How to Proofread Your Resume and Spot Common Mistakes

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How to Proofread Your Resume and Spot Common Mistakes

How to Proofread Your Resume

 

Proofreading your resume make all the difference when applying for a job. When a company announces an open position, depending on the role, its hiring managers can expect to receive dozens of applications. Obviously, you want to make sure your resume stands out; neatness, clarity, succinctness, and proper grammar and use of punctuation marks go a long way to making a good impression.

Yet many employment agencies know how common it is for managers to receive resumes with multiple typos, missing periods, and grammatical mistakes. Do yourself a favor and follow these 6 simple steps when proofreading your resume to stand out for the right reasons.

  1. Print Your Resume

There’s nothing quite like reading a physical document in your hands. Having all your information on one or two sheets of paper lets you look at the overall picture, helping you spot problems with spacing, margins, and fonts and font sizes. Check the different style elements of your resume; are your periods, commas, bullets, numbers, and hyphens correct?

  1. Go Over Each Word and Sentence

Slow and steady is the best way to proofread a document. Skimming is great for speed, but for accuracy and correctness, nothing beats taking your time to read each word and sentence.

  1. Read Your Resume Out Loud

To force yourself to slow down, read your resume out loud. This will help catch syntax and grammar mistakes, missing words, duplicate words, missing letters, and incorrect choice of words. It also helps you expand on areas that sound like they need more details.

  1. Read Your Resume from Bottom to Top and in Reverse

Reading your resume in reverse and from bottom to top is a reliable way to go over each word and spot capitalization and spelling errors. When reading sentences in the normal manner, the brain does a good job of comprehending words based on the first few and last few letters alone. Reading in reverse forces you to see words because of how unnatural it feels.

  1. Proofread When You Have Fresh Eyes

A good proofreading technique is to give yourself at least 24 hours after creating your resume to go over your work. This makes it easier to detach yourself from what you wrote, spotting mistakes more accurately.

  1. Use a Proofreading or Resume-Writing Service

When all else fails, you can pay a small fee for a professional or agency to go over your work for you. Online services like Kibin and Grammarly are geared towards checking grammar and typographical mistakes, offering recommendations on how to improve your resume in the process.

Get more job search tips and best practices from the staffing services specialists of Top Notch Personnel! If you need help looking for careers in Wichita, KS, we can connect you with dozens of local employers to fast track your job search. Contact us today to find out how we can help you.

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