![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
A very long reply to a post...
...all to say, I think, that it's situational.
[This is a reply in response to a post by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vito_excalibur wondering how useful/required/needed perfect English skills were in job hunting now, especially as in her industry there are a lot of people for whom English is not their native language and they don't hold internal correspondence and project papers to the same level. It got way too long and rambly, so I moved it over here.]
Of the three positions in which I've had to evaluate job applicants, two were academic, one not.
Most recently, I was on a search committee for a department head in the library where I work, and if anyone had screwed up the grammar in their cover letter and CV, I'd probably have rated them below the others, as it was a prominent position in a university library, but we didn't have any applicant who had a grammaticalmistake.
Previously, I was the curator of a collection of slides and hired student workers at a school that had a lot of non-U.S. students. We got an extra-high number of them because they were much more persistent, as often the terms of their funding/visa/whatever it was required that they have a job or pay for part of it (I don't remember the details), so they got to campus a few weeks before school started and applied *everywhere* and got hired because we wanted those positions filled ASAP. Students who waited until class started, like most of the US applicants, were outta luck. What that means is that we had a lot of applicants for whom English was a second or third language, and a job that was in part reliant on art and architecture research. It was a balancing act during interviews to find those who were fluent enough in written English to be able to do the research and write it down in a readable manner, and those who weren't. We rejected more than one person because we weren't convinced they were able to do it, and occasionally someone slipped through.*
The third position was for a delivery company for which I was an office assistant. We were deluged with 300 resumes in response to a two-line blind ad looking for someone to work in "...management in the transportation industry." The boss took one look at the stack, handed them over to me and my coworker and said "Give me six or seven." So we spent a week reviewing resumes and cover letters and let me tell you that was the BEST training I ever had in how not to write either.
There were so many we were looking for reasons, however BS they were, to reject them. The resume that had micro-font and a fancy trifold purple paper? Rejected. It was a position that required the ability to wrangle contracted drivers, who didn't *have* to work if they felt they didn't need the money right then no matter how many jobs we ahd that needed delivering**: we needed people-wrangling skills, not artistic ones, plus if we had to squint to read the resume, we didn't want to deal with it.
The guy who wrote about his three kids and his tennis-playing hobby on his resume? Rejected.
The recently-graduated kid who included three Xeroxed reference letters from his coaches? Rejected.
The cover letter that impressed me a great deal until I came upon a different cover letter three down in the stack that was identical in every way except for a few keywords, because they'd obviously used the same computer program? Both rejected. (Note that if they'd had perfect relevant experience, I'd have passed the resumes up to the boss anyway, but there were too many other people who had better experience, so their computer-generated letters got them rejected.)
A resume and cover letter that had been folded to fit into a standard business envelope? Rejected, unless they were outstanding, at my boss' request: he hated that the folds in the paper made the stack unstable and likely to fall off his desk, so asked that we not send any to him. I think we sent a couple, but the vast majority were rejected - just because of the folds in the paper! I have NEVER sent a folded resume because of that: I always use 9x12" flat envelopes. No sense in getting rejected because someone's got a bug up their ass about that!
And, back to the point of this: bad grammar and spelling in the resume? Rejected. A typo or two, especially in these early-90s days when not everyone had access to a computer and were still reliant on typewriters wasn't a problem, but not being able to express yourself in an understandable manner - and we got cover letters where all we could say was "WUT?!" - was a detriment since there were so many people who *could* express themselves that way.
So in a situation where the person is snowed under with resumes and trying to come up with reasons to winnow the stack -- yes, I'd say perfect grammar and spelling is absolutely necessary, because you don't want to hit some HR person on a bad day, or who has an unwarranted hate-on for split infinitives***. I know that there were others in the comments concerned with sounding stuffy or something like that, which can be a problem if you're applying to a laid-back office, but I think that has more to do with overall word choice and phrasing rather than the rules of grammar alone. I can usually write a breezy sentence and a formal, stilted one that say essentially the same thing and are both grammatically correct. (Whether I bother do it on my LJ is another matter entirely. XD)
ETA: Although I didn't have a hand in contracting the drivers, we didn't care about their written or spoken English as long as they were fluent enough to understand the dispatchers and the clients, and could fill out their paperwork in a readable manner. Owning a van that didn't have windows in the back was way more important. :) However, that was a blue-collar job and the manager job was technically a white-collar job, so the requirements were different although, ironically, not the pay: we had to hire a new manager because the previous manger went back to being a driver because he could make more money that way.
--
* Our best student worker was actually a Korean ex-military student who'd spent his army time assembling bombs. You want someone who's precise, careful, and perfect, you get an ex-bomb-assembler! He was able to clean and assemble the slides the best of anyone.
** Even I ended up pressed into service to deliver a package once. :)
*** Even though I have nothing against them and that rule is, happily, fading away.
[This is a reply in response to a post by
vito_excalibur wondering how useful/required/needed perfect English skills were in job hunting now, especially as in her industry there are a lot of people for whom English is not their native language and they don't hold internal correspondence and project papers to the same level. It got way too long and rambly, so I moved it over here.]Of the three positions in which I've had to evaluate job applicants, two were academic, one not.
Most recently, I was on a search committee for a department head in the library where I work, and if anyone had screwed up the grammar in their cover letter and CV, I'd probably have rated them below the others, as it was a prominent position in a university library, but we didn't have any applicant who had a grammaticalmistake.
Previously, I was the curator of a collection of slides and hired student workers at a school that had a lot of non-U.S. students. We got an extra-high number of them because they were much more persistent, as often the terms of their funding/visa/whatever it was required that they have a job or pay for part of it (I don't remember the details), so they got to campus a few weeks before school started and applied *everywhere* and got hired because we wanted those positions filled ASAP. Students who waited until class started, like most of the US applicants, were outta luck. What that means is that we had a lot of applicants for whom English was a second or third language, and a job that was in part reliant on art and architecture research. It was a balancing act during interviews to find those who were fluent enough in written English to be able to do the research and write it down in a readable manner, and those who weren't. We rejected more than one person because we weren't convinced they were able to do it, and occasionally someone slipped through.*
The third position was for a delivery company for which I was an office assistant. We were deluged with 300 resumes in response to a two-line blind ad looking for someone to work in "...management in the transportation industry." The boss took one look at the stack, handed them over to me and my coworker and said "Give me six or seven." So we spent a week reviewing resumes and cover letters and let me tell you that was the BEST training I ever had in how not to write either.
There were so many we were looking for reasons, however BS they were, to reject them. The resume that had micro-font and a fancy trifold purple paper? Rejected. It was a position that required the ability to wrangle contracted drivers, who didn't *have* to work if they felt they didn't need the money right then no matter how many jobs we ahd that needed delivering**: we needed people-wrangling skills, not artistic ones, plus if we had to squint to read the resume, we didn't want to deal with it.
The guy who wrote about his three kids and his tennis-playing hobby on his resume? Rejected.
The recently-graduated kid who included three Xeroxed reference letters from his coaches? Rejected.
The cover letter that impressed me a great deal until I came upon a different cover letter three down in the stack that was identical in every way except for a few keywords, because they'd obviously used the same computer program? Both rejected. (Note that if they'd had perfect relevant experience, I'd have passed the resumes up to the boss anyway, but there were too many other people who had better experience, so their computer-generated letters got them rejected.)
A resume and cover letter that had been folded to fit into a standard business envelope? Rejected, unless they were outstanding, at my boss' request: he hated that the folds in the paper made the stack unstable and likely to fall off his desk, so asked that we not send any to him. I think we sent a couple, but the vast majority were rejected - just because of the folds in the paper! I have NEVER sent a folded resume because of that: I always use 9x12" flat envelopes. No sense in getting rejected because someone's got a bug up their ass about that!
And, back to the point of this: bad grammar and spelling in the resume? Rejected. A typo or two, especially in these early-90s days when not everyone had access to a computer and were still reliant on typewriters wasn't a problem, but not being able to express yourself in an understandable manner - and we got cover letters where all we could say was "WUT?!" - was a detriment since there were so many people who *could* express themselves that way.
So in a situation where the person is snowed under with resumes and trying to come up with reasons to winnow the stack -- yes, I'd say perfect grammar and spelling is absolutely necessary, because you don't want to hit some HR person on a bad day, or who has an unwarranted hate-on for split infinitives***. I know that there were others in the comments concerned with sounding stuffy or something like that, which can be a problem if you're applying to a laid-back office, but I think that has more to do with overall word choice and phrasing rather than the rules of grammar alone. I can usually write a breezy sentence and a formal, stilted one that say essentially the same thing and are both grammatically correct. (Whether I bother do it on my LJ is another matter entirely. XD)
ETA: Although I didn't have a hand in contracting the drivers, we didn't care about their written or spoken English as long as they were fluent enough to understand the dispatchers and the clients, and could fill out their paperwork in a readable manner. Owning a van that didn't have windows in the back was way more important. :) However, that was a blue-collar job and the manager job was technically a white-collar job, so the requirements were different although, ironically, not the pay: we had to hire a new manager because the previous manger went back to being a driver because he could make more money that way.
--
* Our best student worker was actually a Korean ex-military student who'd spent his army time assembling bombs. You want someone who's precise, careful, and perfect, you get an ex-bomb-assembler! He was able to clean and assemble the slides the best of anyone.
** Even I ended up pressed into service to deliver a package once. :)
*** Even though I have nothing against them and that rule is, happily, fading away.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
The best resume, bar none, was from an ex-military man who'd been the sergeant in charge of a motor pool: clean, simple, with the perfect experience. Unfortunately, our boss finally decided to promote one of the dispatchers and just hire a new dispatcher, so he never got interviewed.
no subject
no subject