Perfectionism and pedantism are good qualities some teams are after, it is unsurprising that some people would reject a candidate who did not bother “properly” writing the name of the technology they use.
nodejs came out on 2009, I've used it non-stop since then and probably built close to 100 things with it. I am on the author's list of both node and v8.
I write it as nodejs because that's how I got used to it on the mailing lists and several places that I frequent.
If a "team" decides not to hire me because of the latter, then ... thanks, I guess?
I guess I'll backpedal at this point and acknowledge that that "nodejs" may in fact be not only a correct and accepted spelling -- but in fact a hip "in-the-know" spelling -- within a certain community.
But at this point we're getting into the territory of what's seen as a positive in some niche communities may not be seen as a positive signal outside that community. And in business communications, what masters most is knowing who your audience is, and how your message is received.
Then you being outside the community, have done nothing but filter out the best candidates by focusing on the wrong details under the banner of “attention to detail”
It’s ego.
What is the résumé’s job? To convey experience and work in a positive light. A small typo that may incidentally be the correct spelling shouldn’t derail that if the goal is to hire the most talented people.
To my defense, I was going by my Bayesian prior for certain language names for which one could be 100 percent sure there was no alternate accepted spelling or capitalization.
So if one put JAVA or PERL on their resume, that would generate a definite "pass" signal.
Agree or disagree, this is great feedback for job seekers. Spelling is often used as a filter.
What are some other signals that act as red flags for a potential applicant in your hiring flow?
Well another major turn-off would be: a "primary skills" section that mentions 30 different random applications / protocols that one might have been incidentally exposed to for a week or 2 at some job ... 15 years ago. No one can be expert-level in all of these things. Just tell us the top 3-6 that really matter and which define you.
Or even if it's just 1 or 2. It's infinitely better to hire someone who is in fact really solid at what they say they know, than someone who tries to spam you with every random keyword they've been exposed to in the hope that you won't drill down and ask them any hard questions about most of them.
That, and skill listings that don't pass the "apples and orange" test. For example:
Something tells me they could easily focus their attention on something not necessarily related to the most critical parts of the project. They could be very pedantic (and often are) about some irrelevant thing.
I have a lot of merge requests in some pretty big projects correcting SASS to Sass in the code and documentation. I'm surprised no one ever seems to question their notion of spelling proper names when it's a quick web search away.
