The following is from The Telegraph.

By Murray Wardrop

Experts found that 94 per cent of job hunters risked missing out on vacancies through poor spelling, grammar or presentation on their CVs.

In some cases, applicants’ attempts to impress potential employers failed through the odd missed word, with phrases such as: “I was responsible for dissatisfied customers.”

For others, the omission of a single letter consigned their CV to the dustbin: “I am a pubic relations officer.”

And sparing use of the comma led to seemingly embarrassing disclosures of equal note: “My interests include cooking dogs and interesting people.”

From a sample of 450 CVs, researchers found that 81 per cent were laden with spelling and grammatical errors, while nearly half were poorly laid out.

A mere 6 per cent were error-free, the study by career advisers Personal Career Management (PCM) concluded.

Mistakes were not confined to applicants for menial roles either – many of the CVs riddled with errors were drafted by CEOs, professionals and recent graduates, researchers said.

Corinne Mills, managing director of PCM, said: “Many of the people whose CVs end up in the waste paper bin are perfectly capable of doing the job. However, a poor CV means they will not get the opportunity to prove it.

“Why would anyone want to employ a lawyer or a secretary who makes spelling mistakes or errors? If they can’t pay attention to their own CV, why would you trust them to work on any of your documents?”

Mrs Mills, author of the CV guide book You’re Hired, added that with Britain facing the toughest job market for decades, it is now more important than ever to ensure CVs are correctly presented.

Examples of CV blunders:

– My interests include cooking dogs and interesting people.

– As security guard my job is to pervert unauthorised people from coming onto the site

– I am a pubic relations officer

– I was responsible for dissatisfied customers

– My role involved coaching and mentioning

– I have excellent editing and poof-reading skills

– I relieved the conference manager

– I am a prooficient typist

– Socially I like to dine out with different backgrounds

– I get well with all types of people

– I was responsible for fraudulent claims

– While working in this role, I had intercourse with a variety of people

– Experienced sheet mental worker

– Highly adept at multi-tasting

– Left last four jobs only because the managers were completely unreasonable

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