> I've seen no shortage of candidates get passed on because of spelling mistakes or something equally silly
I wouldn't use this as the only basis to pass on a candidate, but it'd certainly be a red flag[1]. If you can't take the time to even run spellcheck on your CV - a document you have specifically crafted for presumably serious people to read - what does that say about your attention to detail at work?
There's room for leniency, obviously, because even professional proofreaders miss stuff and not everyone is writing in their native language, but some baseline level of competence is expected.
1. I'm usually hiring people in design and product, not engineering, so ymmv.
It says a lot. Just because it is a bias, doesn't make it wrong. I've meet enough people in my career that would prove the rule about attention to details.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding your point (or maybe this is your point), but doesn't this take effectively invalidate the entire human interviewing process? The whole thing is just a series of actions (portfolio review, phone screen, whatever) that give the reviwer(s) a set of mostly subjective data points from which they infer a candidate's fit for a particular role.
I've had plenty of recruiters that could ignore silly resume mistakes and find gem candidates. I've also hired candidates with horrible resumes, and it's never been a problem.
Evaluate a candidate based on their experience and qualifications, everything else is just to satisfy our own egos.
> Evaluate a candidate based on their experience and qualifications
Well, as I said I typically hire in design and product, so "proven ability to produce high-quality written content" is often an important qualification.
I'm a stickler for typos, but I would note that sometimes resumes are sent by recruiters who have reached out to the candidate and are trying to get them hired (so they can get a commission). These recruiters will sometimes edit resumes — even PDFs, in my experience — and can sometimes accidentally inject typos or formatting oddities.
One reason that recruiters want to tinker with your resume is to remove contact information, so they can ensure that the company can't reach you without going through them.
I was livid when this happened to me, especially after I made clear that I did not want the recruiter to send any documents on my behalf.
I wouldn't use this as the only basis to pass on a candidate, but it'd certainly be a red flag[1]. If you can't take the time to even run spellcheck on your CV - a document you have specifically crafted for presumably serious people to read - what does that say about your attention to detail at work?
There's room for leniency, obviously, because even professional proofreaders miss stuff and not everyone is writing in their native language, but some baseline level of competence is expected.
1. I'm usually hiring people in design and product, not engineering, so ymmv.