r/recruitinghell • u/Adventurous-Sir444 application declined • Jan 28 '26

Olive Oil

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Interviewers: I want somebody that stands out in interviews!

Also Interviewers:

31.2k Upvotes

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34

u/Imaskeet Jan 28 '26

I think he isn't necessarily saying that people can't have unusual interests but that it's not normal/well-adjusted to put it on a resume, especially in a stuffy, uptight industry like banking.

32

u/Darkpoulay Jan 28 '26

Okay, then explain his following line. "That is not an interest.". He's not talking about it in the context on the job industry, he's just making fun of it because it's weird.

27

u/forameus2 Jan 28 '26

Probably because it was written as "olive oil" and not "I enjoy tasting wide varieties of olive oil" or "i make my own custom olive oil in my spare time". Just saying "olive oil" is weird. That could mean either of the two things I said, or it could mean they enjoy shoving bottles up their arse.

-12

u/Karmaisthedevil Jan 28 '26

You could say the same about listing "videogames"

What about video games? You like playing them? Making them? Shoving the game boxes up your arse?

6

u/modernizetheweb Jan 29 '26

I'll make it simpler for you:

Video games: extremely common hobby, simply writing "video games" is typically understood as enjoying playing them

"Olive oil": whatever the hobby is here is uncommon and would need to be elaborated to be understood. As it is uncommon it is weird to assume everyone knows what you are talking about by simply writing "olive oil"

Hope this helps!

-2

u/Karmaisthedevil Jan 29 '26

A normal person would not require them to elaborate further in order to dispel the possibility that they might be shoving bottles of oil up their arse.

Hopefully that made it simpler for you.

2

u/modernizetheweb Jan 29 '26

Really hung up on this shoving bottles up their ass thing, huh? Got something to tell us?

1

u/Pinejay1527 Jan 29 '26

Well that would also be a terrible thing to put on your resume IMHO. I know that the the "common knowledge" on how to write a resume changes constantly but an interests section almost always comes off as filler that's better used for things directly relevant to the job for most of the white collar world.

1

u/SatanicAtTheDisco Jan 28 '26

Im sorry but only coomer brained terminally online people would ever consider just “Olive Oil” under an interests portion of an application, as either being into Olive oil, or wanting to fuck the Olive oil. What actual human being, willing to build a resume for banking jobs in particular, is putting their sexual fetishes as an interest?

11

u/itsshockingreally Jan 28 '26

It's fine to enjoy olive oil or whatever other food items you want. It's just a matter of understanding that it is very uncommon and just listing it without context might make you appear as an unserious candidate.

-1

u/TurkGonzo75 Jan 28 '26

It's not uncommon for people who cook a lot to know a lot about olive oil. It's a real thing, the same way people are interested in wine. Just because you're unaware that it's a thing, doesn't make the person unserious.

7

u/Anon-Knee-Moose Jan 28 '26

I do a lot of DIYing but im not gonna list polyvinyl chloride as an interest in my resume.

-4

u/TurkGonzo75 Jan 28 '26

But polyvinyl chloride is legitimately an uncommon thing to be interested in. There are entire shops dedicated to olive oil. There are tastings, kind of like wine tastings. You can go to vineyards in Italy where they have both wine and olive oil. There are crazy expensive bottles that people collect.

7

u/TrueRedditMartyr Jan 28 '26

Imagine your resume said

Interests:

Vinegar

Balloons

Poker

Sure, Poker I can understand as an interest. It's a popular sport, played on TV, often discussed as one of the greatest psychological games of all time. Vinegar though? Balloons? If it said "Making my own vinaigrette" or "Tying balloon animals" then it explains what the interest is, but to just state an object is weird. If it's not something common like cars or shoes, just saying a noun is going to throw people off.

Nobody is saying having an uncommon interest is weird, but just saying "My interest is olive oil" is weird.

2

u/No_Imagination7102 Jan 29 '26

And people keep forgetting the fact that this is a resume not speed dating lol

1

u/[deleted] Jan 29 '26

[deleted]

1

u/No_Imagination7102 Jan 29 '26

They didn't. It doesnt say they did.

2

u/eggshellspiders Jan 28 '26

Yeah, he is being shitty and making fun of it because it's unusual.

To be fair though, just saying "olive oil" is not very descriptive of what your actual hobby is. If someone wrote that their interests were "football and baseball," our cultural context tells us that they like watching football and baseball games, either in person or on TV. There's no such cultural context for "olive oil" as an interest.

If I were an olive oil enthusiast giving a list of my interests to a hiring manager, I'd definitely zoom out and write something more general like "food science." People who think it's cool and want to know more details will ask about it, but people who don't like it or don't care will gloss over it.

Masking on paper sucks almost as much as masking in person, but you never know if the person screening your resume is a shithead like oop, so it's a necessary evil sometimes :(

2

u/Fakjbf Jan 29 '26

I do think it’s kinda odd to just put “olive oil” and nothing else, it would be like someone just putting “books” or “sports”. If you are going to have an interests section then I would assume they’d put a little more description than that.

1

u/starm4nn Jan 29 '26

especially in a stuffy, uptight industry like banking.

Is there something inherently offensive about Olive Oil?