CULTURE

Job Applicant Who Put 'Googling' Under Skills on Resume Lands Interview

BY JACK BERESFORD ON 7/25/21 AT 12:21 PM EDT

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Ajob applicant who listed "googling" among the skills on his resume has sparked a lively debate on Twitter after landing an interview for the role.

Irish software developer Cat McGee first alerted social media to the man's unique resume/CV application in a Tweet posted on Friday, July 23.

"Got a CV today and the guy literally listed one of his skills as 'googling,'" she wrote.

"We're interviewing him."

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The post went viral, racking up more than 15,500 retweets and 182,000 likes as well as over 1,900 comments.

It also sparked off a big debate about the validity of including this kind of skill set in a professional job application.

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Shahzad asked: "I think you are being too hard on him. Does writing googling mean that he doesn't know anything ?"

Web developer Vince Aggrippino replied: "Yes. CV is where you put skills which are the most relevant and interesting for the role. Since everyone has "googling", it shouldn't be there any more than "English Alphabet".

"Putting it there means the candidate didn't have enough skills, so they filled the space with a joke."

Clare Tollick was taken aback at Aggrippino's answer.

"Are you for real?" she wrote. "My husband can't Google for s***. I'll ask him to look something up, get bored waiting, do it myself and still find the answer way before he does. And he's pretty intelligent... googling is a skill."

Coyote Toledo, a senior developer, countered: "Yes, but. Say your husband is bad at directions, and has to ask you how to get somewhere. Are you going to write 'basic navigation' on your professional resume?

He continued: "It's a basic skill. I wouldn't put "makes good omelets" on mine, but I can. They're really good."

Cameron Schultz responded: "Googling is actually an essential skill for any profession dealing with coding. If you ask colleagues how to write a block of code that is readily available on the internet they WILL give you a hard time."

Toledo fired back: "'Staying awake' is also an essential skill for a dev but if you write something that crazy basic on your resume I am going to have questions, like 'Why the hell would you list that?'"

Web developer Catalin Banu, meanwhile, defended the inclusion of googling as a skill.

"You would be surprised how many people can't properly google," he wrote.

"I am not talking about technical use of browser and google. I am talking about writing the proper keywords, excluding some or try and test different phrases."

Software engineer Sergio Solo agreed.

"Honestly I've worked with amazing engineers that can't google shit, once they get stuck they don't know how to unblock because they don't know how to google their problem," he said.

Edgardo Martinez replied: "Nevertheless, writing down "Googling" instead of "solution-oriented" talks a lot about their own conception of skills."

Felicity Parsons, however, disagreed.