A lot of employers, hiring managers, and human resources staff agree that one of the top reasons they reject a candidate's resume is because it contains spelling mistakes. Spelling mistakes are an equal opportunity employer - we see them in resumes from folks with only a GED all the way up to people with a Doctorate, from folks looking for their first real job to candidates with decades of experience. HR folks periodically get newsletters highlighting some of the most glaring spelling errors and I thought I'd share one such "Top 20 List" (from the folks are Resumark.com) with you not so much to poke fun at these errors as to reinforce the importance of checking your resume, your cover letter, and application before hitting the SUBMIT button.
20. “I have a known track record and excellent experience with accurancy and fixing erors”
19. “Strong Work Ethic, Attention to Detail, Team Player, Attention to Detail”
18. “My experience include filing, billing, printing and coping”
17. “Demonstrated ability in multi-tasting.”
16. “My work ethics are impeachable.”
15. “I have nervous of steel.”
14. “I consistently tanked as top sales producer for new accounts.”
13. “I am a perfectionist and rarely if if ever forget details.”
12. “Dear Sir or Madman,”
11. “I can type without looking at thekeyboard.”
10. “Instrumental in ruining entire operation for a Midwest chain store.”
9. “I am anxious to use my exiting skills”
8. “Speak English and Spinach”
7. “I am a Notary Republic”
6. “I attended collage courses for minor public relations”
5. “Following is a grief overview of my skills.”
4. “I’m attacking my resume for you to review.”
3. “I am experienced in all faucets of accounting.”
2. “Hope to hear from you, shorty.”
And the most embarrassing one to finish off their list:
1. “Directed $25 million anal shipping and receiving operations.”
On a more serious note, the applicants who may have made these mistakes likely were on a computer and probably used the spell-checker.You may note that many of these errors are not truly
misspelled words so much as they are
misused words! For example, spell checkers would not catch the mistake of "all faucets of accounting" (which should have been "all facets of accounting").
The number one mistake I see on resumes is the misspelling of the word "manager". People routinely mis-type it as "manger" which is a perfectly good word and would not be caught by a spell checker. So a word to the wise, don't overly rely on the spell checker. Read your documents carefully yourself, and especially on your resume have as many other people read it as you can before sending it out to catch these simple mistakes. Otherwise what you right (or write!) may end up on someone's top 20 list!
One thing that always amazes me is the pressure people put on their resume. Over and over again this morning we explained that a resume has only one purpose - to get a recruiter, HR person, or manager to pick up the phone and say we'd like to meet you. The resume won't get you the job, but it does get your foot in the door. What is perhaps more important than the resume itself is getting it into the right person's hands and in our meetings with candidates this morning we couldn't emphasize enough the value of networking with everyone you know. There are lots of tools today that make networking easier, but it still takes old-fashioned w o r k! Numerous candidates told us they were on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and the like but when we asked what they were doing to actually network through these tools we only saw blank expressions. When we talked about actually staying in touch with contacts on a frequent basis, gaining additional contacts through friends of friends, joining groups, and volunteering in the community we saw the lights slowly come on. One of the folks we met with said it best - finding a job today is a harder job than the job most people are actually looking for. She was absolutely right! The power of these new tools is staggering, but people still need to do the work. For example, in LinkedIn I have 82 contacts. My 82 contacts have on average about 160 of their own contacts, which means that I have a potential network of 13,000 contacts of friends of friends. 2,000 new people have joined my network since yesterday! What a staggering resource, but clearly one that the folks we met with this morning are underutilizing.
