To avoid them proof read, double-check, and triple-check for errors

It goes without saying that common grammatical errors will kill your CV, but you would be amazed how many resumes/CVs employers receive with typos and spelling mistakes. According to a recent survey of recruitment professionals carried out by the Recruitment & Employment Confederation, 47% said out of all the CVs/resumes they received, 50% contained grammatical errors, with the worst offenders in the 21 to 25-year-old age group. In this age group, graduates are twice as likely to make mistakes as those who did not go on to university. For a recruiter with literally hundreds of CVs to work through, even one small error is a welcome reason to file an application in the pile marked ‘trash’.

Beware of the following common mistakes:

recieve (receive)
sentance (sentencce)
correspondance (correspondence)
practice/ to practise (incorrect usage)
definately (definitely)
Febuary (February)
advice/to advise (incorrect usage)
could of, should of etc
it’s / its (incorrect usage)
their / there / they’re (incorrect usage)
alot of…
patients – i.e. ‘Thank you for your patients’

“The feedback we have received from recruiters is that there are worrying shortcomings in the written communication skills of this age group. You would expect that by the time students reach universities they would have good basic written skills, but the results show that this isn’t the case.” Tom Hadley, director of external affairs at the REC

Unfortunately, formal written communication is, in part, being eroded by our text and email culture. Because these methods of communication are instantaneous, no time is taken to proofread messages before they are sent.

So before your CV/resume is sent to the hiring manager, make sure you ask someone to poof read it for you. There should be no excuses for spelling and common grammatical errors, as almost all computer software now have spell checkers embedded.

Common Grammatical Errors Pt2

Ok so here are the answers to the Spelling/ Grammar test.

Spelling Mistakes

noticable – noticeable

embarassment – embarrassment

seperate – separate

arguement – argument

accelarate – accelerate

Did you get them all?

Grammar and punctuation

Paragraph 1

Second sentence:

* There should be a comma before “which”.

Third sentence:

* “The responsibility should lie solely with her,” not “lay”. Lay is a transitive verb, so it must be followed by an object – for example: “She lays the table.”

* The question mark is unnecessary as it is not a direct question.

Last sentence:

* There should be a comma before “even if” and the one after “problem is” to denote that this clause is extra to the main idea.

* The first part says “management does agree”, whereas the second part says “they also have a concern” (strictly speaking, management is singular, but avoid mixing singular and plural).

* It should be “whose”, not “who’s” . Who’s is short for who is or who has whose is about possession.

* Add another dash after “and justified” to show that this is an aside.

* Also, never use a hyphen after adverbs ending in -ly

Paragraph 2

First sentence:

* A comma should follow “pay rise” to denote that this clause is extra to the main idea.

* “It’s likely”, not “its likely”. Use an apostrophe only when it’s is short for it is or it has

* “They’re going to be”, not “their going to be”, because the meaning is “they are” and is not possessive.

Second sentence

* There should be an apostrophe for “CEO’s ” because it is possessive and a comma between “performance” and “so” to denote a natural pause.

Third sentence

* A comma or colon is needed to introduce the quote.

* “Effect “, not “affect”. A person can be affected by an incident, whereas an effect is the result of an incident.

* The comma between “lethargic” and “since” should not be used, as there is no natural pause here.

* A comma should come after the “However”, to give the reader the correct sense of the sentence.

Paragraph 3

First sentence:

* “Principal”, not “principle”. A principle is a fundamental truth or a standard of personal conduct. “Principal” denotes something which is most important.

* “Its decision”, not “it’s decision” (see above).

Second sentence

* “Affecting” not “effecting” (see above).

* Two separate sentences. Ideally, use a semicolon as the two sentences are very closely linked, but you could get away with a full stop.

* “Fewer”, not “less”. Fewer refers to a smaller number of something less refers to a smaller quantity. For example: “There was less milk in the bottle than before.”

* “There’s”, not “theres”, as it’s an abbreviation for “there is”.

* “Theirs”, not “ their’s”. The word their’s does not exist (other than in the headline on page nine of one tabloid newspaper last month: “Hell family banned from all 900 homes apart from their’s”).