Imagine the look on the face of the recruiter who had this resume cross his or her desk:

Charles Brown, recent marketing manager of a major company’s Great Pumpkin division.
Objective: Obtain role as marketing manager for a company that has the vision to create new products or platforms that are absurdly profitable while narrow in focus. Has led profit and loss, website management and cross-functional teams that drove sales of roughly $750 million.

But wait, there’s more:

The former field goal kicker and pitcher at an East Coast university also held positions for pizza and peanuts divisions, where he developed alliances with industry notables Schroeder and Linus. He also served as an intern at a Christmas tree farm in Woodstock, N.Y., where he managed other interns, Lucy, Marcie, Pigpen and Peppermint Patty.

Or how about another resume from security systems programmer Chris Kringle, administrative assistant Ted E. Bear or environmental technician Jack Coostow?

Of course, none of these are real people. But their resumes and applications for positions with Fortune 100 companies are.

Each has served as an application as part of a grand annual experiment, the “Mystery Job Seeker” report, conducted by recruitment strategy advisory CareerXroads.

The fictitious candidates, created by CareerXroads’ brass of Gerry Crispin and Mark Mehler, were put together to test the recruitment management systems and candidate experience of those considered the top companies to work for.

This year’s candidate was Charles Brown, and while some recruiters gave Brown a callback, most did not — despite the fact that his qualifications were tailored to be a nearly perfect match for the position with each company.

“The biggest surprise was just how slowly we’re making progress,” Crispin said, referencing the rate to which firms have improved their candidate experience.

Among the other notable blunders the report found: Even “the best” firms don’t provide enough information about the position and their corporate cultures; fail to make the application process user-friendly; besiege candidates with irrelevant questions; and require candidates to take 10 minutes or longer when applying for an opening. All are egregious missteps, according to Crispin.