By: Allan Stewart

Grammatical errors are inevitable. The résumé is one of those several documents in which grammatical errors are seen. And that must not be a practice because it may result in failure in job applications. Whether it is due to carelessness or plain ignorance, the bottom line is that it is not a pleasing sight to hiring managers.

A résumé is not only a documentation of your qualifications. It is your own marketing tool when selling yourself to your prospective employers. It must be noted that résumés represent a person. Carelessness, therefore, must not have a place in preparing your résumé.

Misspellings and grammatical errors do not make for an effective and convincing marketing piece about one’s ability and skills. Majority of the résumés submitted never make it through the first stage of the hiring process. Instead of making it straight to the employment level, they make it straight to the trash bin. These are all caused by spelling and grammatical errors, as well as irrelevant ideas and languages.

Most employers’ thinking is why will they hire applicants who do not even know how to spell words? Or why must they hire a candidate who does not pay attention to a single detail in his résumé? See how it works? One single mistake can lead you away from your dream job.

Employers usually equate carelessness in a résumé to inadequate communication skills. With the volume of résumé s they receive, all the easiest ways to immediately determine shortlisted candidates are considered by hiring managers and they include grammatical accuracy.

To free your résumés from typographical, spelling, and grammatical errors, try applying the following tips:

• Run the built-in spell checker in your word processor. The spell-checker is always a good start to proofread your résumé. Just bear in mind that the spell-checker in word processors only checks incorrect spelling of words, not grammatical errors. But this will surely help.
• Read your résumé aloud. Reading your résumé aloud will enable you to make sure that words are spelled and used correctly. It will be much better if you ask someone to read it aloud for you. This way, you can hear the mistakes and missing words as that someone will look at it with fresh eyes.
• Run a grammar checker tool. This checker is also a great help for checking; however, you will still need to double-check your résumé after running the tool as the tool does not take into consideration your own approach in writing.
• Let your résumé sit for a couple of days. This will allow you to forget the details you wrote and you will be looking at it with fresh eyes.
• Make revisions. Make sure everything’s in their proper place such as the correct spelling and use of words.
• Check for redundancies and jargons. Most writers tend to be wordy at some point. Some words and sentences are sometimes repeated and there’s no reason for doing it. Employers do not want their time to be wasted on redundancies, pretentious languages, and jargons.

Once you have followed these tips, you will surely have enough confidence in submitting your résumé to high caliber companies.

Professor Allan Stewart teaches, conducts research, and consults in the area of Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM), particularly focusing on how firms use people as a source of competitive advantage. He is a 20-year veteran of human resources management and has served the industry in the areas of HR, training, organizational and leadership development as well as project management. He is an articulate communicator and has held numerous workshops and seminars on various topics with an aim of helping individuals in their search for a dream job and a rewarding career. His outstanding presentation skills and proficiency in the English language could be credited to having completed his Bachelor and Master of Arts in English at Purdue University Calumet.