Name: Marathon times.
Age: Two and a half thousand years.
Appearance: Not as important as you think.
But I ran a marathon! That’s amazing! Yes, it’s very good, well done. But who are you telling about it?
My friends and family. OK, that’s allowable.
And also all of my prospective employers. Pardon?
I put my marathon time on my CV. Oh no, not you as well. Why is everyone doing this all of a sudden?
I’m not alone? Unfortunately not. Enough people are listing their fitness achievements on their résumés for the Wall Street Journal to have written a trend piece about it.
Good for them. No, not good for them. It’s weird. Unless the job you’re applying for is professional marathon runner, why would anyone care?
Because it shows that I’m a resilient self-starter. No, it shows that you’re going to spend your whole time in the office banging on about how you ran a marathon once. And then everyone in the office will hate me for hiring such a relentless bore.
So I can’t say anything about myself at all? There is a strong argument for adding personal skills to a CV, but only if those skills are pertinent to the role in question. If it’s international, mention that you speak multiple languages. If it requires an element of performance, say that you enjoy acting.
I’m applying to be a recruitment consultant. A job that does not require people to run 26 miles as quickly as they can. Now, if you’ve got some insider information on the person doing the hiring, and you know that they have also run marathons in the past, then mentioning it on your CV might just nudge you closer to an interview. But if they haven’t, don’t. You never know – they might hate marathon runners.
Who on earth hates marathon runners? Everyone on Earth who isn’t a marathon runner. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
What else shouldn’t I include? Anything that isn’t relevant. A woman recently went viral on TikTok because she’d been sent a CV from a gen Z applicant who wanted her to know that she was having a brat summer.
Oh, interesting. Wait – are you deleting “brat summer” from your CV as we speak?
I thought it was important! You will die unemployed.
Do say: “Only include relevant information on your CV.”
Don’t say: “We will not be inviting you to interview at this time, Pheidippides.”
