From a CareerBuilder survey:
Sixty-three percent of HR managers report that spelling errors are the most annoying mistakes they see on resumes. Other top mistakes include:
Resumes not customized to the position (30 percent) Lies (23 percent) Including too many insignificant details on job responsibilities (21 percent) Resumes that are more than two pages long (21 percent)
Lies would seem to be a “most annoying mistake” on a resume if I took the survey and spelling errors would be second.
From earlier in the article:
If you’re looking for a new job this year, be prepared for some competition. Twenty-seven percent of human resource (HR) managers say they receive more than 50 resumes, on average, for each open position. More than one-in-ten (13 percent) HR managers receive more than 100 resumes per job opening. The survey, “Resumes 2007,” was conducted from November 17 to December 11, 2006 and included 360 HR managers.
There are 2 ways to look at this information. Obviously, it is valuable to have a selection to choose from when sourcing. However, if you are receiving 50 or more resumes, my initial reaction is that the ad is not written tight enough.
Obviously, a fairly generic, entry-level position will elicit a large response. But I still believe the ad should be adjusted to use a finer filter – a more descriptive requirements section regarding the ideal candidate.