I place quite a bit of importance on cover letters. Cover letters that are concise and clear and professional don't come up often, and are always highly appreciated. Well written cover letters and resumes also correlate highly with the professionalism and abilities of candidates, in my experience. I hire mostly for non-technical positions, and I am mindful that in highly technical positions, maybe past work speaks for itself, and there's less emphasis on cover letter and resume.

That's an excellent point - thank you. Completely left it out of my sight.

Do share same sentiment wholeheartedly.

> For me, resume is not just a boring list of what you did, but also the way it is written - lucidity, points emphasised, etc. It all speaks loudly of personality.

Do you require the candidates to have written the resume themselves? Otherwise it's risky to read so much personality into it.

Resumes are usually required to be truthful, sometimes this is even verified, but I've never seen a requirement that I can't just have an agent write it for me; like how students write essays.

> Do you require the candidates to have written the resume themselves? Otherwise it's risky to read so much personality into it.

Especially problematic when recruiters are known for rejigging resumes into their own format, etc., before passing it onto the client.

They don't usually jiggle with text, just match it with corporate forms. Substance will still be there.

Agree with you here. No, there is no such requirement and it's probably not necessary because it's goal is just to get an interview (or not to get it).

It's not a magic stick allowing to make a perfect choice, more like an assessment option. That's being said, sometimes it worth to give a shot to someone whose CV is sub par.

Up to a point, all resumes are reasonably well written. Now if you are filtering the top 10% of these resumes based on writing.. you are likely to get people who at best are good writers and no different from other candidates' resumes you rejected.

Do you want good writers? Maybe, but not everyone. I honestly do think the importance towards grammar and "writing" in resumes are overstated.

Perhaps to my poor choice of words you have assumed that selection is being made based on good writing. it's not that simple.

We have to define "good writing". Good doesn't necessarily means CV written in a way for Shakespeare to become jealous to lucidity. It has to meet bare minimum - as in have zero grammar mistakes.

To make an example, you probably won't go to a first date in your pyjamas with stains on it but will dress nicely. The date (and whatever follows) may not be up to your expectations, but if you do use pyjamas, it most certainly will. Not because your pyjama is not magnificent but just because having negligence in dressing properly shows arrogance and disrespect to someone who joins you.

Well, you see, we need Windows admins, and we find that people who can master the convoluted nuances of the English language are naturally suited.

If you need a Windows admin that states proficiency in Wnidows in the CV, you can infer that not much attention has been put on the CV. If not much attention has been put in the much important first contact with your company, what’s the experience going to be n months down the line, with e.g. powershell scripts that don’t come with spellchecking?

Mostly, hiring has a biased risk matrix. You don’t get hurt by missing a good candidate so much as hiring a bad one. So that makes you conservative in choices. Obviously 1 typo can happen but think about 5 to 10. If you have a lot of CVs to wade through, awful documents going to the bin is not a bad first step in the process.

I've also been on the employer side for a couple of teams. I see the resume/interview process like dating: When you just meet someone that interests you, you go out of your way to look clean and nice on your date.

When I see sloppy resumes or feel the interviewee is not interested/engaged during the interview process, I can imagine how they will be once I hire them.

Thank you for throwing away my resume based on a minor grammatical mistake. I have no interest of working for a team whose supervisor is actively avoiding people whose first language is not English. I would rather work with skilled people regardless of their country of origin.

If you pardon the way I am going to put it - you seriously may have to work not just on reading, but also on comprehension skills. English may not be your native language (and it's not mine either), but if you demonstrate hostility with passive aggressive tone and rationalise it with made up arguments (looking at the part where non-english speakers are "discriminated"), being on hiring side probably I will give you a chance to apply your skills elsewhere.

As to being non-native English speaker, you may not be able to create perfect wording - that's fine, but if knowing this you're too lazy or entitled not to speel check it at least -it has nothing to do with knowledge but just plain negligence or ignorance.

> speel check

This has to be intentional.

If you say on your resume that english is not your first language, I'll pass the mistakes for sure. And I may even admire the quality of your non-mother-tongue english.

> If you say on your resume that english is not your first language

I would imagine that most of us non-native speakers would rather not bring attention to what is easily perceived as a weakness. We try to blend in.

With this arrogant posture, I would think of you as a dodged bullet tbh. Btw even though I'm not the original commenter, I agree with her sentiment. And English is not my first language.

Why is it so extraordinary to ask people to pay attention to what they are doing. Specially when going for something that supposedly interest them?

Imagine you are on your first date with that boy/girl that you DIE for. Would you take care of every detail ? Would you groom yourself, comb yourself even though you are not a barber or a stylist? Now THAT is showing interest.

> Would you take care of every detail ? Would you groom yourself, comb yourself even though you are not a barber or a stylist?

Would you _go to_ a barber or stylist, or at least have a friend give you a once-over to make sure you look your best?

That's what you should do with your resume. First, second or twentieth language doesn't matter, care and attention to detail does.

Spot on.