Best Of

From the Thatcher auction linked above. I've looked up all the words and, no, still no idea.

Gombeen man = shady businessman wanting to be bribed by Heath, who has a whacking headache after drinking the koolaid poitin of talks with the Nationalists (and by implication the IRA), at Sunningdale, Berks. (Civil Service College),. which makes it 1973, I think. Or is that too early for Mrs T?

While Mrs T, Rev Paisley and someone I don't recognise - Mr Hume of the SDLP, or Mr Cosgrove the Taoiseach? - look on in consternation.

Edit: cxould be Barbara Castle.

Jim Prior not Ted Heath, I think. Prior was Mrs T's Northern Ireland Secretary.

ETA scooped by viewcode!

From the Thatcher auction linked above. I've looked up all the words and, no, still no idea.

Gombeen man = shady businessman wanting to be bribed by Heath, who has a whacking headache after drinking the koolaid poitin of talks with the Nationalists (and by implication the IRA), at Sunningdale, Berks. (Civil Service College),. which makes it 1973, I think. Or is that too early for Mrs T?

While Mrs T, Rev Paisley and someone I don't recognise - Mr Hume of the SDLP, or Mr Cosgrove the Taoiseach? - look on in consternation.

Edit: cxould be Barbara Castle.

A quarter of 18 - 25 year olds have exaggerated their CV.

Bit of a crap shoot employing them isn't it?

My CV stated that I'd played for the Cambridge University First Bridge Team. Which was both (a) true, and (b) deeply misleading.

It was the very last duplicate pairs match of the Cambridgeshire League, and (perhaps unsurprisingly) the Cambridge University First Team was miles ahead of everyone else. I was good friends with Tom Townsend (then the England Under 21 Bridge team captain), and he said "we're a man short, come along and play."

So I did. I played for Cambridge University First Bridge Team, and my partner was Tom Townsend.

It was a lot of fun, and I got to put it on my CV. If anyone asked, I told them the truth about what happened. But it was also - I suppose - enormously misleading, because I am a very average bridge player.

The suggestion by Michael Crick that she should resign is laughable. Focus pullers in the film business have been 'borrowing' ads forever so they could get a break working as a cameraman. Some I know have become super successful. It would be a bit harsh asking Ridley Scotts DOP to resign after lighting 'Gladiator' because he exaggerated his part in a Renault commercial

Shocking news that the entertainment industry is full of liars and bullshitters....

CV embellishment nowadays though is an inevitable consequence of shitty HR practices.

The sort of practices that demand 4 years of experience for an entry level job, or 10 years of a skill that didn't exist 5 years ago.

Plus the fact that it's all run through AI now before it ever reaches a human being, means you have to keyword stuff a CV like an old-timey SEO optimised web-page. I'm good with Spreadsheets, Microsoft Excel, Tables, Functions, Charts, Cell Editing, VBA scripting for Excel, Pivot Tables etc.

And if your job description doesn't PERFECTLY match the one you're applying for, you have to bend your previous job title (and keyword stuff accordingly) or you'll be rejected out of hand by the ATS before a human ever looks at your CV.

Instead of sending off a CV and cover letter to a real person who reads it, you now have a convoluted process that requires you to game the system just to get in front of a real person.

I've got through my career without lying on my CV.

But it's also the case that almost all the jobs I've got have been through personal reference/word of mouth, where they look at the CV after, not before.

Indeed. It is now utterly impossible to get through the ATS (automated tracking system) without gaming the system. There are now legions of consultants and CV re-writers who are paid top dollar to do this on your behalf. Essentially it's a form of SEO, and is also most necessary at the start of your career (when you're applying without a reputation in the industry or a senior job title).

I don't envy anyone starting out their careers now. Between the ridiculously convoluted ATS + HR screening rounds + competency tests (and random 'gamified' personality tests') plus 'video interviews' where the questions are pre-written and you have to record yourself giving the answer, it sucks to be a grad these days. Then when you finally get a job, there's no-one to mentor you because senior management is always WFH.