OK boomer, time to stop botoxing your CV

Two new phrases have gripped the imaginations of the Personnel Today office this week: ‘calendar botoxing’ and ‘CV Tetris’. No … wait, it’s the other way round – ‘calendar Tetris’ and ‘CV botoxing’. Although I’m not sure it really matters.

It’s not immediately apparent what either term means. One sounds like a legit new phone game to distract you from your busy social life. The other sounds as if your resumé has been printed on specially plumped-up paper.

We tentatively credit HR firm Employment Hero with “CV botoxing”. They may have heard it from someone else, of course, but it certainly hasn’t gone viral yet.

Apparently, the phrase came about after research by the firm suggested that older workers were being squeezed out of the labour market and were turning to CV botoxing – “stripping years, dates and senior roles from their CVs – to appear younger and appealing to employers,” as the report states.

Employment Hero’s February jobs report found employment across small and medium-sized businesses increased 2% month-on-month in February, yet for baby boomers (people born in the 1950s and 1960s) employment rose by just 0.3%. The gap points to a jobs market that is moving ahead without some of its most experienced workers.

Personnel Today would, however, like to point out that boomers are getting older and many have retired, so their increasing scarcity in the workplace, welcome though it is, may not be too surprising. OK, boomer?

So what of “calendar Tetris”? Apparently, some people are scheduling unnecessary meetings in order to avoid work –including meetings that are completely nonexistent.

Peter Duris, AI career tool Kickresume’s CEO and co-founder, tells us: “If you’re often dragged into meetings that could have been an email, it can be very frustrating. Especially if you think someone might have scheduled it in order to procrastinate – they’re not just wasting their time, they’re wasting yours!”

Oh no, what a calamity, you may say. But the firm’s survey found that just 6% of workers are tempted to schedule fake meetings to make themselves look busier. After all, says Duris: “When working from home, there’s sometimes a bit of uncertainty about what everyone’s up to.”

However, he added: “It’s not unheard of for people to schedule ‘meetings’ with themselves over lunch, just to make sure they get a break.”

This sounds like boomer activity again… not only are these wily operators botoxing their CVs – and perhaps much else – but they are deploying Tetris skills in order to take a lunchtime nap.