate person to contact in the company.
**badmana** - this particular company is a business news website. It’s very well known in the region, particularly in Dubai, and there is no way any sane or educated person could mistake it for a bank. Besides which, the website has an Arabic version, so if the person’s English was so bad they couldn’t work out what it was about, they could just click the Arabic link.
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### Author:  [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2003, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-job-application-ever/183811/13 "2003-06-23T18:43:19Z")
I once had a coworker in a secretarial position who claimed some computer knowledge. One day I caught her trying to delete various operating system files because she didn’t like them in those folders. She then asked if she could just move them to different folders instead. :smack:
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### Author:  [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2003, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-job-application-ever/183811/14 "2003-06-23T18:50:52Z")
**istara** (sorry for misspelling your name at first)\> I assumed you knew that the person wasn’t native English speaking. I also agree they should have used spell check (minimally). I was just trying to point out to the others there who seemed to miss the language issue.
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### Author:  [@istara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/istara)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2003, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-job-application-ever/183811/15 "2003-06-23T18:56:31Z")
**Ferret** - that’s the best ever! People like that should be given those kids-“computers” you buy in toy shops.
**wring** - no problem! I do feel sorry for the applicant, but it strikes me as such a lazy effort to find a job.
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### Author:  [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2003, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-job-application-ever/183811/16 "2003-06-23T18:58:52Z")
Not that bad, but irritated me. I am in my last week of my job, and we’ve been getting in resumes to fill my position. I handed one over to my boss and told him “don’t hire her, she doesn’t know how to use apostrophes.”
Yes, she had weird and extraneous apostrophes on a _resume_. For god’s sake! Thanks to Gaudere’s Law, I probably have some grammatical or spelling error in this post, but if I thought I might get a job out of it, I might, I don’t know…_proofread?_
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### Author:  [@Waverly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waverly)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2003, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-job-application-ever/183811/17 "2003-06-23T20:42:23Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by gobear \*
> \*\*So, are you saying that one should **not** put MS Office under the Computer Skills heading? Every job listing I see has proficiency in at least one, but usually two or three, of these programs listed as job requirements. \*\*
I would hope it is not necessary, and that such skills are understood to be a given, but I wouldn’t fault someone for including it under a _computer skills_ heading. The problem arises when someone applies for an engineering position and the lump sum of skills and experience they list are proficiency with operating systems and office suites.
---
### Author:  [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2003, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-job-application-ever/183811/18 "2003-06-23T21:14:35Z")
This seems like as good a spot as any: at an old job, my colleague and I, the most ridiculously overqualified admin assistants in the history of the company, were charged with screening resumes for an admin assistant for the company’s Moscow sales office.
There were hundreds of them; some were quite decent, and some were quite entertaining. I’m quite familiar with the typical English mistakes of native Russian speakers, but I just couldn’t get over the one resume that touted the applicant’s high level of “expertise in S&M.” We sure hoped she meant “Sales & Marketing,” because the thought of the Eastern Europe sales manager engaging in anything remotely sexual was just too repulsive for words.
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### Author:  [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2003, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-job-application-ever/183811/19 "2003-06-23T21:15:41Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Waverly \*
> \*\*I would hope it is not necessary, and that such skills are understood to be a given, but I wouldn’t fault someone for including it under a _computer skills_ heading. The problem arises when someone applies for an engineering position and the lump sum of skills and experience they list are proficiency with operating systems and office suites. \*\*
Ah. The thing is, I (theoretically, since I’m unemployed right now)work in the field of editing and writing corporate communications, and good computer skills are not a given among us liberal arts folks.
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### Author:  [@Waverly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waverly)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2003, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-job-application-ever/183811/20 "2003-06-23T21:23:54Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by gobear \*
> \*\*Ah. The thing is, I (theoretically, since I’m unemployed right now)work in the field of editing and writing corporate communications, and good computer skills are not a given among us liberal arts folks. \*\*
I’m bit limited by by my experience. I don’t run into people without computer skill often. When I see “I can use the internet and send email” I read it as “I have no skills, but would be happy to browse porn and chat with friends on your time.”
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