In addition to providing Supply Chain industry news and insights from leading professionals in the field, one thing we love to provide at Argentus is career, resume and personal branding advice. We’ve blogged about how to supercharge your LinkedIn profile, how to avoid interview pitfalls, how to spot a bad boss before you start a job, and other more general career-related topics.

Our recruiters have decades of combined experience, so we’re always picking up on small candidate behaviours that send the wrong message. From the perspective of a candidate, it can be easy to miss the way that the small things come across. Leaving your coat on in an interview. Arriving extremely early. These don’t seem like behaviours that send any particular negative message about your candidacy. But on the other side of the desk, recruiters see some repeated behaviours and can’t help but notice the ways in which they’re sabotaging hiring managers’ perceptions of candidates. By sharing these tips with you, our network, we hope to make everyone’s job search process leaner, meaner, and more successful. So here’s a quick tip based on something that happens surprisingly often (at least a few times a week):

Next time you’re looking for work, send your resume yourself! Don’t ask your spouse to do it for you. And if you’re the spouse who’s eager for your partner to move into a new position, whether it’s because they’re looking to move into a more senior role and are too busy to apply themselves, or because you want them to get off the couch, sending your partner’s resume on their behalf just doesn’t communicate the right message.

It happens all the time, and often the spouses who are doing it don’t realize why it’s harmful to their partners’ chances at securing work. This behaviour falls under the same category as bringing someone else along to an interview. In both cases, you’re unnecessarily involving a third party in your job search in a way that will leave the recruiter or hiring manager wondering why.

We get it. Sometimes you’re too busy to send a resume. Sometimes your spouse is too busy, and sometimes they need that extra push to make the move. And teamwork is great in any partnership. But if you get your partner to send your resume for you, or if you send your partner’s resume on their behalf to a recruiter or hiring manager, it sends the message that the candidate involved is unwilling to take the effort to apply themselves. It sends the message that the candidate doesn’t have the backbone to take charge of their own career. And that’s not a great way to start off a job search.

By all means, feel free to send a recruiter an intro letter on your spouse’s behalf letting them know they’re looking for work. But when it comes to an actual resume, if you’re looking to make a career transition, send it yourself.