Have you ever wondered why a top executive and good writer; one who is picky about spelling, grammar, and punctuation, misses an obvious mistake on an executive resume?
It’s painful, but it happens to all of us. A piece you have worked diligently on and revised to perfection gets printed or published and the typos come out of hiding. What’s more, the most important writing seems to have this problem. Why does this happen to essential career components like resumes and cover letters?
Sometimes It’s Human Error
You know what you want to say, and your brain is saying it, but your fingers hit the wrong thing. If you have spellcheck on, that little wavy red line alerts you to a problem and you can edit while typing. This works if you look at what you type while you type it, but if you don’t, keep that spellcheck on anyway and read over what you just wrote.
Professionals will often proofread by starting at the bottom and reading each sentence as a unit while working backwards through the piece. This helps your brain see it differently and accurately. The technique also can work for proofreading revisions; those small changes that suddenly make grammar or syntax wrong.
Sometimes It’s Technology
Depending on the program you use, formatting can change things around when the final copy is created. Check the preview before hitting the save button. That save button is important for keeping your versions accurate, too. Salty tears have been shed over words lost in cyberspace because the system crashed before the content was saved.
Autocorrect sounds like it would be a good thing, because automatically correcting is good, right? But if you are typing one word and the system “corrects” it to a word you don’t want, then autocorrect is incorrect. I don’t generally use autocorrect because this happens to me when I least expect it, and it can be missed.
Always It’s Good To Have Someone Else Proofread Important Writing
The more important the writing is, the more important it is to have more than one pair of eyes checking it over before submission. If you know a competent writer, ask them to check your work. Professional services, like a resume critique or executive resume writing service, are well worth the investment for essential career components like resumes, cover letters, etc.
This guest post is by Erin Kennedy, MCD, CMRW, CPRW, BS/HR, a Certified Professional & Executive Resume Writer/Career Consultant, and the President of Professional Resume Services, Inc. She has achieved international recognition following nominations and wins of the prestigious T.O.R.I. (Toast of the Resume Industry) Award. Find Erin at http://exclusive-executive-resumes.com.