VERY O/T RANT - resumes

I'm with you on this one Nancy! My favourite resume typo was committed by a friend's husband. I'm sure it's been put out there before but I saw this one with my own eyes. Beside his 'Personal interests' bullet he proudly states that he has done countless hours of 'pubic service':+ :p }( :p:+ Proof reading matters!!

Take Care
Laurie:) (fellow dinosaur and proud of it!)
 
The way I see it, if you graduate from high school, you should have a fairly good grasp on spelling and grammar. You should also have the brains to know when you need a dictionary.

Oh yes, I'd like to join the Dinosaur Club.
 
I want to join the dinosaur club too! Bad grammar, especially in professional settings, drive me nuts. I wrote resumes for 12 years. You would be stunned at how bad most of my clients' original resumes were. My favorite was a guy who actually misspelled his own name. He had been sending it out that way for a couple of years, if I recall correctly. I'm a huge advocate of having someone else proof your resume, because it can be hard to spot your own typos.
 
Okay, fitnancy, I must admit that one pretty much tops them all. He spelled his own name wrong? Did he ever get hired?
 
I want to join your club!

I teach at the college level and I am blown away by the lack of effort that goes into writing papers! Some think that if they spell check, then they don't need to read what they wrote! In addition, the cheating (plagiarism) that occurs is horrifying. I had a student who wanted to earn research hours so I had him begin by reading a few papers just to initiate the process. I realized that it would be difficult, but I was hoping that "we" could find the concepts that were his weaknesses and then work toward building his understanding in that area. The task was to look up information on a particular concept and write a summary of what was found so that we could discuss it. Well, when he brought me the summary it was quite clear that he could not articulate what he had read, and he had this paper in front of him and kept trying to glance at it. This seemed suspicious, so I googled a sentence from his "summary" and found that he basically plagiarized the entire thing. Here is the best part, he had the nerve to tell me that he didn't understand what I meant by writing a summary. He thought that since it was just the two of us and it wasn't a formal class that this gave him the right to copy the works of another.

I guess I went off on a tangent here, but I think the issues are closely related.

Keli
PS I do have to confess that I really have to work at my own spelling and grammar, and I am humbly reminded of this when I post on these boards and go back to reread what I posted only to find errors!
 
Nance, my boss has delegated the resume reviews to either the other head atty or to me in the office because just looking at them makes him want to cry most days and scream the others.

I just laugh at them when I see them; it makes my job so much easier! But it is sad, isn't it?

Oooh, scary thought: do you think THEY THOUGHT they proofread their resume before they sent it in??? :eek: :eek: :eek:

ETA: Nance, the salary offered has nothing to do with it, I'm sorry to say!!

LOL, now I'm fretting "is it salary or sallary??" :p
 
Nancy:

bothering to get annoyed is a total waste of your energy. Their lack of attention to detail should send you taking their resumes straight to the paper shredder and recycler. Out of sight, out of mind. Nuff said. Hold out for the employee who does know the importance of detail, presentation and correct grammar. They are out there somewhere!

Clare
 
Clare, unfortunately, I'm not the only one who gets to decide and other attorneys in my office are more forgiving of these errors. Besides, we really need to hire someone immediately, and so far I haven't seen a single decent resume or writing sample. :( I think I'm just going to step back and let the other attorneys decide, as I simply can't bring myself to offer a job to any of these people.
 
Nancy,

I have 2 friends here who are college graduates who say the word supposebly. And yes, I've "confronted" them both on it! :) I had never heard that word before I moved to Wyoming. But I'm sure it's all over LA too. I have another friend who is almost finished with her PhD. She is 30. She doesn't live here now but was here for a couple of years. She writes a blog. Her spelling and grammar are both HORRENDOUS!!! Here's an example:

breaks - these are what you use to slow down on a bike...or in a car
allot - something that happens all the time
Itallians - you know, from Italy
Spanyards - yup, from Spain
bar tender - this is someone who tends a bar :p
herritage - as opposed to heritage
peddles - these are what you put your feet on to push the cranks on your bike to go fast
woring - this is what you do when you stress about things
councilor - she used this word to refer to her therapist
ingrediance - as in ingredients for a recipe
prepair for dinner - to get ready for dinner
competetuive - as in being competitive in school
fairy - that big boat that takes you across the water (as opposed to ferry)

This is just a small sample. I wouldn't be so mortified (well, okay, I would) if she wasn't writing her dissertation for her PhD! How have all of these professors let her get this far in college??? Or high school??? How was that fair to her? Letting her through did her no favors. Her mom responded to her blog once and same thing. And she wants to teach at the college level. All of this spell check stuff isn't helping anybody. And yes, I had a typo in my post on the Hardcores today. :p Caught it too late to edit it. Darn! I had happy fingers. But I'm pretty lax on these boards because this is just chatty. But a typo and not knowing how to spell anything when you are getting your PhD and you want to teach are two very different things. Scary.

Suz

"Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened." - Anatole France

http://www.picturetrail.com/dogs2birds
 
Coming from someone in HR, resumes are one of the biggest topics on the "Friday - off topic - wanna laugh" posts in local HR forums.

It is simply unbelievable that so many have such a lack - even reading it back to themselves would probably cause them to correct some of their errors. Unfortunately I also believe that many of them just never learned.

One thing I worried about with my teenagers was that if I corrected their resumes and made them sound better, what would happen in the actual interview when their resume didn't match up to their actual skillset?

I was also a legal secretary when in college and we had cases thrown out if the paperwork filed wasn't spelled correctly, address off by one number or there was any missing information (Unlawful Detainers for the most part).

Is this typical or unusual?

(I was always so worried that my mistake would be one that caused the client to have to begin their case from the beginning).

So, in other words, add me to the pile of Extinct Dinosaurs :7
 
Corrected for grammar;)

I'm a dental hygienist and at our office I proof the resumes. Resumes come to me before they go to our two dentists. I throw out about 95% of the resumes we receive at our office. I know it doesn't take great grammar to work on people's teeth. But, a poorly done resume shows me that if you can't use correct grammar then your attention to detail leaves something to be desired. And, in my profession, attention to detail is crucial.

Besides, when writing a resume don't you want to put your best foot forward. I figured that was common sense. I guess not.
 
>breaks - these are what you use to slow down on a bike...or in
>a car
>allot - something that happens all the time
>Itallians - you know, from Italy
>Spanyards - yup, from Spain
>bar tender - this is someone who tends a bar :p
>herritage - as opposed to heritage
>peddles - these are what you put your feet on to push the
>cranks on your bike to go fast
>woring - this is what you do when you stress about things
>councilor - she used this word to refer to her therapist
>ingrediance - as in ingredients for a recipe
>prepair for dinner - to get ready for dinner
>competetuive - as in being competitive in school
>fairy - that big boat that takes you across the water (as
>opposed to ferry)
>
>>
>LOL Suz...some of these are great examples of my pet peeve of spelling phonetically. And, typos are one thing(not okay on a resume of course) but I just don't see any excuse for all of this terrible spelling. Doesn't everyone have a dictionary?:-(
 
I'm just posting again because I didn't mention before how many times I heard when I was in school (starting I think in high school) that you have to proof, proof, and have someone else proof your resume. To me that means that *everyone* heard the same thing... which makes me wonder what they were doing because it certainly wasn't paying attention to their resume skill!

And I don't want to be a dinosaur at 30. :p I'm just detail-oriented. :p
 
That's it EXACTLY, Wendy. A brilliant guy on law review in my law school couldn't spell, but I have no doubt that when he sent out his resume, it was perfect. Making a good impression was very important to him.

I really do understand that some people don't have a knack for spelling and grammar. We all have our weak areas. I couldn't learn a foreign language if my life depended on it. But when you send out a resume with mistakes, or even just one mistake, the message is that you just don't care. So why should anyone hire you??
 
>Another pet peeve of mine, which runs along the same lines you
>mentioned, is when folks who work at cash registers can't
>count back change.

What I hate most about this is that it leads them to give me my change back in bills first, with the change plopped (tossed or thrown!)on top. That's much harder to maneuver than when you used to get the change back first, which you could easily hold in the palm of you hand, then the bills, which you could grab with your fingers. That meant you could easily open your purse with the other hand, put the bills where they went without dropping the coins, then open the coin compartment and put them in.

Whenever I come across a (rare, and usually older) cashier who counts things back the 'old-fashioned' way, I have to thank them profusely!
 
> Folks,
>it's spelled "YOU", not "U".

I definitely* agree.

It just seems so lazy, and inconsiderate of people, to use text messaging abbreviations other than when actually sending text messages, like on public forums. To save TWO LETTERS?


*(not definAtely, or defiantly--which is another word all together).

(oh, and while I'm at it, its "DOMS IS" not "DOMS are"--the 's' is for 'soreness,' not a plural).
 
I'm in the dinosaur group with everyone else. I work for a software development company as the staffing manager and review resumes every day. I am shocked at the errors I see!

Get this one.... A recent applicant for a Senior Sales Management position consistenly mis-spelled College in his resume... This person spelled it Collage! Apparently this guy never went to college, he went to a Collage!!!
 
Another English teacher and stickler here.

Cracked up, Laurie, at the "pubic" service.

And, Kathryn, you mentioned one that drives me nuts -- "defiantly" instead of "definitely." This has become an increasingly common mistake my students make.

Oh yes, dinosaurs unite!

[font face="heather" font color=black size=+2]~Cathy[/font]
[font face="comic sans ms"]When I look at the smiles on all the children's faces, I just know they're about to jab me with something. http://www.thesmilies.com/smilies/cartoon/homersimpson.gif
 
>Beside his 'Personal interests' bullet he proudly states that he has done countless hours of 'pubic service'

That's classic, Laurie!!! :D
 
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