Blunders, gaffes and boners, oh my!

Resume and cover letter mistakes can be comic or tragic:
comic if we learn from them, tragic if we don’t.

I won’t reject a candidate due to mistakes on their resume or cover letter, but most hiring managers are not as forgiving. Some examples from which to learn:

“Early Retirement, The website for people who used to work for a living”
Sounds good, except the author of this site applied for a full-time job.

“Thank you for inviting me to dialogue with you about any/all appropriate positions; I believe my experiences and skill sets closely match the position announcement.”
Always have a trusted friend read your proposed cover letter in order to avoid a first line fiasco.

“The under mentioned are the highlights of the experience that I can offer.”
Grammatically correct? I have no idea, but it reads like hell, and that’s why you should have someone else proofread your cover letter.

“I have been proactive in anticipating performance barriers and countering those barriers by initiating a plan and communicating an approach for overcoming those barriers by working with managers to develop a collaborative strategy specific to overcoming obstacles.”
Making a simple concept appear complex is not a good resume strategy; the individual reading the resume might not understand what you are talking about.

“As a former professional basketball player, which has helped me with teamwork and exceptional people skills and networking successful achievements encompassing all aspects of the sales cycle including cold calling, networking, lead development, prospecting, qualifying, presenting, negotiating and closing and direct account management.”
Avoid making your entire pitch in a single sentence.

“Teaching English a a second language”
Letting a typo slip through is bad, but this is a bad a it gets.