Common Resume Mistakes to Avoid

When you’re writing a resume, appearances are important.

Spelling mistakes may not cost you the job but if your resume gets in front of a hiring manager on a bad day, it’s possible a spelling mistake could take you out of the running before you’ve had a chance to be considered for your talent, skills and experience.

Here’s a few common resume mistakes we see too much of.

• Affect/Effect – You can affect results or make changes to get a desired effect.

• Personal/Personnel – You can look for personal growth or be an appreciated member of the company’s personnel.

• Ensured/Insured – You can ensure client satisfaction. You can only insure something if you work in insurance.

• Necessary – Not neccesary or neccessary.

• Guarantee/Guaranty – You can guarantee a product or service. A guaranty is generally only used in loan terminology.

• Paid/Payed – You are paid a salary. You are not payed anything because that’s not a word.

• Separate – Not seperate.

• Definitely – Not definately. And definitely never “defiantly”.

• Receive – Not recieve. This is just one of many words that inspired the rhyme “i before e except after c”.

• There/They’re/Their – They’re over there waiting for their interviews.

• To/Two/Too – Two more candidates are applying to that company, too.

We also see a surprising number of grammar mistakes like the following.

• Apostrophe Use – Ensure you’re using apostrophes correctly in both contractions (like you’re) and possessives, as in: Your boss’ secretary’s cat’s not welcome in the office. In addition, make sure you’re not adding them to other words unnecessarily, like: I was one of the best employee’s.

• Capitalization – Some people use capitalization on important words in their resumes even when it’s grammatically incorrect. Remember only to capitalize names or titles.

• Changing Tenses – Most resumes are written in part tense. Keep this consistent. For example, avoid sentences like: When I was at Acme, I had been looked over for several promotions. This would correctly read: When I was at Acme, I was looked over for several promotions.

To avoid mistakes on your resume, follow these tips in addition to using your trusty spellcheck:

• Proofread several times. You may not catch everything yourself but it has to start with you.
• Ask others to proofread it. You should probably ask coworkers, friends, or family to look over your resume for more than just spelling errors but it’s a good idea to remind them to keep an eye out for mistakes.
• Bookmark this blog post so you can easily find it next time you’re working on your resume.