Your resume deserves more than spell check.

Misspellings are the bane of everyone’s existence. No matter how many times you read and re-read your resume, your mind will see what it wants to see rather than what is on the paper or computer screen in front of you. That’s why it’s good to have someone else proofread your resume if possible. If you can’t find someone to proofread for you, slowly read your resume out loud to yourself. This forces you to look at each of the words individually.

This is important because too often we rely solely on spell check. Just because a word is spelled correctly doesn’t mean it fits the proper context. Here are some common mistakes that spell check will not find.

• Its and it’s — Its refers to possession whereas it’s is a contraction of it is.
• Your and you’re — Possession vs a contraction of you are.
• They’re, there and their — They’re there, but it’s not their office.
• Affect vs. Effect — Your actions affect (verb) sales or your actions had an effect (noun) on sales.
• Would have vs would of — Would of is never correct, even when you’re speaking.
• Then and than — Then (next or subsequently) sales increased to a level higher than (comparative) they had ever been.
• Farther and further — We traveled farther (actual distance) down the road, so we had gotten further (theoretical distance) into our conversation than we expected.

Do you have any examples of mistakes you made that spell check did not catch?