The best people for certain jobs may not have perfect résumés. Oh, sure, they’ll have the skills you need, but you might spot a “their” that should be “there” or vice versa. Many hiring managers reject such people on the spot. Research suggests that this may be a bad idea.
Typos are made because we’re so busy trying to convey meaning that we don’t always notice when we’ve made an error. We all know that it’s difficult to catch our own typos, but why is that? It’s because we already know what we mean, so our eyes read one thing but our brain translates it into the meaning that it already knows exists.
This, of course, means our readers have to extract our meaning without the benefit of being inside our head. Plus, they can’t see our facial expressions or hear our tone of voice as they can when we speak. This is why some people can give fantastic speeches and yet be awful writers.
To keep reading, click here: Why You should Hire People Who make Typos
I agree in principle that you shouldn’t refuse to work with someone just because they don’t write perfectly if you don’t need them to — especially given the fact that so many newly minted college grads didn’t learn how to write well as part of that expensive degree! Even though I work in the communications field, I am constantly amazed at how many people I work with who don’t have a solid grasp of grammar and spelling — and how many people can do good work in spite of that.
That being said, I *will* reject a resume with typos in it, and not just because I hire writers. It’s a marketing document, so I expect to see polish. If that means having a grammar- and spelling-savvy friend look over your resume, so be it. When I see typos, that makes me think, “A resume is the most polished document I am ever going to see out of this person; is his everyday work going to be sloppy?”
Eye egri dat sum pippl hoo mak misteaks r jus thinkin weigh fasder then there fingres kin tip on da kee bored. Day probably r weigh smahter then pippl hoo tip purfiktlee. Eyem hapy dat eye hav know tipos wen eye right.
Think yoo.
Typoglycemia?
That was me with an attempt at tongue in cheek humor. Seriously, my brain whips so fast that my first drafts don’t look much different than what you see above but I get my thoughts down and can polish both the idea and the presentation of that idea later. I agree with stellavision that your resume is the most polished document you will probably ever produce and if you read and reread it many times over time, as you should, then you will find nuances that were not apparent before. Also people (or is that pippl?) please get several others to critique your resume because they will see things in ways you don’t and will pick up things you become blind to. If you can’t write your resume correctly then what hope do I, as an employer or manager, have to expect future work product of even higher quality?