ISO 8601 and Iron Maiden

Some thoughts on CV oddities

I find reviewing CVs somewhat cathartic. On the one hand, I love to read about some of the achievements the candidates are particularly proud of; on the other, it is nice to take the occasional chunk of time out of my technical work to do something different. However, one of the things that brings me the most joy is when I read something sufficiently esoteric, geeky, or interesting on a CV that I want to hear more.

Obviously, I’m not going to share anything confidential. Instead, I’ll share a few thoughts of my own.

Iron Maiden

Quite a while ago now, a younger version of myself was en route from my family home in Surrey to Nottingham where I was studying. I stopped off in Hemel Hempstead for an interview for an internship, though in my youthful naivety, I must confess I did not realise it was an interview. The hiring manager had described it as: “Why don’t you pop in and we can have a chat?”

During this informal job interview, I was asked about my degree, my career aspirations, and many other standard interview questions. Near the end, the interviewer threw a curveball: “What is your favourite Iron Maiden song?”

Only missing half a beat, and probably projecting a slight air of confusion, I replied with “The Trooper”¹.

This odd question stems from the fact that this early iteration of my CV included the following line:

I enjoy listening to music, especially classic rock and metal. My favourite band would either be Metallica or Iron Maiden.

In a CV workshop at school or university, when asked how to write a CV if you have no work experience, someone had clearly responded with “put down some hobbies as well.” It transpired upon getting the job that I only got the interview due to the hiring manager’s intrigue that I had listed Iron Maiden on my CV. When advising students on their CV writing, this is an anecdote I usually share.

BBQ

Now, I don’t think it is fair as a CV reviewer to make hiring decisions solely on the basis of music taste (what if I was a Swiftie?). However, while humans still review CVs, it is natural to assume that the reader will act like a human. When faced with piles of CVs to review, an odd, random snippet of knowledge about a candidate is unlikely to harm. If it has any effect, it gives the reviewer a laugh and something to remember your CV by.

For this reason (and to show that I don’t take myself too seriously), I have a few esoteric snippets on my CV.

Firstly, I list a few of my hobbies: BBQ, miniature painting, etc. Why? For no particular reason other than the fact that it might give any potential reviewer or interviewer a chuckle.

Of course, they certainly play second fiddle to the standard experience and education, but they are there. Have I ever been asked in an interview what my favourite BBQ spread looks like? No. But if I were, it would strike up an interesting segment of small talk which would likely tell me and the interviewer far more about each other than the standard behavioural questions! And that is the other driving factor; despite the fact it would likely have no effect on any sane interview process, what is the harm?

ISO 8601

The other snippet of playfulness on my CV is my experience working to ISO 8601². This stems from a joke with colleagues about CV embellishments; how one might say “I worked at a pub”, while someone else might say “I worked directly with consumers in a high-pressure environment to close high-value transactions.” I joked that I should put ISO 8601 on my CV and see if it gets any comments.

For those of you fortunate enough not to know of ISO 8601, it is the internationally agreed standard format for writing dates, times, and generally all date-related data. It is, unfortunately, not a stretch to say that I have experience working to this standard, given the propensity for timezone-related bugs to crop up in software. However, the intent behind putting this on my CV isn’t to tell a hiring manager that I know the correct way to format datetime strings.

My rationale was this:

• I have a sense of humour (or at least I like to think I do).
• It is hopefully obvious that it is a joke.
• If a hiring manager sees it and likes it, it can’t do any harm.
• If a hiring manager sees it and dislikes it, they’re probably unlikely to like my (poor?) sense of humour anyway, so we’re just saving them the misfortune of interviewing me in the first place

I don’t know whether this will work - if you’re a potential hiring manager reading this who thinks this is a bad idea, please do reach out and let me know!

Thoughts

If you have reached the end of this ramble, I must apologise; it seems I have wasted about 4 minutes of your time. However, if you have got this far, I would recommend reading this last paragraph.

I know of no science that proclaims the benefits of putting a random snippet on your CV. That said, I highly doubt it can hurt. If you’re writing a CV any time soon, consider giving this a go. You never know; maybe you too can get an interview because you like Iron Maiden!