10 Words or Phrases You Could Get Wrong: Don’t miss opportunities because of these resume mistakes!

You probably want to start a job search quickly. This is almost certainly the case if you have been downsized by the DOGE, you have accepted a corporate or government incentive (buyout) to leave, your corporate, university, or government DEI office has been “dismantled,” or your medical research project has lost federal funding. But, pause for a moment to be sure the resumes, job search letters, LinkedIn profile, and other career marketing campaign materials don’t have embarrassing errors that could jeopardize opportunities.

We have compiled 10 examples of words and phrases that I’ve seen job seekers get wrong, or that have been discussed in blog posts about incorrect usage.

Principal vs. Principle

This is the first word-pair that comes to mind when I think about incorrectly used words because one of my first executive-level clients was an Elementary School Principal. Helene was using the correct word, I know, because she was a school principal for 30 years, but I checked with Google to be thorough.

“Principal” is the head of a school. A principal can also be in charge of something specific in an organization, such as a principal economist. A principle, on the other hand, is a first rule. One way to think about it is that the School Principal sets down the school’s guiding principle.

You will not get this wrong if you are a school principal, or principal investigator on a research team. Nonetheless it’s worth keeping this one in mind.

Accountants do not do “trail balances.”

About 20 years ago, I watched a presentation of cover letter bloopers a recruiter gave at a popular lecture series for jobseekers in Manhattan. A junior accountant’s cover letter wound up in the recruiter’s slide deck because he included “preparing trail balances” as part of his skillset. Accountants do “trial balances”—or at least they did 20 years ago.

This is not really a misused word error—it’s a typo your spellchecker will not catch because “trial” and “trail” are valid words.

Has our job posting peaked your interest?

Your job announcement piqued my interest. A peak is a topmost point, as in a mountain peak. Pique, on the other hand, is to upset or excite. So the job lead should have excited, or piqued my interest.

Are you making due or making do with the situation?

Chistina DesMarais, in an Inc. blog post, pointed out that this is another confusing idiomatic expression. “Make do” is the proper way to say that you’re going to get along with what you have.” The word “due” means “owed,” so this is not the meaning you are trying to convey. If the result of your work was that the agency could “make do with its current case management system, instead of acquiring a new system” that is the way you should write the statement.

Are you stationary when you write a note on your stationery?

My wife proofed a resume with me some time ago and suggested I check whether I was using the word “stationery” correctly. Spellcheck accepts both. Dictionary.com quickly confirmed that stationery is “writing materials, as pens, pencils, paper, and envelopes.” Stationary refers to standing still.

Wear a costume when this is the custom.

Resumes have crossed my screen over the years with the words “costume” and “custom” confused, although they look and sound like different words to me. Like many confused words, both pass the spellcheck test. But the words do not sound the same. They are also spelled differently.

Did you whet your appetite or did you wet your appetite?

According to Christina’s post, “whet” means to “sharpen,” so you are saying something sharpened your appetite. In other words, “whet,” rather than “wet” is the correct word to use. For example, one of my early cover letters when I graduated college said that “my internship reviewing a program at Budget and Credit Counseling Service whet my appetite for doing program evaluation.” (I got the job.)

“Our general counsel was chairperson of the Diversity Council.”

You will not confuse the words “council” or “counsel” if you work in a general counsel’s office or serve on a diversity council. Nonetheless, I have occasionally felt the need to clarify whether an entry-level jobseeker I was speaking to worked in a counselor’s office, or worked for a council of some sort. Sometimes the answer is that they worked for a counselor that sat on a council.

Am I a shoo-in for this job, or am I a shoe-in?

According to the Inc. article, “you are urging something in a certain direction when you ‘shoo’ something” so shoo is the correct word. You probably feel the job fits you like a shoe, but it is not considered correct usage to write that you are a “shoe-in.” As a job search letter writer, I feel that stating “I am a shoo-in for your open position” would be too informal, and perhaps expresses overconfidence. You might use such informal language, though, in a text exchange with an industry or professional contact you know well.

Should I take the express into Manhattan to have an expresso with you?

We may email or text our industry contacts to invite them for meetings in a coffee shop where we can have espresso with them.  The correct word, according to Grammar.com, is “espresso,” even though my MS-Word spellchecker accepts “expresso.”

Concluding comments

There are many options for preparing career marketing materials today. You can do the writing yourself, hire a writer to do it, ask your favorite AI to generate a resume for you, or some combination of these options.

Remember, though, that you must take ownership of the product in front of prospective employers, recruiters, and industry contacts. Wrong-word and other errors will reflect on you and reduce the chance that you will move forward in the process. Proofread carefully, use spelling and grammar checkers, and then use a text-to-speech app on your phone or computer to make sure the documents sound right. When something does not sound right, it probably is not right, so check your writing again.

There are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of confusing words and phrases in the English language, so Google the word if you are not sure. The extra effort could help you land a new job sooner!