Posted on 06/05/2014 10:20:51 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Hiring managers are less picky than they used to be, but misspellings and typos can still count against you. So can “creative” job titles.
It was bound to happen, now that millions of us are merrily texting and tweeting away. Job interviewers have become more tolerant of spelling mistakes and other errors on resumes than they used to be.
Consider: Only about 17% of hiring managers say they would toss a resume in the circular file if it had a single snafu in it, according to a new poll from staffing firm Accountemps. That’s a sharp drop from 40% who said they would five years ago, and 47% who said so in 2006. Some managers really don’t care whether you can spell or not. More than a quarter (27%) said they’d overlook three mistakes, up from just 7% five years ago.
Even so, it’s smart to proofread your CV carefully, or have a friend who’s a stickler for spelling take a look at it. Almost two-thirds (64%) of the hiring managers polled said they’d look askance at a candidate who let even a single mistake slip through.
“Attention to detail is required for most jobs, and a resume should showcase this skill, not detract from it,” notes Accountemps Chairman Max Messmer. He blames “the quick and casual nature of communication today” for the recent rise in resume blunders like these:
“My last employer fried me for no reason.”
“I am graduating this Maybe.”
“I am looking for my big brake.”
“Referees available upon request.”
“My talent will be very a parent when you see me work.”
“Objective: To accell in the accounting industry.”
“My 3 biggest hobbies are cars, golf, racquetball, and reading.”
“Work experience: Academic tudor.”
(Excerpt) Read more at fortune.com ...
The truth is, half the HR putzes reading these resumes can’t spell either. But they get to sit in judgment of their illiterate brethren.
More likely because the interviewers of today simply don't know any better - they don't recognize the mistakes for what they are.
The public school kids of yesterday are the middle managers today
You left out the best one:
“Earned a diploma from a very repudiated college.”
I’ll bet you did, young man...
I tossed resumes for even a single error, even if there was an MIT/Caltech/Stanford/Harvard/Yale degree on there. I did not want a low quality finished product to ever go out with my name on it. Not surprisingly, the people I hired under that standard did great work and many are now in business for themselves.
Really bad when an accountant doesn't know how to spell excel.
My ex-boss wld slip n2 twitterspeak and txtmsgs when she would become a lazy sod trying to send me an email/online text about something.
She’d also fly off the handle (not about typos but about precise word choice).
Anytime I say that texting bullsh*t, I’d realize that as a manager, she came off as a moron.
HR putzes don’t read resumes these days. They filter them for keywords.
True. Very true. And they have no clue about transferable skills and abilities.
A bunch of loosers ...
As an IT engineer with degrees in English and technical communication, this pains me.
It’s amazing how many dirtbags wind up in Human Resources...some of the nastiest people ever to crawl out of the pit. Control freaks, all...especially the women.
Just another example of lowering our standards even more. As an employer, why would you want to hire an illiterate, even one who makes “simple” mistakes? “Simple” mistakes can cost a company hundreds of thousands of $$$.
I teach a critical thinking class online for a college, where essentially every student is incapable of typing a paragraph in English with correct grammar and spelling. Since this college sells itself on student success in the workplace, last semester I posted a copy of one of the egregious messages posted the previous term, said that their messages often looked essentially the same, and then asked a simple question: would any of the students hire someone who wrote a resume like this? No one said s/he wouldn’t; a half dozen said they would, that there were some things more important than English.
Remember, these are students in a critical thinking course: if you are a native English speaker and cannot line up your words logically in English, you are incapable of critical thinking, and/or doing anything beyond grunt work.
How loose are they?
Very true ... HR is the occupational version of a “(Fill-in-the-Blank) Studies” course at any liberal arts college.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.