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I'm not sure I agree with putting people who can't put together a resume without spelling/grammar mistakes into the same unlucky group that simply had their res

I'm not sure I agree with putting people who can't put together a resume without spelling/grammar mistakes into the same unlucky group that simply had their resumes tossed by chance. Having spelling and grammar mistakes on a resume is sloppy... not unlucky. At a minimum it indicates they may not pay attention to details when it really matters. But maybe that is just me. Or maybe it just doesn't matter on a resume anymore. I'll admit I've never had to whittle down a stack of 100 resumes... more like 10 so I would never just blindly throw half away. But as I skim them all, the ones with the spelling and grammar mistakes get set into the "second string" pile. I'll give them a second look if the deeper dive into the other pile still doesn't find The One. I've had it work both ways. Some times second string does have The One. And other times second string is never looked at again.

civilian 15y ago
No. One of my coworkers is a terrible speller, and especially so in IM. I haven't seen his resume, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is a mistake or two in it. And he's pretty scatterbrained. But when it comes to coding CSS or using javascript design patterns, he is awesome. I ask him tons of questions. He is incredibly valuable. I mean, it's okay for you to keep on doing what you're comfortable with. But do you understand what you're missing out on? You're missing out on great developers, and you're giving people like Reginald & I an advantage.
- jack-r-abbit 15y ago
  I am a terrible speller as well. I just take that extra bit of time to correct things with that squiggly line under them. Technology allows me to hide my horrible spelling ability very easily. So it is not so much that potential candidates are bad at spelling (particularly since I am too) but more that they just didn't take the time to do it right. I think resumes are still pretty important documents. Maybe not as important as a patent application or the actual code being written. But if they didn't take the time to do the resume right... what else are they going to overlook when it is important? Just my feelings. And like I said, sometimes the second string does end up having the one. But if I already found the one in the first stack, then I'm still getting a great developer... just not the one with spelling mistakes. Plus, I'm not even a hiring manager. I review resumes of would-be peers.
runawaybottle 15y ago
My friend had a pretty nifty looking resume, wonderfully laid out and spaced, while remaning very minimalist. He created it in InDesign. Just before I hit the job market last summer, I had a brilliant idea to do a full revamp of my resume in InDesign. I copied and pasted most of the resume from a spellchecked Word document, but I added a word or two directly in InDesign. There was a typo, and InDesign did not indicate anything. It was very slight, and after having stared at the resume for hours, the typo was pretty much invisible to me. When did I find out? After I had sent it out to 5 postings. Whenever I read/type I often forget shorter length conjunction words, and a lot of grammer checkers won't detect it as a mistake. In fact, once I proof-read an entire email over multiple times on gmail, only to realize that I forgot a 'the' in one sentence after it was sent. Gmail showed no squiggly lines for that error. Grammer checkers often don't go off when you accidentally interchange singular/plural as well. My resume still got picked up by a lot of places, so either it was impressive, or a lot more people read as quickly/carelessly as I do. I don't know how exactly I developed this habit, but it could be a by-product of skimming code very quickly, or generally skimming things when perusing through articles/comments.

civilian 15y ago

No. One of my coworkers is a terrible speller, and especially so in IM. I haven't seen his resume, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is a mistake or two in it. And he's pretty scatterbrained. But when it comes to coding CSS or using javascript design patterns, he is awesome. I ask him tons of questions. He is incredibly valuable. I mean, it's okay for you to keep on doing what you're comfortable with. But do you understand what you're missing out on? You're missing out on great developers, and you're giving people like Reginald & I an advantage.

jack-r-abbit 15y ago
I am a terrible speller as well. I just take that extra bit of time to correct things with that squiggly line under them. Technology allows me to hide my horrible spelling ability very easily. So it is not so much that potential candidates are bad at spelling (particularly since I am too) but more that they just didn't take the time to do it right. I think resumes are still pretty important documents. Maybe not as important as a patent application or the actual code being written. But if they didn't take the time to do the resume right... what else are they going to overlook when it is important? Just my feelings. And like I said, sometimes the second string does end up having the one. But if I already found the one in the first stack, then I'm still getting a great developer... just not the one with spelling mistakes. Plus, I'm not even a hiring manager. I review resumes of would-be peers.

runawaybottle 15y ago

My friend had a pretty nifty looking resume, wonderfully laid out and spaced, while remaning very minimalist. He created it in InDesign. Just before I hit the job market last summer, I had a brilliant idea to do a full revamp of my resume in InDesign. I copied and pasted most of the resume from a spellchecked Word document, but I added a word or two directly in InDesign. There was a typo, and InDesign did not indicate anything. It was very slight, and after having stared at the resume for hours, the typo was pretty much invisible to me. When did I find out? After I had sent it out to 5 postings. Whenever I read/type I often forget shorter length conjunction words, and a lot of grammer checkers won't detect it as a mistake. In fact, once I proof-read an entire email over multiple times on gmail, only to realize that I forgot a 'the' in one sentence after it was sent. Gmail showed no squiggly lines for that error. Grammer checkers often don't go off when you accidentally interchange singular/plural as well. My resume still got picked up by a lot of places, so either it was impressive, or a lot more people read as quickly/carelessly as I do. I don't know how exactly I developed this habit, but it could be a by-product of skimming code very quickly, or generally skimming things when perusing through articles/comments.