30 Avoidable Job-Hunting Goofs In 30 Easily Digested Blog Bytes

For the next 30 weeks on my website, MaryJNestor.com , I’ll be blogging about easily avoidable job-hunting goofs that I see over and over again.  And it’s not just the newbies on the job hunt.  I see these committed by applicants who should know better.  They already have a resume with job experience, great skills and an education straight out of the Ivy League (or the geographic/global equivalent).  They are goofs that may seem small, but when your application is one of 175 for a position (yes, that just happened), a stupid little goof sets you apart—and not in a way that you’re hoping for.

Take, for instance, a spelling mistake.  A spelling mistake may seem small, but it really isn’t a spelling mistake to a recruiter or a hiring manager.  This is what it says:

1. Didn’t bother to use Spell Check.
2. Didn’t have a clue as to the correct spelling to be able to pick the correct spelling out of a list on Spell Check.
3. Didn’t bother to ask someone how to spell the word so they could pick it out of a list of possible spellings on Spell Check.
4. Doesn’t have any friends to ask (well, that may not be important. Scratch that one.)
5. Didn’t Google the word for the correct spelling (yes, you can get it that way—try it).
6. Doesn’t like to ask for help –this is a biggie in today’s collaborative workplace.
7. Doesn’t take the time to proofread—careless or in too big of a hurry.
8. That claim of “attention to detail?” Ah, I don’t think so. Makes the rest of the claims on a resume suspect.
9. Doesn’t think that errors are important.
10. Sloppy now, sloppy later.

Not fair, you say?  Well, life in the real world isn’t always fair.  Those reactions are just a few off the top of my head, but believe me; the competition is fierce for good-paying jobs, the career-ladder types and those with management/leadership potential.   Heck, it can be tough for entry-level jobs. The last recession eliminated a lot of the middle-management level jobs.  Job seekers set alerts for the few that survived.   They stalk company websites and job sites like Indeed.com and CareerBuilder.com.  If you’re in a niche industry, the competition is even tougher.

So what’s the best approach?  How can you avoid the goofs that put your application in the big circular file in the Cloud?  Drop in each week to MaryJNestor.com to discover what new goofs to avoid.  Rate your job-seeking skills.  It doesn’t matter if this is your first or fifth job search.  Share, Pin and Tweet these tips to your friends.  Best of all, sharpen your own game so you stand out (in a good way) from the crowded job search field.