Can Spelling & Grammar Affect Your Job Search?

The answer is “YES”.

You might not realize but the slightest of spelling and grammatical errors get noticed by recruiters and it affects the first impression that you’re creating through your CV, job application form or even LinkedIn profile.

In this blog we shall discuss why and how these errors can affect one’s job search process.

• First impression matters:

The first point of contact between a candidate and the hiring manager is their CV, Cover Letter and the job application form. Poor writing skills in terms of spelling, punctuation, spacing and grammatical errors can create a negative first impression which cannot be rectified later.

This not only applies for the CV & job application form but also your LinkedIn profile.

Yes! Your LinkedIn profile is viewed by recruiters & hiring managers from various companies, and thoroughly assessed by them if they find you to be a potential candidate for their job openings.

• Written communication is a crucial requirement for most roles:

Effective communication skills are mentioned as essential requirement in most of the job descriptions. If your spelling & grammar are not up to the mark, your ability to communicate is hindered.

Majority of our working day demands our writing skills in terms of emails, creating proposals or preparing reports. As most of the roles require strong writing abilities, it is logical for the hiring managers to prefer a candidate with good written communication skills. They also need to ensure the corporate e-mails being sent out by their team members follow highest level of standards in order to maintain their brand image.

• Mistakes create an impression of a care-free attitude:

Every employer looks at hiring dedicated and hardworking employees possessing sincere interest and attention to details. However, errors in the CV or application form convinces them that the candidate does not seriously aim for this specific role. It makes them sense a lack of interest from the candidate’s end and it rather appears like one among the many roles that the candidate has applied for during the day. Hence, it is always important to carefully review all the details while applying for a job.

• Errors create a negative perception:

Most often when a person lacks in one trait, people assume that they might not be good at anything they do. Similarly, when there are errors in the CV, application form or LinkedIn profile, the hiring team has a perception that this particular candidate might end up making mistakes in every task that is assigned to them. Due to the spelling and grammatical errors, the employer might underestimate your other expertise and skills as well.

• Writing errors can position your CV at the bottom of the run:

While your CV & application form competes with hundreds or thousands of others, the spelling / grammatical errors can quickly position it on the rejection list. A recruiter spends around 6 seconds to glance at a CV while screening and since it is very easy to spot the spelling or grammatical mistakes, the probability of CVs with errors getting rejected is quite high. Therefore, make sure to avoid every possible error in your CV to eliminate the threats of being rejected at the first glance.  

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