When Hiring Testers (and/or Developers) what do you do with resumes and spelling mistakes?

Question

There are a bunch of great threads on hiring testers/developers based on skills and tips/tricks.

That being said, I'm going over some resumes (first pass) right now and I'm seeing some which technically, look very sound. However little nuances bother me such as poor spelling, grammar and what look to be careless errors.

Am I wrong for getting a bad feeling about that? The way I look at it, if they didn't put in the time to ensure at least basic spelling was correct, and I'm looking to hire them for Quality Assurance or Software Development (both of which require a high degree of accuracy), perhaps they're not the right choice.

What if the person appears to have English as a second language? Keep that bar where it is or lower it a little and give them the benefit of the doubt?

I'm curious to hear the opinion of the group.

Answer 1

You nailed it on the head - if they can't be bothered to double-check their resume, how careful are they going to be with their code/documentation/etc? They won't even be that good with Google - "proofread your resume" has to be one of the top resume tips on the net.

Answer 2

My personal opinion is that if they did not take the time to run their documents through a word processor's grammar and spelling checker, their thoroughness is in question.

I often grade resumes A, B, C for sorting purposes and I drop one letter grade immediately for any blatent errors.

As an added bit of irony, I was reading a reply to an article on InfoWeek some months ago about the state of the resource shortage in IT. There was an individual who commented on the article that stated he was out of work for over a year and had listed various credentials such as MBA, SAP, various Oracle and MS certs, etc, but his comment which was quite wordy was rife with errors. The ironic thing is that the site provided a "Check Spelling" button that would have certainly have fixed these. Maybe that is why he is still unemployed after 12+ months.

Answer 3

My best advice in this situation is to give them a copy of their own resume and ask them to find bugs in it.

See how they handle that. If they can admit their mistakes and take it in stride, I wouldn't count it against them. If they flubber all over the place trying to explain away their mistake, thats the kind of developer to tester you would have to deal with if you hire them.

Answer 4

I know it's not exactly fair, but you could try to see if they come from a non-English speaking country (check college, past jobs, possibly their name). If they do, it could be a lack of mastery of English, in which case they should be given the benefit of the doubt.

Otherwise, I'd put the resume in the look-at-last pile because being attentive to detail (as is needed by both programmers and testers) and making sloppy mistakes on your resume don't really correlate well.

Answer 5

Am I wrong for getting a bad feeling about that?

No.

Answer 6

When last I did this, I tried to guess whether the error was the candidate's error, or whether it was introduced by the head-hunters we were using. On a couple of occasions we interviewed a candidate, and we were able to compare his copy of the resume with what the head-hunter sent us. Invariably, the candidate's resume lacked all of the typos and weird formatting present in the headhunter version.

These days, I would think that head-hunters would just copy/paste, but you can't assume they won't edit the candidate's resume, and thus screw it up.

Answer 7

You're definitely not wrong for feeling bad about that - in fact, if their prospective job requires attention to detail, this is a non-starter.

How their errors affect their prospects depends on the type of job you want them to accomplish. If you're just looking for a back-end coder, some mistakes in the resume may be ignored.

On the other hand, if you're looking for someone who will also contribute to your corporate image - someone who produces documentation, or works on a UI, or will be customer-facing - then you definitely want to pay attention to the details.

Answer 8

I would look at the overall quality of the resume. If the mistakes are minor or subtle, then I don't scratch it based on that. Do consider that English may not be their first language, so if a word seems wrong, but phonetically it makes sense, there could be a logical explanation (e.g. there vs. their).

However, with the availability of resume writing shops and spell-check, there is no excuse for a spelling mistake, especially if it's being picked up by Word. But I agree with other posts, in that you should consider if the mistake is easily explained. However, if you choose to bring them in for an interview, look for signs that the mistakes may turn up in their code and work as well.

Answer 9

I, too, thought that you had already nailed it with your question. That programmers that are too sloppy to spell-check their resumes aren't worth the time spent for an interview.

Now that I have read all the answers that wholeheartedly agree, though, I get doubts about that. We are programmers. We make stupid, brain-dead mistakes every day, maybe every hour. Some of us love to code and crank out beautiful code, yet hate it to go through the motions of communication.

Don't hire sloppy people, but please don't expect programmers to be without fault and consider whether writing a resume is the same thing as writing code.

Answer 10

I had one interview where I asked them to tell me about code they knew well, and they started talking about setWimdow. I wasn't quite sure if it was my hearing, so asked them to write it out on the whiteboard. Sure enough, same spelling...

Answer 11

I wouldn't dock someone too much for a single spelling or grammatical mistake, especially if it's a transposition onto another word rather than an outright misspelling. Editing your own work is notoriously hard because you know what it's supposed to say. It's easy for your eyes to miss even simple things because your brain interpolates to correct/fill in the erroneous/missing pieces. If the document is rife with misspellings or usage errors, then that is another thing completely.

I have my wife (or someone else) read through my most important documents. I recognize that a different set of eyes without the expectations is invaluable in an editor.

On a related note, I find the text in the editor box here on SO very difficult for me to read. I'm at the age where reading glasses are only sometimes required and without them it's hard for me to catch small errors in what I type here. I constantly find myself going back and fixing small transpositions in characters, repeated words, etc. that I've missed because the text is so small.

Answer 12

Just for the record: I know a fellow developer with quite serious dyslexia. He is still an excellent developer though, it's just that probably he will never be able to write documentation properly.

Remember, compilers may be unforgiving in terms of grammar (language syntax) errors, but word processors are hardly.

Answer 13

I have hired quite a few developers and it should be noted that some resumes are reformatted by contract companies. They do this to provide a format they believe works for their clients. Because of this reformating, some of the resumes are rewritten and that is where the spelling/grammer errors can come up, things like sequel for SQL. However if I receive too many resumes I will sometimes kick out resumes with these issues as an easy way to thin out the pile.

Answer 14

Personally, I think "resume rules" are archaic and silly. Look at the some of the really good answers on StackOverflow. They're rife with spelling errors, incorrect grammar, incorrect usage, and outright poor diction in a lot of cases. Would you throw out Jon Skeet's resume if he misspelled a word or used "they're" instead of "their?"

Answer 15

Programmars cant spel ;)

Answer 16

If a devloper has spelling mistakes in there resume then I definately wouldnt consider offerring them a job.

Answer 17

Quite right. Sloppy content is symptomatic of a number of things: they haven't proof read it, they haven't asked a friend to proof read it, they haven't used a speel-chucker and they haven't asked their recruiter to proof it. (Spotting a theme?)

Equally poor presentation might not always be their fault. Many recruiters will just copy and paste from their document into the house style/template which will almost certainly break their carefully balanced design. At least that's one answer ...

But you're bang on - if a tester can't even test themselves properly, what are they going to do for you?

Answer 18

It proves that their keyboard doesn't have an F7 key, I wouldn't hire them!

Answer 19

From my personal experience, there is a direct relation between written text and code when it comes to carelessness and lack of attention to detail. I've yet to see an exception.

This has nothing to do with English being a second language (like in my case) or a medical cause like dyslexia. It's in the seemingly tiny details: whether the usage of spaces around punctuation is inconsistent, whether there are consistently mistyped words (a careful person would eventually realize his/her mistake by observing what other people are typing for the same word), whether the person can strictly follow a given format at the first try, etc. It all reflects to the code that the person blurts out.

Answer 20

Are you hiring someone to write copy or are you are hiring a programmer?

If you are hiring a programmer, then who cares how they spell?

Edit: I originally had these in the comments, but I of course made many spelling and grammar errors, so I moved them up here, where I could edit them.

About writing skills, documents, and code comments:

Being a good tester, is mainly about being extremely creative. The myth is that it's about being methodical. It isn't. It's rarely ever possible, or cost effective, to test every single case. To get good coverage you have to creatively identify the right places to test, and focus your efforts there. Or, you need to be good at developing innovative ways of automating things.

Spell checking is about "brute force" analysis. It's not about "big picture" stuff.

I know that testers need to write docs and test specs, and code comments, and other things.

If a tester writes a doc with a lot of mistakes, I can say "hey... fix up your spelling and grammar mistakes".

On the other hand, if they write a test plan that doesn't cover the important areas, or doesn't find some super secret bug in a strange edge case, then it's a lot more difficult for me to correct?

Then, I'd basically have to do the testers primary job, which is analyzing requirements and producing a test plan.

I can delegate to the horrible writer that's brilliant at uncovering bugs, and be sure he's going to find most of the bugs.

I can't do that with the great speller that sucks at QA.

So... to me the ability to spell well isn't important.

People who are good at testing are rare and expensive.

English lit majors are abundant and cheap.

Answer 21

This is like the old "Should I employ the guy who doesn't dress well?". I wouldn't employ a person who arrived at the interview with visibly poor clothes and hygience, but apart from that I'd be much more interested in what they've achieved, and what they can do. Remember that programmers are often overworked and stressed - and it may peak at the time they are looking for a new job. Stress will degrade their spelling, and attention to written detail, while they are still performing well as programmers (or testers). In fact, I'd be more wary of a resume that was overly polished, than one which had some minor errors.

Answer 22

Well, my opinion is to look first whether this person has English as his native language. Or better extend it: whether the resume language coincides with the author's mother language.

It has been several years since I haven't written a single document or a resume in my language. I write in German and English, I'm sure there are lots of errors there. I can certainly check for spelling errors, but... regarding words, constructions and expressions, I can probably never be as good with it as the James Bond. :)

If the purpose of the job is not writing documents and talking to customers you may overlook this in the candidate's resume. If there is an international company then it doesn't matter at all, since the guy may be not perfect with English but quite good with French and that's more valuable than a candidate with the perfect English and no French at all. Put Spanish/Italian/Whatever instead of French.

bool TakeHimHer = false;
if (ResumeErrors.Count > 0 && ResumeErrors.SpellingErrors == 0)
{
    if (!PerfectLanguageImperativeForJob && CandidateMotherLanguage != ResumeLanguage)
    {
        if (CandidateSkills > PassLevel)
        TakeHimHer = true;
    }
}
else
{
    if (CandidateSkills > PassLevel)
        TakeHimHer = true;
}

Answer 23

If someone dominates the qualifications and fits the qualifications but they have a minor issue, then they at least merit a phone interview to confirm/deny the issues. More than 2 obvious issues (especially if they would show up with a red flag grammar check in Word), they are typically downgraded or rejected outright.

My last resume was checked by my wife, 2 family members and two career finding professionals. I still found an error in it when I picked up 3-5 years later. Crap happens. It gets cleaned up and life goes on.

In the end, I'd use the standard by which you would like to be measured.