by Lisa Shaw

Created on: October 16, 2006   Last Updated: April 17, 2007

During my years in Employment Services, I was in a position to hear both the frustrations of job seekers who submitted applications to employers and never heard from them and from the employers who did not have decent applications from which to pull talent. If you are a job seeker and have been in the market for a while, it's probably getting tiresome to complete job application after job application, seemingly rehashing the same information about your abilities again and again.

It is probably very tempting to start getting sloppy about application completion or to cut some corners, but it is extremely important to your employment future to hang in there and do this right. Two things you should know about how employers view job applications might help you take the time to think twice about what you are submitting. One is that the job application is a contract. If you read the fine print on most company job applications, you will find the line that says you are attesting that the information you are providing on that application is true and correct. You cannot leave things out or make stuff up here, because once you put your signature on that document, you are legally bound to its accuracy. More on this in a bit. The second thing you should keep in mind is that the job application is the employer's first-hand look at how well you read and follow instructions. If you ignore questions, or if you omit or provide information other than what was requested on the application, it says a great deal about your probable work ethic.
That said, it can be nerve-wracking worrying if the application you submitted is going to pass muster when you are in the already stressful situation of just trying to land an interview. Therefore the following ten points are a checklist for your job application to make sure that while you play up your skills and experience, you don't have your application tossed aside over a forehead-slapping error or omission. These mistakes are the biggest reason qualified applicants do not get calls back on their applications:

1. Failure to specify the position you are applying for
I know it's tempting to put "any available," but many larger companies have to file job applications with the specific openings they have available. If they are looking for both a Boiler Operator and a Secretary, where are they supposed to file the application that says "Any"? Employers are usually very specific about what openings they are recruiting for, and if they have multiple

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