I wouldn't use this as the only basis to pass on a candidate, but it'd certainly be a red flag[1]. If you can't take the time to even run spellcheck on your CV - a document you have specifically crafted for presumably serious people to read - what does that say about your attention to detail at work?

There's room for leniency, obviously, because even professional proofreaders miss stuff and not everyone is writing in their native language, but some baseline level of competence is expected.

1. I'm usually hiring people in design and product, not engineering, so ymmv.

It says absolutely nothing. You've inferred something from it, and then run with it to create your own narrative.

Evaluate a candidate based on their experience and qualifications, everything else is just to satisfy our own egos.

That's as much survivorship bias as it is to hire someone based on their attention to details.

Well, as I said I typically hire in design and product, so "proven ability to produce high-quality written content" is often an important qualification.

One reason that recruiters want to tinker with your resume is to remove contact information, so they can ensure that the company can't reach you without going through them.

I was livid when this happened to me, especially after I made clear that I did not want the recruiter to send any documents on my behalf.

Think of it as dimensionality reduction—many people claim to be detail-oriented, but mistakes on a resume are an easy way for reviewers to verify that claim.

Spelling issues are inexcusable given how easy they are to catch (I hear Microsoft Office has a spell check feature), but grammar issues beyond that should largely be overlooked.

It wasn't about skills or experience or culture fit, but about getting the hiring done in a sane amount of time.

But they're not easy ways. There's absolutely no correlation between resume quality and candidate performance, and they're just idiosyncrasies we develop over time. We trick ourselves into believing these signals are important, when they're not.

I don't think that's entirely true. The resume is a product of a potential hire, and it gives off the first impression of their organizational and writing skills. While it shouldn't be the _only_ deciding factor, that first impression is an important signal for a hiring manager who has to filter potentially hundreds of candidates.

That's like saying a first date is in indication of a couples future. It's a bit silly. Sure, if it's absolutely chock-full of errors that could be a sign, but one or two are the kind of things you're supposed to ignore.

> that first impression is an important signal for a hiring manager

Only because people have been trained to judge others based on petty things, so people have responded in kind. Not because it's actually a valuable effort, but to give people one less reason to throw it in the "No" pile.

This is the kind of silly leap I'm talking about. People infer WAY too much from something like a word in a digital document and extrapolate that into something they use to impact a persons life.

I had an employee that insisted on asking candidates what they're 5 year plan, and was insistent that long-term goals were serious indicators if a candidate should be hired. She would give candidates thumbs down if she didn't like the answer, even if they could do the work.