Your resume must be prefect.

If you ask 10 people about what should and should not be on your resume, you will get 20 different opinions. It seems as if everyone has an opinion, but according to Stephanie at my Job Seekers group, the only opinion that matters is the Hiring Manager's. And from what I've heard, you have 10-30 seconds to grab their attention. Otherwise, goodbye and on to the next.

Once upon a time, I assisted the Hiring Manager in my department by helping to interview copywriter candidates. I have read hundreds and hundreds of resumes, and I cannot tell you how many times I found a typo or something weird in them that caused them to go into the reject pile.

One person spoke of her work with the "Untied Way." Obviously she meant "United Way," but despite her work for this great cause, her resume stopped right then and there. Many people misspelled the name of the very company that they were applying to work for. The name was a little tricky, I admit that, but for someone to apply for a job and praise themselves for being an excellent writer and proofreader only to misspell the company name, well, sorry, the resume goes into the circular file.

Now when you apply for a job and when you have an interview, it may be old fashioned but it is still a good idea to take the time to write a personal thank-you note and mail it off to the person or persons you interviewed with. Immediately. Right after the interview. Yes, some people send emails (text messages may be next) and that may be the way the world is heading, but a personal note sent via snail mail is PERSONAL. It requires a little more effort, and impresses an employer that you cared enough about the job to dot that I and cross that T.

One person sent us a great resume, and did incredibly well during the interview process. We were all excited about her because we thought that she would be an immediate fit, and we were all happy to receive a thank-you note from her. Until we read the note. It was full of misspellings. Not just one. There were lots of them. In this case, it would have been better for her NOT to have sent the note, because we didn't hire her. The pieces just didn't match up.

Bottom line, whatever you provide to a potential employer, make sure that it's perfect in every way. Do not rely upon spell check in Microsoft Word to catch misspellings for you (remember "Untied Way").

I've been sending resumes and cover letters out like crazy lately. I have applied for 42 different jobs over the past two weeks. For each one, I have tried really hard to tailor the wording of the resume to the job description. For example, for a copywriter job at GameStop, they said that the ideal candidate should enjoy video games and have multiple gaming consoles. We have gaming consoles in our house that date back to the Atari 2600 and Intellivision (they still work!), as well as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. So, I added a bullet point on my resume:

• Own pretty much every gaming system known to man

I completed the online application, uploaded a new cover letter and the resume with the bullet about gaming systems, and then moved on to another application for a writer job with Mary Kay. (Hey, if Mary Kay will hire me to write copy for cosmetics and anything else, I will gladly write that copy and be proud of it.) So I completed the online application, uploaded a new cover letter and resume, submitted the application...

...and failed to remove the bullet that said:

• Own pretty much every gaming system known to man

I'm sure an HR person at Mary Kay is getting a good laugh right about now. My resume is probably getting passed around. In fact, it's probably posted on a bulletin board by a coffee machine with that bullet circled in red. It's what I deserve. I don't think I'm going to be working for Mary Kay any time soon.

No won is prefect. Even, and especially, me. But I try so hard...

Heck, LinkedIn is quickly replacing the purpose of resumes anyway. I don't think there's anything about gaming systems on my LinkedIn profile...

Uh...

Gotta go.