Whether you’re a potential employee or employer, the image you present must be professional.
Boy, how’s that for going out on a limb?!
Unbelievably, this often doesn’t happen, so we need to talk about it. Case in point…today. I’m a member of an insurance group on Linked In. Here is exactly (thanks to copy and paste) what was listed on one of the discussions…
Career Opportunity in Inusrance. Check out the Farmers Insurace website!
Farmers Insurance is growing and has expanded here to the Greater Philadelphia area. Find out more about the career opportunities here at Farmers.
The word “insurance”shows up three times in this short promotion and twice its misspelled. Unlike what the artist Meatloaf espouses in his song, two out of three is really bad!
Spell check is a wonderful thing. So are the little red dots underneath a misspelled word. So is taking the time to re-read. I will admit, I’ve made spelling errors and other gaffes before. I just sent out a promotion for upcoming events with the wrong month (darn June and July)! However misspelling your own industry twice is unforgivable. This is a “reach out” to attract others to your organization. That you’re the best thing since sliced bread. You offer a tremendous career opportunity. But you can’t even spell your industry…twice (note they are misspelled differently).
As consultants and entrepreneurs, we offer proposals, promotions, and professional services. How do we look if we consistently misspell words or use poor grammar? Once is an accident, twice is simply being lazy. It impacts our image and our ability to close a deal.
The guy who wrote this probably feels dumb, and he should. Let’s hope he learns from it. Let’s hope we all learn from examples like this and make sure our image is what we want to portray, regardless of whether its our resume, a job offering, or a proposal to your next prospect.
P.S. I spare no expense on my proofreading. Captain Jack is diligent in his reviews (see above)…
© 2011 Dan Weedin. All Rights Reserved
Hi Dan – great post and right up my alley. One of my perennial complaints is the increase in typos and grammatical errors. The more “content” there is on the web, the worse it gets. You’re usually so good, but today I found something that seems to be your personal bugaboo: its vs. it’s. “Its” is the possessive; “it’s” is the contraction of it is. Perhaps you were testing your readers? (Check your 5th paragraph and your second to last. Both have an its where you wanted an it’s.) Maybe Captain Jack needs a break! ~ Elena
Funny you bring that up. I’m normally good with that, however spell check told me I was wrong. I had it right the first time, but decided to err on the side of spell check. I’m glad to know I was right!
Dan
Spell check: the most useful and most dangerous tool on the word processor menu. “Who you gonna to believe? Spell check, or your own lying eyes?” Happy writing! Keep up the excellent work. ~ Elena