Nine out of ten CVs contain spelling mistakes

Is your CV one of the many that contain hidden blunders throughout? Or are you part of the very few that have a flawless resumé?

Men are much sloppier when it comes to spelling and grammar on their CVs compared to women – according to new research by Adzuna, who looked at 20,000 CVs to find out why so many people are losing out on the chance to score their dream job.

Out of the 20,000 CVs checked, only 1,134 (six per cent) were fault-free, meaning more than 90 per cent of the CVs contained spelling or grammatical mistakes. Meanwhile, more than 63 per cent were riddled with more than five errors, leaving many jobseekers selling themselves short because of failing to double-check their descriptions.

The data showed that men make more mistakes than women, with eight per cent of female job hunters handing in a flawless CV compared to just six per cent of men.

Too many apostrophes spoiling CVs

A common error occurrence amongst the CVs saw the over use of apostrophes being used in the education section. 691 CVs mentioned ‘GCSE’s’ with several jobseekers also adding in unnecessary apostrophes to ‘A Level’s’ making slip-ups in the education section the most common pitfall.

The most frequently misspelt word was ‘experience’ which was mistakenly written 62 times, while ‘responsibilities’ was spelt incorrectly 60 times.

Americanisms have slowly crept into the UK CV with misspellings such as ‘organization’, ‘specialized’ and ‘center’ rife throughout many of the professional CVs checked.

Top CV Mistakes

“A good CV should succinctly show off employment history, education and key skills, but it should also be flaw free,” mentioned Andrew Hunter, co-founder of Adzuna.

“Employers may be put-off by amateur CV errors like adding in rogue apostrophes, using Americanisms or forgetting to put the ‘i’ before the ‘e’. They suggest a jobseeker lacking soft skills such as attention to detail. And when spellcheck and CV screening tools are easily accessible, there really is no excuse for error-riddled documents.”

Hunter added: “Our advice to jobseekers is to triple check spelling and grammar if you want to proceed to the interview stage, silly errors could be holding you back.”

CV mistakes by region