Should candidates be eliminated because of a résumé typo?

Before I share my opinion on the matter, I thought I would first lay the groundwork for how frequent typos are and which ones are the most prevalent. We took a sample of over 10,000 resumes and discovered that 7.5% of them were flagged for a “common language” typo. This means that there was a clearly misspelled word somewhere within the resume (as opposed to incorrect word usage which we’ll probably look at later). These typos were clearly the fault of the resume writer. The 7.5% with typos averaged 1.3 typos per resume.

Top Ten Most Common Typos:

1. thru → through
2. managment → management
3. planed → planned
4. liason → liaison
5. ect → etc
6. excell → excel
7. assitant → assistant
8. enviroment → environment
9. univeristy → university
10. activites → activities

(full list below)

As for my opinion on the subject…

I think resume typos should not be the sole factor that eliminates a candidate. It should perhaps put a “proceed with caution” on the applicant, but all candidate leads should be vetted beyond a single factor. Some managers are extremely hypersensitive to spelling and grammar on resumes and I understand that. They’re formal documents and should be meticulously crafted. However, in my experience, grammar and spelling do not have a direct correlation to employee production or intelligence. Typos for me would be near the bottom of my list of candidate consideration factors. They might serve as a tiebreaker between two seemingly equal candidates but nothing more. Relevancy, intent, and validity of the resume are the most important qualities I look for.

(And regarding the word “resume”, taking the time to include all the necessary acute accents over the e’s would have apparently taken me too long.)

The full list of most common resume typos

1. thru → through
2. management → management
3. planed → planned
4. liason → liaison
5. ect → etc
6. excell → excel
7. assitant → assistant
8. enviroment → environment
9. univeristy → university
10. activites → activities
11. recieved → received
12. adminstration → administration
13. alot → a lot|allot
14. aircrafts → aircraft
15. recieving → receiving
16. maintance → maintenance
17. assit → assist
18. adminstrative → administrative
19. liasion → liaison
20. consistantly → consistently
21. commerical → commercial
22. developement → development
23. achievments → achievements
24. superintendant → superintendent
25. buisness → business
26. responsiblities → responsibilities
27. residental → residential
28. sevice → service
29. proffesional → professional
30. holliday → holiday
31. intial → initial
32. busines → business
33. mortage → mortgage
34. universtiy → university
35. relevent → relevant
36. responsibilites → responsibilities
37. thier → their
38. vermillion → vermilion
39. personel → personnel
40. definately → definitely
41. acheived → achieved
42. sargeant → sergeant
43. goverment → government
44. resturants → restaurants
45. labled → labelled
46. safty → safety
47. wich → which
48. assocation → association
49. acheivement → achievement
50. todays → today’s

About Vettd

Founded in 2014 and based in Bellevue, Washington, Vettd.ai is setting the standard for AI-guided decision management. Vettd.ai uses customized deep learning AI models at the core of their advanced decision management solutions for organizations across a number of industries. These solutions help organizations make more informed decisions by quickly and comprehensively interpreting natural language data including resumes, personal essays, and more. Vettd.ai was founded to help people and organizations thrive together through better alignment with one another. For more information on how Vettd.ai is enhancing the capabilities of decision-makers, visit. http://www.vettd.ai.