Half of all CVs received by recruitment firms contain grammatical and spelling errors, a survey of 266 firms found.
The worst offenders are in the 21-25-year-old age group, the survey by the Recruitment & Employment Confederation revealed.
Men are much worse than women, with seven out of 10 recruiters surveyed saying that a CV from a man is more likely to contain errors.
Mistakes highlighted by the survey included confusing ‘there’ and ‘their’, and the incorrect use of the apostrophe.
Misspelling ‘curriculum vitae’ is also one of the most common mistakes.
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Marcia Roberts, Recruitment & Employment Confederation chief executive, said many employers will not even consider job candidates who make basic grammatical mistakes on their CVs.
“Candidates who make errors run the risk of missing out on being short-listed for a job for which they may have the right experience and qualifications. The findings show that jobseekers should first pay more attention to getting the basics right,” she said.
