I didn’t loose anything.

mistakeI have to admit, spelling mistakes and typos really bother me. They bother me even more when I’m the one making the mistake in question since I pride myself on being someone who has a pretty good handle on these things. In that regard, if there are spelling mistakes, typos or grammatical errors on this site that I did not catch, I apologize. I tend to type faster than I think and have a bad habit of leaving out a word or two here or there so this is something I need to keep an eye out for.

Having said all of that, I don’t know how many times I’ve seen people type the word “loose” instead of “lose” and wonder what they were thinking ie. “How much money did you loose?” Even funnier is when I see someone referring to another person as a “looser.” I believe that’s irony right there.

Having already admitted that I do make my share of typos (sometimes when typing too quickly, I might type “they’re” when I actually meant “their” and trust me, I do know the difference) and yet for me, the red flags really go up when I see resumes with typos in them.

My first thought is “I guess this person hasn’t heard of the Spelling and Grammar” feature on Word. Some resumes I’ve seen are so beyond help, that I wanted to give up immediately if not for the fact I knew the person was a great candidate. Hey, other companies had hired them so why wouldn’t one of my clients want to do the same?

Perhaps it’s like when we hear about people graduating from high school without being able to read. Maybe every teacher they had said “the next teacher they have will help them learn to read” and then next thing you know, they’re graduating but can’t even spell “graduating.”

As a recruiter I’m torn when I read a resume with typos. I’m not a professional resume writer and neither are most other recruiters so they shouldn’t be expected to rewrite or proofread your resume. Once I sent a resume to a client as is, without doing a spell check first. Of course, this was the time when the resume in question had multiple spelling and grammatical errors and the hiring manager noticed right away. This person didn’t get an interview.

Moral of the story: Use the spell check feature on your word processor program before sending your resume, cover letter and other correspondence to people who can judge you based on your writing. If you’re not a strong writer, get help from someone who is. Use a professional resume writing service if needed.

If your writing is so bad that it might be costing you jobs or promotions, you might consider a writing course(s) or something else that will help you improve your writing.

You have nothing to loose.

I mean lose.

Tags: , ,