What employers think of the mistakes on your resume

Your professional documents should not have even a small typo in them. We always talk about how you must proofread your resume and cover letter several times to ensure they are absolutely error-free. A resume with multiple spelling, grammar, and formatting errors can say a lot about you and your work ethic to an employer. Do employers really throw away resumes with errors?

Yes, they do, but not because your language skills are bad. Employers don’t expect you to have perfect grammar and impeccable spelling on your resume. But if your resume misspells even the most common words, it will give the impression that you are careless. If you were a recruiter, would you want to hire a candidate who appeared careless?

Let’s see what employers really think about some of the most common resume mistakes.

Having misspelled words on your resume

It is very easy for a misspelled word to go unnoticed on your resume. When you type 350–400 words on a document, you are bound to get a typo or two. An employer wouldn’t think that you are unqualified to become a sales manager just because you misspelled “acheive.” But misspellings on your resume do show an employer that you don’t pay enough attention to detail. An employer would be far less concerned if you made a mistake on your resume. But they will be very concerned about the fact that you didn’t do a thorough proofreading of your resume before you sent it in. If your job involves noticing the small details, such as auditing or accounting, your lack of attention to detail will end up costing the company thousands of dollars. Here’s what you can do to spot spelling mistakes on your resume:

• Read your resume several times.
• Read it from the bottom upwards. This helps you notice more errors.
• Get a printout of the resume and proofread it.
• Ask a friend to proofread your resume.
• Use a spell and grammar checker tool.

Sending in a badly formatted resume

Formatting is everything when it comes to your resume. Use the wrong formatting tricks, and your achievements will be lost in the chaos forever. The right formatting will help your accomplishments stand out on the resume, where an interested employer can easily see them. If your resume has bad formatting, the employer will be concerned about the message you send out to the world about them if they hire you. What if you create a badly formatted project proposal for them that gets rejected at first glance? Could they really trust you to represent the company? Also, having bad formatting on your resume makes you seem like a lazy person. Always pay attention to the formatting of your resume before you send it out.

Including too much information on the resume

No one has the time to read a five-page resume. Today’s resumes are often one to three pages long. Two pages is an ideal resume length if you have several years of related experience. Employers don’t want you to include details of every single job you have had on your resume. They want you to select the very best information out of the related experience you have and summarize it for the resume. A too-long resume will show a recruiter that you lack the proper communication skills. They will have second thoughts about hiring a candidate who can’t express their ideas briefly. Always try to keep your resume short and concise, mentioning only the most relevant information.