Waht Typo? 6 Simple Tips for Web Profile Quality

Is a typo on a paper-based resume worse than a typo on the web?

I'm active on LinkedIn. I like it. Occasionally, while reading someone’s profile, I'll notice a typo. Common ones I see are “employement” and “developement.” I generally drop a quick note to the profile owner and mention it. I usually receive a nice thank you in return.

I think I'm more forgiving when I see these web-based profile typos than when I see the typo committed to paper.

Yesterday however, I was reading a web-based news story from a major news outlet and shuddered when I read the word "suspisions" in the body of the story.

While I understand the web-typo - we move fast, type directly into a CMS, read something so many times it looks correct - there are certain instances where I feel it's unacceptable, and that's for the job seeker (and for the major news outlet, but that's another blog post).

As I've said before, during a job search, every piece of information you put out for public view is the first example of your work product.

For me, a typo shows a lack of thoroughness, and I'm not alone in that point of view.

It only takes a moment to type your information into Word or some other application that allows spell-checking and review. Dictionaries, both web-based and old-school, are readily available. I personally use Firefox as my browser, and have selected Check Spelling as I type (under “Options,” I love this feature).

So I was wondering: What are other people’s tolerances for the dreaded typo? I created a poll on LinkedIn to find out, and frankly, I was surprised at how forgiving certain demographics of responders are. Tips to avoid typos are at the end:

Top of Form

The Poll: 63 Responders

The Responses:

By OCCUPATION: HR folks were more forgiving than I would have assumed, but just barely. The most forgiving group were Operations folks, the most unforgiving Product:

By COMPANY SIZE: Small and Enterprise-level companies were the most flexible, Medium-size the least:

BY JOB TITLE: If you're interviewing with the Owner or C-Suite level of a company, you are more likely to be forgiven than if you are speaking to Management. The C-Suite is also more likely to let you know you have an error:

By GENDER: There ya' go. Pretty straightforward with men being a little bit more flexible (but not much):

By AGE: the lower the age, the less tolerant:

Last, the OVERALL: DON'T have a typo; you may still receive contact; about a 25% chance you may be notified, and people do appreciate being told they have a typo, but if such a small percentage is telling, how do you know?

That's the point, don't wait to be told.


How to Avoid the dreaded typo whether you are job searching or not:

1. Start your document, blog post, VisualCV, Google profile etc. in Word or a like application. Check your Document Review settings - make sure you do not have options set to ignore words in Caps or other terms. Spell- and Grammar-check.
   
2. Do not automatically accept word processor suggestions: Somewhere, out there today, is a major proposal that has the word "seamy" where "seamlessly" should have been. Really changed the meaning of the paragraph.
   
3. Copy your text into Notepad to strip underlying formatting & HTML that may create issues if you are pasting into a CMS.
4. Copy and paste using a Browser that has a spell-check option.
5. Used web-based resources if you are in doubt of spelling or meaning of a word. http://www.wordcentral.com/ from Miriam-Webster is a good, free tool. There are many others.
   
6. Have an objective party review whenever possible, or set the work aside for at least a couple of hours so you may review it with "fresh" eyes.

I also received some good comments from participants:

Did you find a typo in this post? Let me know, would ya'? OPCGal on Twitter