The Most Important Job Skill and How to Show You've Got It

If you'd spent as much time as I have sifting through online job ads and dissecting the skills requirements of each, you'd notice a common trend – nearly every job requires that applicants have "good verbal and written communication skills." Sometimes it's just a cliche statement that gets thrown into the job description mix without much thought, but for the most part, employers are serious about this. The worriesome thing for you as the job applicant is, your initial point of contact with the employer – your resume – is written and will no doubt be heavily scrutinized. The person who reads your resume has no reason to give you the benefit of the doubt, because up until this moment, he or she had no previous knowledge of your existence. That's why you must proof, double-proof and triple-proof your resume before you send it off through cyberspace to paint a picture of your professional self to a person you've never met.

The trouble with proofreading is, you have to know what you're looking for in order to catch any mistakes. It's pretty easy to spot that you've misspelled the word "the," but what about whether or not you should capitalize a job title, or whether you should spell out the number, "ten," or use its numerical form? There's a million copy rules you've probably never thought of, but don't worry, hiring managers are not going to expect you to know everything and they probably don't know everything themselves. In fact, I don't think anyone does, that's why writers carry what is commonly referred to as, "The Journalist's Bible." The book's actual title is, The Associated Press Stylebook, and inside is an A-Z list of the Associated Press' rules on grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, abbreviation and word and numeral usage. Get it, use it ... in the meantime, if you have a question, ask the editor.

If you don't heed my advice and run out to the bookstore immediately to buy a copy, at least take a second look at your resume for these common technical blunders:

The name of your alma mater should be spelled out – not abbreviated – like, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The common mistakes with this are: 1. People often abbreviate university names, which you should never do upon first mention. 2. Applicants often use the wrong punctuation or none between "Wisconsin" and "Milwaukee," which probably isn't a huge deal ... but it's still wrong.

The name of your academic degree should be written as, Bachelor of Arts. The common mistakes with this are: 1.People often use the abbreviation, B.A., which should only be used when identifying multiple people's degrees. 2.Often it is written as, "Bachelor's of Arts," but the possessive form of "Bachelor" should only be used when written alone, such as, "She received her Bachelor's from Villanova."

Always spell out the word, "percent." When describing past job duties and experiences on a resume, job applicants often include a quantifiable growth statement like, "I increased sales by 20 percent." Scratch the % symbol from your writing vocabulary.

Spell out the numbers one through nine. Use the numerical form for numbers 10 and higher. Numbers could pop up anywhere in your resume, this rule will always remain the same.

Take the time to get the correct spelling and capitalization of any proper nouns. The most common place I come across these errors is in the "Skills" section of the resume. This is the section in which people often list the different languages they are fluent in and computer programs they are proficient in. Always capitalize the name of a language. For example, "I am a fluent Spanish speaker." Furthermore, computer programs and software names often have quirky spellings, go online and get it right. For example, Photoshop and QuarkXPress are both one word.

These are the most common technical errors I see, but normal grammatical errors run rampant on resumes also. Rather than compile a list of every misspelling and improper syntax possibility in the English language, read The Five Grammatical Errors that Make You Look Dumb, by Brian Clark.

Cross-posted from JobHelper.com

Comments

[Louise Kursmark]

Brian, I have to disagree with your advice to spell out percent and spell out numbers below ten. All this does is make this CRITICAL resume information blend into the text and slow down the reader.

True, style guidelines advocate these forms, and I certainly use them when writing books, for instance. But resume language is a bit different! It has evolved to a style all its own, one that better serves the resume reader as well as the job seeker.