The 10 most commonly misspelt words on CVs

On Aug 23, 2022

Getting your CV right is key ways to finding a job but many people are failing at the first hurdle by misspelling words on their résumé.

Language skills are critical to any CV and it can often be the difference between getting hired and your paperwork falling to the bottom of the pile.

In a mission to help job hunters improve the language used on their résumés, language learning app Preply has analysed Indeed’s UK CV database to reveal the most misspelled words.

‘Focused’, ‘successful’ and ‘professional’ were some of the most common misspellings of everyday words, according to the research by language learning app Preply

Don’t be a cliché! 10 most overused words

Skilled
Responsible
Trained
Organised
Educated
Informed
Motivated
Social
Confident
Adaptable

Preply’s research revealed the top 15 words job hunters have the most difficulty spelling on their CVs when describing themselves and their achievements or responsibilities.

According to Preply’s research, ‘experienced’ was the word causing the most problems for job seekers writing their CVs in English.

‘Successful’, ‘counselled’ and ‘succeeded’ also proved difficult for candidates due to their repeated letters.

Words with American to English variations such as ‘behaviour’ and ‘judgement’ also proved confusing.

The online language learning platform also created a seed list of more than 150 English words and phrases commonly used by job hunters in their applications.

Each word from the list was searched on Indeed’s CV finder to discover the number of résumés updated or submitted this year where it had been featured.

Alongside this the language learning app analysed Google Search volumes to find out which of the 150 words job hunters have the most difficulty spelling to help raise awareness of common mistakes to avoid.

Getting your CV right is one of the key ways to finding a job but many people are failing at the first hurdle by misspelling words on their résumé. Stock image

It found that ‘skilled’ was the most commonly used word on CVs in the last six months and was on 2.18 million résumés.

‘Responsible’ and ‘trained’ follow in second and third place on the list, being included in 1.30 million and 1.28 million CVs respectively in the last six months.

Job hunters are also keen to show their personable side, with references to ‘social’ and ‘friendly’ traits featuring on 617,000 and 446,000 CVs respectively.

Despite not ranking among the top 20, more than 73,000 candidates included the description of ‘fun’ and at least 20,000 job hunters wrote about having a ‘good sense of humour’ on their CV in the last six months.

Want to improve YOUR CV? Expert shares their six top tips

Preply marketing specialist Yolanda del Peso shared her tips on how to improve the language used on CVs to make an application stand out.

Start your sentences with action verbs

Front-load your sentences so the most important piece of information is at the start and is introduced using a dynamic verb. For example, ‘answered customer complaints’ might become ‘managed customer complaints’.

Omit personal pronouns

Avoid the use of ‘I’ and ‘we’ to make your résumé sound more scientific and factual. For example, ‘I lectured every week to a cohort’ might become ‘Lectured weekly to a 30-strong student cohort’.

Use the language of the job description

Adapt your résumé for every job role and try to incorporate specific words and phrases from the job advertisement you are applying for the best chance of success.

Give specific evidence of your skills and achievements

To back up your claims give clear, specific, and relevant evidence. Where possible try to quantify achievements. For example, change ‘Developed a large Twitter presence’ to ‘Grew Twitter account by 3k followers in Q2’.

Avoid unnecessary adjectives

Keep it simple and try not to use unnecessary adjectives or adverbs. For example, ‘skillfully negotiated contracts’ would become ‘negotiated contracts’.

Thoroughly check for spelling and grammar errors

Formatting and grammatical errors can be the difference between success and failure. Make sure you check your résumé at least twice, and if possible ask someone else to review it before you submit it.