Talk About Shooting Yourself in the Foot!!

You’re looking for a job. You update your resume and send it off. After you’ve emailed out about 50 copies, you notice that in your “public service position” – the most recent employment – you left out the “l” of the word public. Oops! Won’t get hired by any of those employers, now, will you?

Too often, job seekers will ask a friend to look at their resume, but the problem is that those elusive errors that slip right by us jump up and bite the HR professional in the nose. How about items on the skills list that are repeated, such as:
· Strong work ethic
· Attention to detail
· Team player
· Self motivated
· Attention to detail
This is just sad. Some human resources people will call regarding this resume and give a heads-up that something is wrong, but most won’t. They will just file it in the round file, and the applicant will never hear why.

There are people who have transposed numbers in their telephone or email. There are folks who have misrepresented themselves as working longer at a position, by error, because the year was mistyped. There are applicants who make a tiny error in their on-line application or resume to a big job bank, like www.bayareajobs.com or www.caljobs.com and will never get a hit from that place, because employers count errors in as part of the whole person.

Sure, looking for a job is a time of nervous energy taking the place of clear thinking, but when it comes to being judged by the document you submit, don’t let your stress get in the way of perfection. Hire the professional whose job is not only to write you well, present you well, but also to make sure that it is error-free. The money that you spend to get your resume written is an investment that will be returned by more interviews and an earlier hire date.

Salle Hayden ©2007