I’ve seen candidates hit the self-destruct button over and over in a job search, at every stage of the process.

This has inspired my list of the top 10 biggest ways to kill your job search.  New technology always seems to offer candidates even more inventive ways to flameout in the interview process. The truth is that all of us are capable of flaming out in the interview process.

Top 10 Biggest Ways To Kill Your Job Search

Below is a list of the biggest ways candidates eat it when they are in process with a potential employer:

1.  Not using spellcheck in job search related emails.

Trust me on this – you absolutely want to have your spell check load automatically before you send any email out  – to protect you from yourself.  I can’t tell you the amount of times that candidates have not reviewed an email filled with spelling and grammatical errors. There’s nothing that will get you disqualified faster for a leadership role or for any role that requires attention to detail then when you are sending email communication to a company that makes you look like you’re lazy or crazy.

2.  No filter in your interview.

Yup, people curse in their interviews.  Even use F-bombs.  I don’t know if at their previous company all the executives were cursing or if they were brought up in a home that was run by truck drivers and sailors but somehow or another they get nervous and out comes the profanity in the interview.  Here’s a tip. Don’t do it – ever.  You might be meeting with a nice person, or the corporate culture isn’t one that tolerates profanity. Even if the culture allows you to curse when you are employed typically it doesn’t allow you to curse when you’re in the interview process.

One of my candidates that came in for a number of interviews at the Director level and he was meeting with VPs.  When I was told that he had used several F- bombs, my head about exploded. Do I really have to tell candidates they can’t curse in interviews as part of my prep? Yes, I do. So when he called me for status update, I asked him and he got squirrelly with me and tried to talk around it.  Then he tried to claim that he might have but he’d forgotten.  He wasted close to a thousand dollars of our recruiting budget on his interviewing expenses flying him in. Demonstrating emotional control and boundaries are a key element of interview assessment.

3. Not GPSing your location ahead of time, showing up late for the interview and then claiming that you couldn’t find the office.

There’s no faster way to be completely disqualified them blowing in the door 10, 15, 20 or 30 minutes late for an interview.  With GPS, there’s no excuse for being really late anymore for meetings. I don’t care how busy you are, the day before your interview you need to GPS the drive time and ADD an hour.  With all of the navigational technology available to us, the only excuse now for being late is a natural disaster like Hurricane Sandy, a meteor hitting the earth, terrorist attack, national emergency or martial law.

Don’t arrive too early either. People who arrive too early for interviews look creepy. Just walk into reception 10 minutes before your official interview time, and you’ll look prepared but not crazy.

4. Lying on your job application that you have a masters degree when you do not have one.

In my experience over the years, while it’s not frequent, it is also not uncommon that people make up graduate degrees on their resumes.  These are smart people but you wonder what they were thinking.  And get this… for many roles the master’s degree is just preferred but not required for the job.  So why would you lie and completely disqualify yourself?  Many candidates don’t believe that the employers are actually going to run background verification. That’s a very reckless strategy that can come back to bite you big time.

5. Being mean to the administrative assistant or support staff.

Guess what? We work with these people and they are critical members of our team. They help us run everything logistically so if you’re rude to them, we’re going to find out.  I used to have my support staff tell me of anybody who was rude to them in any way.  Just completely unacceptable when you’re in the interview process because you’re on your best behavior. Which means when the company hires you, you are going to break into your Devil Wears Prada alter ego and make people cry.  We go to work to get away from people crying.

More Job Search Faux Pas

6.  Refusing to apply online on the company career site for a specific role

I have news for candidates. The Talent function has been completely transformed by applicant tracking systems, Career sites and recruiting technology.  Companies have spent big chunks of their Recruiting budgets on these investments and they’ve replaced people with the technology. So when you say to the company that you refuse to apply online, keep in mind that you are insulting their process, looking like a technophobe and establishing yourself as a potential lunatic.

7. Inappropriate attire or overly worn clothing, shoes and accessories

For the past 10+ years, most of my recruiting has been national in scope. Which means like most Recruiters I was not able to meet people in person before their meeting with the Hiring Manager. I would confirm the business attire with the candidate and provide guidelines.  I did this because I got burned over and over with candidates showing up looking homeless.

The reason why I think this started was because of the casual dress insanity that swept the nation in the 90s. When casual dress became the norm, judgment went out the window.  I worked at a company once where they had to issue on casual Fridays dress code because women, and men, were wearing Daisy Dukes to work.

I had a candidate for a leadership role who came in wearing a shawl. Or maybe it was a poncho. I’m personally very anti-poncho.  All I know was that I was told “there’s no way I can present a woman wearing a shawl to the CEO.”  You need to know what the industry norm is, the company culture and ensure that all of your clothing, shoes and accessories are clean.

I have some advice for most people looking for a job – dry clean your coat.  I can’t tell you how many interviews I’ve done hundreds of people whose coats when we took them from them in the interview smelled so bad it was like they’ve been sleeping in them at the train station.

8. Going MIA

When candidates go MIA and disappear like a Navy Seal on a recon mission, it’s usually because they have a better offer pending. As a Recruiter, I have a sixth sense when a candidate has backburnered my company.  You are better off telling the Recruiter that you have a better offer coming in then to go completely silent in your disappearing act. When you resurface, you’ve destroyed the rapport and trust you had with your Recruiter and also usually the Hiring Manager, who thinks you are unreliable.

Even Worse Job Search Crimes

9. Inappropriate flirting or actually sexually harassing the Recruiter

I used to have a contact on LinkedIn whom I’d never met who for some reason he would email me on LinkedIn and comment on any new photo I uploaded and my clothing in the profile photo in an inappropriate way.  The whole vibe was creepy without boundaries, which is terrible for your career brand.

10. Being crazy