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Ignore the guidelines to producing a good CV, and yours might end up on the rubbish pile, along with your chances of that job. Peter Panayotou exemplifies the tragic fate of a CV flawed by spelling and grammar errors

You might think that looking at people’s CVs all day would become routine and boring after a while. All those hopeful candidates claiming to be ‘highly motivated and enthusiastic’ can soon start to look the same, right? Well, wrong. As a CV consultant, I find people’s CVs are as individual as their personalities. After all, everyone’s favourite subject is himself or herself. However, there is something (beyond the odd misguided ‘gimmick’ CV) which might make a certain CV stick in the mind, that is the one with the amusing spelling errors.

I never cease to be amazed at the sloppiness and lack of attention to detail that creeps into some CVs. For me, even the most effectively targeted and promising CV is rendered useless if it contains just a single spelling error. And yet, CVs riddled with poor spelling and bad grammar is commonplace.

Think about it: If you allow even a single spelling error to slip through, it’s an indication that you not only can’t spell but that you couldn’t be bothered to check it and have no attention to detail. None of which are particularly desirable qualities. Your CV is supposed to impress, to cast you in the most favourable light, and get employers to want to interview you.

In my experience, the most common reasons CVs fail are, in ascending order: incorrect spelling/grammar, irrelevant content, poor/vague descriptions, unattractive layout and length (too
long/short).

Believe it or not, one of the most common mistakes involves the words ‘Curriculum Vitae’. It is no longer a hard and fast rule to have ‘Curriculum Vitae’ written across the top of your CV, but it is still often used, and consequently often misspelled. Among the most amusing corruptions I have ever seen was a candidate who wrote ‘Kuriculam Vitay’ across the top of his CV – and later claimed to have excellent attention to detail! Yeah, right.

And there is no shortage of other spelling errors that I come across all the time. The most common are those words with similar sounds. Here is my definitive list, based on actual CVs I have received:

Incorrect Correct
Wood Would
There Their
Roll Role
No Know
Principle Principal
Formally Formerly
Personal Personnel
Your You’re

Here are some other interesting facts regarding the most common spelling offences:
Gender: Male applicants are worse than female
Age: Those in their early twenties (21-25) are worse than the older generations
Education: Graduates are twice as likely to do it than those who did not go to university
Occupation: Secretaries and administrators are the worst offenders!

It is widely thought that the reason why younger candidates are failing so consistently in their spelling is largely due to the ‘text generation’ where spelling is compromised in favour of speed and brevity. Also, increasing reliance on modern technology means that the spell check facility in word processing is taken for granted. The spell checker is not infallible. More experienced users will know that it sometimes doesn’t recognise words that you know to be perfectly acceptable. But there is another factor: if your typing is anything like mine, typing errors can cause you to misspell a word for another word. The spell checker will not pick this up.

But, there’s no point in arguing – you will just have to read threw your CV, and when you’ve finished, get someone you know to read it too. A thorough check of your grammer may not guarantee you a job, but at least your credibility won’t be affected.

Did you spot the deliberate spelling errors in the previous paragraph? If not, don’t claim to have a good eye for detail in your CV. If you did, answers on a postcard please.

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