A person may not have good grammar skills, but be ingenious in math and despite all the errors show enough verbal skills to understand the tasks. If math is what the job involves – he/she may in fact be a good candidate

In further disagreement with Nancy, I think a resume needs enough details to give a sense of truthfulness. Why should an employer take a chance with what may be nothing but exaggerations?

No, “one week” is not singular in the way Nancy used it in her sentence. It would have been had she left off the word “time” at the end of her sentence.

I read your piece about errors on résumés on CareerBuilder.com and was wondering about the grammatical correctness of the following excerpt from your writing:

“Please allow me to share a few more noteworthy errors observed on real applicant résumés. Space does not permit me to even scratch the surface of the number of these grammar bombs that I see in one weeks’ time. And since my italicized editorial garnered such feedback in last week’s posting, my snide comments are provided herein.”

Isn’t “one week” singular?

Nancy, this is not meant to be critical at all, it is just meant in good fun. Please do not take offense. I certainly make many, many mistakes more often than I care to admit. I really did enjoy your article. Until reading your post I was having a rather dull day. Thanks for providing a “week’s” worth of fun!

Hulk angry, Hulk smash!

;’)

I did say that I am no expert.

I strongly suggest you take an evening course in business writing. There are books that I could suggest, but it my opinion that it is better to have a teacher for this.

The first thing that stands out to me in your post is something called “telescopic sentences.” That is when a writer leaves small words out and the sentence gets shorter like a telescope.

“Am not great with grammar” should be “I am not great with grammar.” “Needs to do some practice writing” should be “I need to do some practice writing.” I’m not entirely pleased with the choice of words, but I’m only trying to illustrate what is meant by a “telescopic sentence.”

“I need to practice” sounds a bit more sophisticated than “I need to do some practice.”

Watch out for sentences that are too short, they may come across as simple-minded.

“I went to the store. I bought a ham. I like ham.”

“I bought ham because I like it.”

Which one sounds more like an adult? The exact structure and information required depends on the purpose of the sentence. Perhaps someone asked me why I bought a ham. If someone had asked what I was just doing, the sentence might include the store but not include that I like ham.

Punctuation is just as important as grammar and spelling.

I am not an expert, nor is it my intention to imply that I am. I am in technical college right now (three weeks to graduate) and recently completed a course in business writing and have been working in a book on technical writing.

Believe it or not, spelling and grammar have always been a passion of mine as well. As a small child, math was easy, but spelling tests caused anxiety. I used the M-I-C-K-E-Y-M-O-U-S-E from Disney to make words easy to remember.
Also, a babysitter corrected grammatical errors mercilessly. When we started covering grammar in school, I thanked her.

Now I find myself still shaken somewhat by being laid off. Though I knew that work was slow, and I had been the newest member of that department, I was still at a loss to know how I could have been good enough for them to keep. That is no excuse for the mistake, but recognizing that anxiety and feelings of inadequacy might make me more careful to watch for mistakes.

On to my communication with CareerBuilder!