I learned this week that I had sent out my first batch of resumes with a typo in the phone number, and had uploaded this to dice and to monster. A number of recruiters are set to follow up automatically when this happens, and had called a woman named Suzanne.

In her goodness it seems she called back when messages were left, and in her exasperation she contacted me to let me know. Apparently this was a large enough inconvenience to her that it was no longer funny, and I changed all of the public profile copies. I think I probably sent this erroneous copy out to at least 5, perhaps 10 companies directly.

I’m not sure what the right thing to do to recover from this is. I have been sitting it out for a few days waiting to gain my senses, and will probably submit the resume to a second or third set of eyes before applying again. It leaves me wondering whether the silence or form-letter rejections were unrelated, for positions I would not have received, or causal, and a hiring manager getting a wrong number on a resume just moves on to the next place. I don’t think I’ll ever know. I’m being careful not to beat myself up over it.

So, typos, coupled with slow feedback, can be disastrous.