Mis-spelling a sign of genius? Maybe. Mis-spelling on your resume a sign of genius? I don't think so.

If I had a nickel for every time I've heard someone say "poor spelling is a sign of genius", I'd probably have a quarter. But if I had a nickel for every time I saw a mis-spelled word on a resume, well, I'd have more than a quarter, I can tell you that.

Geniuses may very well have a difficult time with spelling. I'm no genius and every so often a real simple word stumps me. For the sake of argument, let's assume that the correlation between geniuses and mis-spelling is true. Now prove to me that every person that has spelling errors on his/her resume is a genius. Not so easy, huh? My point here is this: don't have spelling errors on your resume. I've done a little segmentation exercise with the people who have spelling errors on their resumes and have determined that they fall into 2 groups:

1) geniuses that didn't take the time to spell-check and proof-read their resumes

2) non-geniuses that didn't take the time to spell-check and proof-read their resumes

Get my point here? Poor spelling (or grammar) on the resume doesn't as much impact how we feel about your intellect as it does your attention to detail. With something so basic as spell-checking (and grammar checking) your resume...and, frankly, so easy...you are inviting someone to say "no". You might have some other great stuff on your resume and the recruiter might say "yes" despite the spelling errors, but you are taking a chance you shouldn't (and potentially putting doubts in the mind of the people interviewing you).

It doesn't take a genius to know you need to proof-read your resume. I'm just saying.