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Putting a bitmoji on your resume might be the world's worst idea

Want to stay unemployed? Because that's how you stay unemployed.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
Gael Cooper
2 min read

Resumes are a necessary evil. But it's up to job applicants not to make them super evil. 

An article published Tuesday in The Wall Street Journal revealed that some job applicants are dressing up their applications with waaaaay too much non-business-related detail.

Bitmojis, in case you've managed to escape them so far, are cartoon avatars that can be customized to a thoroughly creepy level to resemble the person using them. "Create your Bitmoji and be yourself wherever you go," the company's site proclaims. 

And apparently some job hunters are adding the friendly little cartoons to their please-hire-me documentations, whether electronic or otherwise. The Journal's example is especially egregious: an applicant for a teaching job at the Indianapolis high school included a bitmoji of himself waving and the word "hi" at the top, quickly making himself the hey-get-a-load-of-THIS-guy story of the faculty room.

The Journal story went on to discuss other things job-seekers should stay away from (pastel colored resumes; moody -- or any -- photos; lists of random hobbies), but it was the bitmoji mention that took off.

"If I see a resume with a bitmoji on it, I will set it on fire," Sascha Segan, lead analyst for PCMag, wrote in a tweet.

But there was already some backlash to the bitmoji backlash.

"If I see a resume with a bitmoji on it, I'm going to keep reading because I wouldn't have made that decision and that tells me you might have some ideas I might not have," Russell Holly, an editor at Android Central, wrote.

Wrote another Twitter user, "I would 100% bring in someone with a bitmoji on their resume for an interview."  

But watch out, HR people. The Journal might have created a monster.

"I'm going to apply with a resume of only memes, and various emojis," one tweeter wrote. "You're welcome."

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