People typically hire people they like and people that are interesting to them.

In 1993 I was the esteemed Long Island Women’s Table Tennis Champ. Okay so I didn’t have to beat as many women as the guy who won the men’s title, but stick with me here.

In 1994 I discovered that I was tired of sales and ready to make a career change to human resources. I faxed about 10 resumes in response to the NY Times ads I found (for those of you Gen-Y-ers, a fax machine is a telecommunications device used to transfer facsimiles of documents over the telephone network). Anywho…I ended up getting called by the head of Human Resources for one of the 10 companies that I responded to. The person who hired me said that he decided to call me, despite the fact that I had very little experience, because he wanted to meet the woman crowned Table Tennis Champ. True story, I promise.

So, if you have any interesting hobbies that you think are not all that important, think again, and then list them on your resume. Avoid things like bug collecting or cabbage patch doll hairstyling or frog dissecting for obvious reasons. Think twice about hobbies that indicate your religious, sports or political affiliations because they may encourage a hiring manager to move to the next candidate if they have an opposing opinion. Avoid putting sentences such as this one in your cover letter, “In my spare time between campaigning for Dan Quayle, I helped get my Catholic Church Yankee tickets.