I have always found interviewer pet peeves to be unwarranted. These poor souls are already subjecting themselves to enough scrutiny in the interview process. At least twice in my life, a coworker has shared an irksome offense that I would have easily committed given the opportunity, yet they praised me an exceptional employee. Putting so much weight on a nuance is absolutely ridiculous. It is very real however and the following should be avoided at all cost.

The bottom line is, don’t give your employer an excuse to excuse you (sorry about the wordage; I don’t have a very extensive lexicon). Here are 5 pet peeves various coworkers have shared with me throughout my career:

1. Multi-page Resume

Interviewers pompously thinks it’s unreasonable for candidates to think they have time to read more than 1 page. Unfortunately, interviewers are the gatekeepers so it’s wise to play by their rules. You can never go wrong with one succinct page.

2. Not Paying Attention to Detail

At my former PR agency, the CEO dismissed every candidate who didn’t know the agencies slogan. Granted it’s the first thing you see entering the office, prospective employees have a ton going on and it’s an insanely finite detail. Job seekers can sometimes be applying to 100’s of jobs making it tough to perform extensive research on each potential company. I suggest remembering some very obvious key points. This also runs into pet peeve #3.

3. Not Knowing the Company

If you get to the point of an interview (phone or face), it’s always a good call to thoroughly understand their business. I know it’s tedious, but it’s wise to spend a couple hours researching your prospective employer. This one even bugs me; as if you couldn’t tell.

4. Typos

OK, OK, maybe I’m not so innocent when it comes to interview pet peeves. This drives me nuts. There is no reason you shouldn’t be proofreading. (I really wish this wasn’t a rule because now I have to proof read this post…)

5. Not Following Up

I think this one is becoming a bit outdated. I probably receive a followup email 10% of the time and it doesn’t do much for me. I feel an interviewees time is just as precious as mine and they always give thanks at the end of their interview anyway. Again, better safe than sorry. Track down the interviewers email and shoot them a brief thank you.

So there it is. I don’t agree with all of these, but they are common across most professions. Interviewers need to get off their high-horse, but until that happens, I suggest avoiding the aforementioned pet peeves when being vetted by a potential employer.