Resume Help Blog

Whether you’re preparing for a job interview, writing that resume, preparing to give a speech before a crowd, or writing up a business presentation, it is critically important for you to make sure everything is correct. When it comes to your career, you can’t afford to make any mistakes.

Using poor English during a job interview, as well as on your job resume can cause you not to get the job. If you are giving a speech, using poor English will make your audience think you’re uneducated. If you submit a written proposal to your manager, and it is written with poor English, it may very likely be rejected. As you can see, failure is not an option.

Here are some of the most common English mistakes that can destroy your chances of career advancement, or your chances of getting the job you want.

The First Of These Mistakes Is Pronouncing Words Incorrectly

While this mistake may sound easy to avoid, it is one of the most common mistakes that people make. I had a friend that used the word obsese instead of obese. Was she a dummy? Certainly not – just not careful. To become a master at English, it is not enough for you to know a word, or understand its definition. You must also be able to say it correctly. When you fail to pronounce a word correctly, even if people think you’re somewhat intelligent for using the word in the right way, you will be criticized for not saying the word properly.

One of the best ways to fix this problem is to break the word down into its syllables in your head and speak it slowly. This is how we teach children to read and speak English. By breaking a word down we can sound each piece out until we know it well enough to say it correctly every time.

The Use of Slang

The second mistake you can make is using slang. What is hard is that most of us learn English by listening, not reading. Especially in groups with friends. Which means that we pick up the everyday English that these people speak. Some of it is fine, while a lot of it is just slang and bad grammar.

Now most people born in this country know what they are saying is slang and when they interview they “clean up” their speach and talk properly. A good way to help is to “practice interview” with a friend that speaks well and ask them to help you cut out those slang words.

While slang may sound cool when you’re talking with your friends, you will not want to use slang words during a job interview, during a speech, and definitely not on your job resume. If you do, it is very likely that you just killed your chances of being successful.

A Failure to Speak or Write Carefully

This is a mistake that gets a lot of people in trouble. They speak without taking the time to think carefully about the words that come out of their mouth. Not only can this cause your interviewer to become confused, it may also cause them to become offended if you say the wrong things. We all have been guilty of this from time to time and it is something to carefully watch.

When I say speak or write carefully, I am talking about grammar as well as the impression you make on your listeners or readers. I have a very good friend, a college graduate from the University of California who writes terribly. Why? I am not sure, but I know that when she was doing business proposals she would always send them to my wife (an English major) to correct the grammar. Without the corrections our friend would have seemed illiterate, yet she isn’t. And she does not speak like she writes. Interesting isn’t it? She is brilliant but a poor speller.

Conclusion

English is a difficult language to learn. In fact it’s one of the top 5 hardest (Russian, Chinese, and Vietnemese rank up there too). Because of this most people are understanding with people that are from another country. However - if you were born here and speak poor English then you have no excuse and a person interviewing you will be put off by bad English.