• ‘Initiative’ is the most commonly misspelt word on a CV.
• Amazingly ‘Perfectionist’ was misspelt in 25% of the CVs analysed.
• The least misspelt word is ‘Succeeded’, which was spelt unsuccessfully in 5% of the CVs analysed.
• 73% of hiring managers said they would be less likely to hire or offer an interview to an applicant with multiple spelling mistakes on their CV

A recent study from TheKnowledgeAcademy showed that there are over 24,000 searches on average every month for “how to spell.” This led Resume.io to consider how many times do candidates incorrectly spell common CV words? And which word is the worst offender?

Resume.io analysed 2,000 CVs to determine the results and surveyed 1,248 people to get more information on CV mistakes.

Most common misspelt words

Initiative 32%
Detail-Orientated 29%
Perfectionist 25%
Management 21%
Professional 17%
Implemented 14%
Corresponding 14%
Achieved 9%
Accurate 7%
Succeeded 5%

The Results

Resume.io’s survey revealed that 41% of respondents have guessed how to spell words on their CVs and 23% of Brits think their CV was to blame for not landing a job.
While 73% of hiring managers said that multiple spelling mistakes would make them less likely to hire or even offer an interview to an applicant.
Resume.io can reveal that the word we should pay most attention to, when drafting our resumes, is ‘initiative’ which was misspelt in 32% of the CVs analysed. Research found applicants struggle with the number of ‘I’s in the word and opt for variations like ‘inchitive’ and ‘intatitve’ instead.
Ironically, the word ‘Perfectionist’ was spelt wrong in a quarter of the CVs considered. Alternative spellings like “Perfactionist” and “Perfectonist” were among the most commonly noted.
Furthermore ‘Implemented’ and ‘Corresponding’ tied in 6th place, at 14%.
‘Achieved’ is next with 9% of mentions misspelled in CVs. The main issue that seemed to catch people out here was the placement of the ‘I’ with many opting for ‘Acheved’ or Acheived’ instead.
The least misspelt buzzword of our top 10 is ‘Succeeded’ with just 5% of jobseekers making this error.
A spokesperson for Resume.io, Menno Olsthoorn, commented:
“Quite a few people even misspelled the name of their employer (for example MacDonald’s instead of McDonald’s). Curriculum vitae was also misspelled regularly, while profesional (or proffessional) and acurate are two words that you really want to spell correctly.”

Expert Tips For Writing Your CV:

1. Read through your CV thoroughly before sending it to make sure there are no grammatical errors. A second opinion from a family member or friend might help too!
2. When using spell check, ensure it is correcting your words to GB English, instead of US English.
3. Try to keep it concise and structured- you don’t need fancy language to come across as a good candidate.
4. Use online tools, such as Grammarly, which will spot your mistakes faster than you can!

Photo credit: Shutterstock/Kittisophon

Article credit: https://resume.io/