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Comment by beat | Hacker News Reader

One of my best friends has a MD and an MBA degree. He currently manages a $100M investment portfolio. We chat online almost daily.

He is, by far, the worst speller I know. Even after 20+ years of online conversation, I can barely understand what he's saying sometimes.

He also passes bits of professional writing past me for validation, usually to check his intent. His professional writing is always perfectly spelled, with impeccable grammar. He relies heavily on both software and human checks (secretaries and copywriters) to insure the basic quality of his writing. That's one reason why a truly wretched speller makes more in bonuses alone than I make in salary.

So yes, I have a hard time forgiving a misspelled resume. If he can do it, you can do it, too.

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I don't mean to challenge you, but I think your assumptions about how easy it is for others to do something you consider rudimentary are based in an undeclared set of privileges and fortune. A few possible scenarios where getting help might not be as easy as asking a partner, friend, or colleague to help review things.

A first-generation college grad paying their way through school by working full time in a new town.

A single parent trying to get into a field while working and caring for their family.

A non-native English speaker who perhaps understands the general structure of the English language, but not the nuances of grammar (or what is expected in a Western CV/Resume).

I hope you could see that your earnest appreciation for proper spelling is unfair to apply in such a black/white dichotomy. I kindly ask you to reconsider your approach.

But that leaves me with a problem - I still need to turn this stack of 100 resumes into something I can be expected to work through, given the limited availability of my most expensive resource - time. I don't want to interview 100 candidates. I want to interview five. That means 19 out of 20 need to be eliminated before it even gets to the interview process.

The spelling heuristic gets rid of between 5 and 20%, right away. A lot of those resumes would also be caught by other heuristics (no ten page resumes, etc). Most of your concern cases would also fall to my other filters as well. And quite frankly, if a resume jumped out at me in a positive way, but it had three or four or five typos? I'd interview. It's not a hard and fast rule.

It's not as black and white as you think it is.

Between us, you should try to introduce automated Hacker Rank testing in your company.

It's a relevant filter and it's a terrific value for time.

A good old exercise to print number from 1 to 100 and then 100 to 1. That's the sort of things that get rid of half the candidates.

The college grad is surrounded by other college grads who can review his writings.

The parent is surrounded by family who can review his writings.

The non native English speaker with poor spelling knows first hand that he needs his resume to get reviewed. And he should not expect to easily find a highly qualified job that requires to write English in an English speaking country if he can't read and write English.

So far, your examples only manage to show that people could manage just fine and if they can't they were not qualified for the job.

English is not a rare skill. There is no shortage of people who can write decently.

So your argument is that your rich friend can hire people to prof read his writing. So everyone else can do that to?

That does sound like a solution that will work, but maybe not practical for everyone?

Back when we were college students, he wasn't rich. Yet he got through med school (med school!). He asked friends like me to check things, when they mattered.

You keep looking for excuses, not solutions. He knew, and knows, he has a problem with spelling. So he does everything he can to get the help he needs to keep his spelling from limiting his career. He did it when he was a poor college student. Now, he can get secretaries to check, because he has a successful career built around his strengths, rather than letting his limitations define him.

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