Grammar girl here, friends and family often ask me to review their resumes before they

send them to a potential employers.

And the most common error I see is that people fail to use parallel construction in lists

of accomplishments or responsibilities.

Throughout your career, you probably did lots of things that you want to highlight for

a new potential employer.

For example, maybe in your last job you were responsible for making coffee, decoration

hanging and you ran the office football pool.

That's sure to impress them, right?

Well, it'll impress them more if you change it so your three grueling duties are written

using parallel construction.

The way I just read it was a mishmash, the verbs are in different forms and in different

places, and the last part you ran the office football pool is a whole clause.

We can clean it up by making each part start with a gerund, an ING form of a verb.

I was responsible for making coffee, hanging decorations, and running the office football

pool, making, hanging, and running.

That's much better, each part is a gerund phrase, making coffee, hanging decorations, and

running the office football pool.

They match.

Although the most common errors I see are using different verb forms or different phrase

forms, occasionally people will also jumble their articles or prepositions.

Here's a sentence that could be better.

...