Distracting documents that could spell trouble
A friend asked me to review his resume this week. It needed little help but what stood out to me and was distracting was his overuse of capital letters. In this article, I’ll review common errors for capitalisation before providing a complete guide on words to capitalise on your CV.
The problem with my friend's CV was not the content, nor strictly speaking, the spelling; it was his inconsistent, overuse and ultimately incorrect use of capitals.
He was a professional candidate presenting himself as an amatuer!
Now I'm not saying a gatekeeper would or should toss his CV into the bin based on his errors of judgment. But they might.
I remember discussing this topic with a friend of mine who, at the time was in Human Resources at one of Australia's better known investment banks. The bank had decided to decline two otherwise capable applicants based on their CV's. Spelling errors and incorrect and inconsistent use of capitals were the reasons.
The recruiter was looking for mistakes in resumes as evidence that the potential new hire did what they said they do IE: paid attention to detail. The candidates had applied to a senior position in investor services. Attention to detail is vital in this position and candidate will fail without it.
So I ask you, "should you be concerned if your guessing what words you'll capitalise?"
Four common errors using capitals
Check these against your resume and see if you make the same mistakes.
- The most common mistake on resumes is an inconsistent approach to using capitals. Most of us do it when we are unsure or trying to emphasise a word in a sentence. Because this is subjective without any basis in grammar, randomly capitalised words appear throughout a paper.
- Incorrectly using initial capitals in shortened form
| Correct | Incorrect |
|---|---|
| south east (SE) | South East (SE) |
| South East Asia (SEA) | South east asia(SEA |
| Singapore dollar (SGD) | Singapore Dollar(SGD) |
3. Headings. Using sentence case or title case for the heading is a matter of choice. Use title case for the main header of a report or CV. The main words take an initial capital – words like “and’, ‘the’, ‘into’ or ‘of’ are not capitalised. The first letter of the first word in the heading of sentence case is capitalised. Proper nouns are always capitalised.
On a CV your main heading or title is your name. First and last names begin with a capital. You may choose to use ALL CAPS for your name and if so that's perfectly acceptable in the title.
Subtitles on your resume may include Skills, Professional history, Academic qualifications, Hobbies) or similar.
4. Capitalisation after a colon: Colons introduce an element that illustrates the information that preceded the colon and is used frequently in a CV.
- There are three teams in marketing: content, data and SEO
- Or
- We had two options at this point: invest more money or sell the business.
The guide on words to capitalise on your resume
When using:
Bullets
The first word of a bullet or sentence is capitalised. Whilst this may seem obvious, it’s a widespread mistake.
Proper Nouns and Formal Names
Nouns that represent a specific person, place, or thing and should be capitalised. The most common correct use of capitals on your CV will be for proper nouns and names. For example:
- Lee Kuan Yew
- Raffles Place
- Marina Bay Financial Centre
- Asia
- English
- and Company Names
Proper nouns such as the names of companies get a capital letter unless the company uses all caps or lower case. In most cases, unorthodox use of capitals is a style used in word logo and sometimes does not carry across into regular text. Usually, companies only use this kind of strange logo styling, but occasionally it carries over into standard text.
If you use Adobe Illustrator? Capitalise it. Software is nearly always written like this. Do check online to be sure.
iPhone is a classic example of unorthodox use of capitals; there are many others.
Cities and States
Always capitalise on cities and states when you list your address and the location of a company or school. Make sure also to abbreviate states. For company info, for example, you might write:
- Johnson and Johnson | Perth, WA
Roles, Departments, and Teams
These should be lowercase in most places on your resume, including within your resume summary (if you’re using one) as well as your bullets or other descriptions of work experience, education, volunteer work, and more. So you’d write:
- Scheduled social media content in my role as a marketing coordinator with LinkedIn.
Exceptions are when you name your role at the start of a job entry and if you’re putting a title at the top as a resume headline. For example:
- LinkedIn, Marketing Assistant (February 2014–April 2016)
The same goes for departments and teams. If you’re listing out departments you worked with, you don’t need to capitalise on those. I notice. a lot of resume with random use of capitals in one line but not in another.
- Relationships were necessary with marketing and sales to influence product design.
- Instead of:
- Relationships were necessary with Marketing and Sales to influence Product design.
Industry Sectors
Do you work in the pharmaceutical industry? Keep it lowercase when you’re writing about industry experience. So at the start of a resume summary, you might say:
- Project manager with experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.
- Instead of:
- Project manager with experience in the Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology industries.
Words to describe time.
Seasons are not proper nouns and are not capitalised. However, days of the week and months are capitalised since they’re proper nouns.
List dates of employment at the top of a job as
- September 2020–present
University and University Degrees.
When used to cite what degree you obtained, or if it’s a proper noun in itself, you capitalise. For example:
- National University of Singapore
- BA in Business is in caps, but if you refer to it later and mention, “…I studied business and…” don't capitalise. If you studied English, however, it should be capitalised.
If you choose to list completed coursework with your degree or otherwise mention subjects you studied or researched, the fields would not use capitals, unless they include a proper noun.
For example, you have completed coursework in comparative literature, American studies, French, and history.
Initialisms and Acronyms
If you use initials (letters) or acronym (words), as noted in common errors, spell it out first and then add the shortened version in all caps in parentheses to ensure you get through an applicant tracking system (ATS). Here are a couple more correct examples:
- subject matter expert (SME)
- search engine optimisation (SEO)
Even if letters or words are widely recognise such as in this example,
- most people would immediately know what NASA refers to, but there’s still always a chance an ATS won’t recognise it. If in doubt spell it out.
In conclusion
Using capital letters correctly can make the difference between your written communication appearing professional or amateurish. At worst, misuse of capital letters may be grammatically incorrect or make your meaning unclear. At the very least, peppering your CV, emails and reports with unnecessary initial capitals can be distracting and, in some cases, cause unintended hatred, such as JAMES WHY DID YOU DO THAT.
Use your capital s correctly, and if you can’t manage that be consistent with your usage and don’t apply for jobs in investor services. If your CV’s capitalised correctly,
start applying now.
