Dear sir or madman.
Oops, I meant to write, dear sir or madame (as opposed to the madam who manages a brothel).
If I had made that mistake on my cover letter, should that disqualify me for consideration for a job?
Should someone's résumé get tossed in the trash if he or she mistakenly wrote "Graphic designer seeking no-profit career" under career objective?
Well, it appears that in this tight job market, those tiny mistakes could leave you jobless, according to a survey by Accountemps, a staffing services firm specializing in accounting and finance.
In interviews with 150 senior executives from the nation's 1,000 largest companies, 40% of the respondents said that just one typo on a résumé would kick a job candidate out of the queue for consideration. Thirty-six percent said it would take just two mistakes before the résumé was discarded.
With unemployment in some areas at double digits and job postings drawing hundreds of applicants, I understand the need to quickly weed people out. But zero-tolerance of one or two résumé typos is too harsh.
Certainly a résumé or cover letter riddled with errors says someone was sloppy or is incompetent, but a minor mistake shouldn't disqualify you from a job or at least an interview.
In fact, a perfect résumé doesn't guarantee that a company is getting a great job candidate. In a Robert Half survey, 72% of executives polled said it is common for candidates with promising résumés not to live up to expectations during an interview.
By the way, Accountemps is a division of Robert Half. In one survey, the staffing conglomerate found that, overwhelmingly, hiring managers were intolerant of a few errors. In another, it found managers admitting that candidates weren't living up to their stellar résumés.
So once you know that many managers are screening you based on perfection, how do you avoid getting your résumé pushed to the side? Accountemps offers the following tips for creating error-free résumés:
* Find another pair of eyes. Get someone to proofread your résumé.
* Put the résumé down and come back to it later with your own fresh eyes. Take a break and reread it when you may be less harried.
* Print a copy.
* Read your résumé aloud.
* Review your résumé from the bottom up.
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