I was reading an article in the Financial Times the other day – yes, I still read the actual paper version, like a middle-aged man in corduroy in a cricket pavilion – about how the UK government is now using AI tools to help jobseekers write their CVs.
On the surface, it sounds efficient. Modern. Clever, even. But dig a little deeper and you’ll find we’re heading straight into a stormy sea of copy-paste content and personality‑vacuum prose. As Govind Balakrishnan, Senior Vice President at Adobe Express, put it so aptly,
“Everyone is dealing with a sea of sameness, where content… lacks individuality.”
And here lies the Humourology problem:
Everyone’s blending in – and worse, blanding out.
You see, AI doesn’t understand the wink. It can’t smuggle in a smile. It doesn’t know when a well-timed pun says more than a ten-point bullet list. It has no sense of rhythm, or irony, or what a hiring manager really means when they say they’re looking for a “dynamic team player.”
So, when AI helps you build a CV, it might correct your commas, but it also tends to suck the soul out of your sentences. The result? Dozens of nearly identical CVs, all describing “results-driven go-getters” who once “leveraged stakeholder alignment” to “drive impactful outcomes.”
Whatever T F that means.
At Humourology HQ, we believe that humour isn’t an afterthought – it’s an edge. It’s the difference between getting noticed and getting deleted. It’s what makes you sound like a human, not a slightly smug fridge.
So here’s how to write a CV the Humourology way: full of flair, funny bones and the confidence to show you’re not afraid of being you.
Three Humourology CV hacks:
- The mate test
Read your CV to a good friend in the pub. If they laugh, groan, or say, “That’s so you,” great. If they raise an eyebrow and say, “Did you copy this off LinkedIn?”—back to the drawing board. - Add one glorious zinger
Find a line in your CV and swap it for something only you could write. For instance: “I built spreadsheets so bright and well-organised they were shortlisted for the Turner Prize.” - Flaws with flavour
Instead of boring buzzwords like “perfectionist” or “detail‑oriented,” try: “Once tried to alphabetise a fruit bowl. Still hired.” It’s memorable, honest, and oddly impressive.
And how do you know this wasn’t written by AI?
Simple. No AI would go near the phrase “buttered otter” (and if it does, I want royalties). It’s also unlikely a bot would reference UK comedian James Acaster’s line about AI writing a decent CV but being rubbish at stand‑up – or US comedian Tiffany Haddish’s crack about needing a résumé coach for her résumé coach.
That’s the thing: humour is the ultimate Turing Test.
Final punchline from Humourology HQ
In a world of job-seeking robots, it’s your humanity that gets you hired.
Show some sparkle. A flicker of foolishness. A flash of you.
Because as we at Humourology HQ always say:
Don’t let your CV blend in, bland out… or, heaven forbid, bot(le) it.
See you next Tuesday.
Warmest,
Paul x
