Woud you reject a job application due to incorrect line spacing in a couple of typos?

[tigermoth]

I am just curious to know as this has just happened to me.

I applied for a post with a public sector organisation in Exeter. The post was in the marketing and communications field. I know my background fitted the requirements of the post very well.

The person spec was a long one so my answer ran into four or five pages. I checked my text thoroughly (a lot more thoroughly than I check my posts on mumsnet!) and of cause I did a spell check. It took me over a day to write the supporting statement and I know it read well.

I was not shortlisted for interview, and when I emailed to ask for feedback I was told that my application was rejected at the very first hurdle because I had 'a missing paragraph space' between two paragraphs and on page one I had mis-spelled Exeter as Exert.

The email goes on to say 'Had
the application been accurate you would have been a strong candidate. I cannot say you would definately have been shortlisted as we did have a very strong field and it would have been a panel decision. However I
can say that I think your application responded well to the criteria we
set'

Oh well, you live and learn I guess. Next time I will have to be more careful when I run a computer spell check and ensure place name words like 'Exeter' do not get bastardised, not even the once.

I have just checked the form on screen and can see no evidence of lack of spacing between two paragraphs. I can only assume this happened when it was printed out.

It was not the be all and end all of jobs and I won't dwell on what might have been.
But still, I am pretty amazed at this feedback. I understand that in communications posts, excellent written skills are a must, but honestly, these were typos!

Also, there was nothing in the application pack to suggest that shortlisting would be dependent on 100% perfect presentation.

I am interested to know if the above is a common reason for rejection - any comments please!

I would only bin it on the grounds of the exert, not on the paras thing, because the paras thing could be a tech-y e-mail transition thing.

And I would only bin it if everyone else looked absolutely shit hot.

Someone who had no typos at all but seemed less well qualified/ suited for the position, wouldn't get priority from me.

I think it was a bit harsh and I am very picky about job applicants. Anyone that fussy would be a nightmare to work for though...

Thanks scummi and Mrbattersfor those kind and generous words!

I do like my present job a lot. It's the nicest job I have ever had and I would really miss it if I decided to give in my notice. The Exeter job was fine, but it didn't really excite me - perhaps that's why I let slip a few mistakes.

I will definitely be much more together when I apply for the next job that comes up.

Oh rotten luck tigermoth , but I'm another short-lister who is very concerned by typos and literals as a lot of our work involves inputting complex terminology and proper names from all cultures, to a system that has no spell-checker.
We do usually discount people for the above - we'd not be so bothered about the missing paragraph line - because as you say that sort of thing can appear as a document is reformatted for a local printer.
Agree that excellent written English and meticulous accuracy should be listed in the person spec/JD (it is in ours, in fairness).
Given your excellent professional credentials and your disappointments lately with some of those applications, I am wondering whether you have indeed finally had the killer feedback that all applicants crave - an accurate (and fixable) reason for your not quite making the cut. These nit-pickers may have done you a favour, as you say.
But I have to say I thought that giving a job to an internal candidate without an interview contravene the Equal Ops Act . They sound like a very odd set-up to me.
Really, really hope your luck turns on this front soon, you deserve it

Scummi, I always, always think of the Twister too and say to myself, give that gal a job .
As you say, it really is their loss!
(X-posted with heaps of people in my last post...)

oh poor you Tigermoth!

FWIW, I find running an application past a 3rd party (preferably someone like a journalist and/or a pedant ) is a good idea before firing it off because when you look at the same document over and over again, you tend not to see the little mistakes.

Hope your next application is more successful.

sorry to hear that tigermoth

what a pisser

their loss

x Enid

I am trained [proud]

bet you would NEVER guess that from rambling posts

I have an NVQ in indexing

wash your mouth out enid! indexing?

I think the line spacing thing is particularly harsh. I wonder if the "Exert" thing was worse because it looked as though it had been done by a spell checker? I don't know if I'm making much sense, but could they have thought it looked like over-reliance on spell-checking? My dad, when he was a headteacher, used to use spelling errors as the first cut for job applications, but they used to get hundreds for each job. If I applied the same criterion to PhD students we'd have precisely none

maybe submit the next one to the MN Killer Pedants

Marina, I think it's going to be a long slow process because so few jobs come up in my field of communication in this area of the country. Since December, I have only seen two jobs that I could apply for.

Still, the longer I am in my present job, the more general comms experience I am clocking up.

You know, if you ever wanted a committee of nitpickers to go over any future application forms, I'm sure we could recruit one quite easily, tigermoth.

ytes there are feck all of those kind of jobs

Dorchester want someone (junior though and too far?)

We could have a veritable throng of pedants at your disposal

X posted. I see the pedant committee is getting volunteers already!

marina

I seriously wanted to do it as a career at one point. Then my editor said 'look, enid, you're a good looking girl. Why on earth do you want to waste your life squinting under a flickering anglepoise. Let's go for a drink'

I shagged him and got promoted to Production Manager and never looked back

on a completely different note has anybody noticed what bizarre howlers you get on the subtitles on the little tvs on bikes and running machines...I presume they are done by machine using voice recognition

I used to work in recruitment in the public sector, can't imagine I would've rejected someone for a reason like that.

I have, though, come across many managers who decide in advance they're going to interview a fixed number of candidates in one day, then they're surprised by a large field of applicants and come up with spurious reasons to reject strong candidates to get the shortlist down to a manageable number

Stop jostling, everyone

zippi, I watched a lot of subtitled telly when dd3 was tiny (in the middle of the night, needed to keep things quiet)

I used to PMSL at some of the things they came up with

sometimes they used to say 'goodbye!!!!'

lol Enid
Bad luck Tigermoth

I wouldn't have rejected for this reason but I am well known for being a skim reader. I recently skim read an email from someone in my team saying "can you ask X to do Y and watch it because she'll sit on her arse doing nothing all day if you let her" and I didn't read that bit, just the "Get X to do Y bit" so I printed it out and gave it to her (X). Luckily it was her last day anyway.

I apologised for giving feedback inappropriately.

oh, I was going to say yes I would reject a candidate for some typos, but I thought we were talking about a cv, not a long answer to a question.

They probably just agreed on lack of errors as an arbitrary rule to cut the number of candidates, just because it takes a long time to go through lots of applications. Some companies apparently reject people for sending a CV in a brown envelope

The silly buggers - they've missed out, Tigermoth.