Is it a coincidence that misspelled is hard to spell? You know that typos in your résumé can be trouble, but have you thought about the effect of typos and other mistakes elsewhere? If competence is part of your desired image, it needs to be evident everywhere, from the direct communication of a job application to the public image in your online profiles and Google results.
Look at what a few well-placed typos do to undermine the image of a federal agency (via Kent Blumberg):
What does "Frequestly" mean? And how about the use of "our" instead of "out"?Here's the obvious observation of the day: typos like these aren't really helping the FAA brand. I actually like the word "frequestly", and would find it to be brand enhancing if I heard it from Cranium or Virgin or Mini, but when the FAA speaks, we need it to sound like James Earl Jones. We want the FAA to show us at every opportunity that they have their act together. Brands are fractal entities, and the meaning of the whole is to found in the execution of even the lowliest detail.
Just about anything you do online has the potential to become (a) public and (b) permanent. Even personal emails can become public if the recipient forwards them. Certainly, non-work-related comments you post to a blog, mailing list, or social networking site will probably be available to any recruiter who looks you up. Spelling, grammar, and clarity of thought matter, even away from the office.
On the other hand, tracking the misspellings of your name is a useful addition to your online reputation monitoring practices. (Reputation monitoring is an extension of self-Googling. You can find more on my other blog, The New-Savvy Executive.)
So, how many times do you proofread a post about spelling and typos? :-)
Tags: career reputation
Comments (2)
This is a great, timely post... three comments:
1. Louise at BlueSky got called out on her post today for not spelling a word correctly: http://www.blueskyresumesblog.com/2006/10/what_does_it_me.html#comments - the only big deal the guy points out is that she is a resume writer (no big deal for me, see my 3rd point)... what I thought was funny was that it was a MySpace users :p
2. Funny you quote Kent on this topic as he just won the October "You Get It" award for personal branding: http://www.jibberjobber.com/blog/archives/156 -- Kent is a very cool guy and my new "must read"
3. On spelling, I chat so frequently and spelling is not an issue... two many shorthand things as well as communicating quickly, no one really cares how you spell. I find that transferring over to e-mails and even my own blog posts... I wonder if "chatters" are overall worse spellers than "non-chatters." No matter, my spelling skills are going out the window ;)
Posted by JibberJobber Guy
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October 24, 2006 6:25 PM
1. I have half a memory of someone writing about spelling and having "speling" in the title (which becomes part of the permalink). I definitely read this post a couple of extra times, slowly. :-)
2. That wasn't a coincidence. The quote's from Diego Rodriguez (metacool); I found it via Kent. Kind of surprised I wasn't reading metacool—I guess it got purged in one of those periodic RSS housecleanings.
3. No doubt, spelling isn't the big deal in IM and texting, but I think it still makes an impression in email, posts, and comments. I wouldn't put too much weight on it, but I wouldn't throw it out altogether, either.
Of course, there's the converse risk of the meticulously polished piece of garbage, which is also to be avoided.
Posted by Nathan Gilliatt | October 24, 2006 6:48 PM