In the professional realm, there are certain types of slip-ups that hiring managers and head honchos are willing to tolerate. Surely no one is perfect, the logic goes, so we’ll let these errors slide in the hopes that the employee can do better in the future.
Then, there’s bad writing. Now that’s a different story.
How many mistakes hold as much potential for catastrophe as shoddy grammar and glaring spelling errors? A poorly written resume or cover letter can ruin an applicant’s chances of getting hired. More often than not, those things lead to barely concealed disappointment and a perfunctory “We’ll call you.”
If you ever find yourself in that vulnerable position called job-seeking, you have an urgent need to get an extra pair of eyes on your write-ups. For this very purpose, you need Grammarly.
What’s this Grammarly thing?
Launched in 2009, Grammarly is a digital assistant that aims to improve the quality of our written texts. Think of it as the software equivalent of your high school English teacher minus the menacing look and occasional theatrics.
Of course, you might be thinking, “My word processing app has an in-built grammar and spelling checker, so why bother with Grammarly?”
For starters, consider the convenience. While you can certainly use the checker in either Microsoft Word or Pages, you can’t use those when you’re typing elsewhere. Think about all the other formal (and even the not-so-formal) write-ups you’re doing: urgent email messages, brief paragraphs to be entered on various websites, and posts on social media.
Not all of these digital locations have their own mechanisms for ensuring accuracy and quality. With Grammarly, this is no longer a problem: Your digital assistant can lend you a hand with email and social media (among other online sites).
This means you can use Grammarly to ensure that all your correspondence with hiring managers and top executives is nothing less than top-notch.
The nitty-gritty of Grammarly
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So, what aspects of your writing does Grammarly look into? Check them out below:
- Correctness. Grammarly will raise a red flag (or, to be more accurate, draw a red line) every time you misspell “occurrence.” It will remind you to put those full stops, commas, and question marks in the right place, and it’ll give you a nudge whenever your subjects and verbs don’t agree.
- Clarity. At times, writers get carried away with sentence length and vocabulary complexity. When this happens, key ideas can get lost in all the noise. Grammarly helps you cut through all the fluff.
- Engagement and delivery. A written text can be firmly rooted in clarity and be a fascinating read at the same time. Grammarly offers suggestions to make your writing more compelling.
- Integrity. Grammarly has a plagiarism checker that detects those sneaky little bits you “borrowed.” (Know your paraphrasing and citation, people.)
As a job applicant, you’d be doing yourself a favor by utilizing the features of Grammarly. Use it to thoroughly check your application files, emails, and LinkedIn correspondence.
It’s not rocket science, folks. Whether you like it or not, all these documents shape a company’s first impression of you. If you dot your t’s, cross your i’s and spell “achieved” properly, you can increase your chances of landing a job.
Grammarly can give you a hand with that. Click here for your free download!
