Nobody’s perfect.

But within one’s resume, perfection is expected.

And then some.

To my chagrin, the act of pasting my resume into a Craigslist ad uncovered a severe contradiction in my attempts to portray myself as a competent writer and editor. Yes. The dreaded typo.

Perhaps the best part was the fact I misspelled the word, ‘competent.’

An errant ’s’ found its way into the word. I’ll never know the damage it caused, suffice it to say the misspelled word found its way into the latest version of my resume, the one I’ve been intensely sending across the New York Tri-State area in a reinvigorated “Look mom, I really am serious about making it in New York and not just taking some sort of two-month vacation before moving into your basement” kind of way.

No less than six potential employers received that resume. Today, at least. More than a dozen received that version last week. And to say the least, I felt as though I was qualified for each and every one of the positions I applied for. But those employers were looking for editors, writers and marketing communications professionals.

Making a typo out of the word ‘competent’ (even if it was in the final three lines of the resume itself) likely says a lot about competency to a hiring manager or HR pro scanning dozens of resumes from qualified applicants each day. That is, if my cover letter was deemed good enough for follow-through to the resume itself.

I take it as a lesson learned, and one I’ve been told since high school to avoid. In my enthusiasm to perfect the design and content of the resume itself, and then turn that effort into a job interview, I forgot the first basic rule of professional communications: Always use spell check.

It’s nothing to dwell over. But a mistake I won’t soon repeat.