For job applicants, how skillful must someone be with English grammar/writing and reading?

[closeupready]

I ask this of both those who hire and those who are looking for jobs.

[lastlib]

1. A person's precision with words is often a reflection of their precision in whatever else they do.

so I regard good grammar and usage to be very important in an employee who will have any responsibility for complex tasks.

[IrishEyes]

2. It is important

Employers hate spelling and grammar mistakes. However, I think spelling and grammar mistakes must be common. I have had employers mention to me in interviews how frustrating it is to see so many spelling mistakes in resumes, cover letters and emails. I'm very careful about double checking anything I send out, especially to an employer. When I worked in human resources, I saw a lot of bad mistakes in cover letters and resumes. I had to throw them out.

[HopeHoops]

3. I think it depends on the nature of the job. Even at the most professional levels, it varies.

I've known a lot of high-end and very talented programmers who couldn't communicate worth shit in English, but I could read their code without fail. They weren't involved in dealing with the public, just the machines. That's fine. I've known some very fine English speakers who couldn't code their way out of a calculator.

In customer service, command of the language is essential, and that doesn't always mean just English.

But when a resume shows up on my desk that has "it wasn't worth my time to bother editing this for mistakes" all over it, that person isn't going to get the job. I'm not the "dig for buzzwords" type, but unfortunately many are. I look for substance, sincerity, relevant experience, and signs that an applicant can adapt and learn. Now most of them are fed into scanners looking for number of hits on the keywords in the advertized post for the position. There's no such thing as a blanket resume, or cover letter for that matter.

[closeupready]

4. Can't "code their way out of a calculator" - that would be me.

[HopeHoops]

5. Ah, you've known a bunch of those.

[closeupready]

8. No, I AM one of those.

[HopeHoops]

15. When all else fails, find the "C" key.

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

6. I concur with HopeHoops

It depends on the position and job. Hiring for a technical, science or engineering position: I am not as concerned about grammar as I am about the knowledge and skillset. Hiring for a PR, HR or legal position: definitely concerned with grammar and vocabulary. Hiring for a position that deals with international clientele: concerned about grammar, vocabulary and whether the person is able to communicate clearly with people whose first language is not English.

[HopeHoops]

12. I'll take it a high school intern (paid) any day. I taught four of them Oracle in less than a month

That was one of the most productive teams I've ever had, and yes they were paid (at a GOOD rate). I could FAX in a list of tasks at 6 or so in the morning, go back to sleep, show up around noon, and find that damn near everything was done. Then we'd go into teacher/student mode for the next day. None of the four had any notable computer experience, but they did have excellent teacher references and they all proved to be valuable additions to the company.

Unfortunately (for me), they all left for college at some point. I was at my most productive then. I knew what I had to do, but I had four additional brains and eight additional hands to accomplish it. At least they got a notch on their resumes from that and I was more than happy to write recommendation letters for all of them.

It isn't so much what you know, but how you know how to learn it.

[OriginalGeek]

14. My co-worker is heavily dyslexic

His emails to me are almost incomprehensible at times. We share an office and he's always asking me how to spell things and I often need to read things for him.

But that man can write you a dos batch file that will make your computer dance and then send you an email bragging about the dance and then wipe out any shred of evidence that it was dancing.

So I've learned from him that I can't always judge a koob by its' poorly spelled coevr.


HOWEVER, back when I was a warehouse manager, I wouldn't even consider applications that were loaded with misspellings and grammatical errors. I had to depend on guys to pick thousands of line items a day to ship to customers and we could not afford mistakes.

[HopeHoops]

16. Now it's based more on "can you lift 70 lbs."

I know. My eldest's boyfriend is an Army Specialist, but he has knee problems and that cost him a local job. Know he's with Amazon and, despite the same requirements, he's doing fine. They don't give a shit about anything he knows as long as he could pass the "put peg A into slot B" test. He just has to show up for overnight shift and be on time, but they can release him from shift at any random time. Since he doesn't have a working car, either my middle daughter or I have to pick him up in the early morning hours - 30 miles away. He's working on getting a working car. The old one died an unceremonious death.

[OriginalGeek]

18. Yeah, my bar for spelling and grammar was me.

If I caught it, it must have been a pretty dumb mistake. But I did want people who could lift a little at least. Although we had fork-lifts and carts and pallet jacks to do the heavy stuff...they did need to be able to walk pretty quickly though - Order picking wasn't a glamorous job but at least it had shitty pay and no air-conditioning to make up for it!

All our stuff was hardware (a hundred thousand square feet of nuts and bolts and saw blades etc...) and this was back before smoke-free workplace regulations so at least they could smoke while they worked. Most of them found it was too much of a PITA to do it while actively picking though.

[HopeHoops]

19. When I started as an IT geek, EVERYBODY smoked. But yeah, can you do the job?

They outsource skilled worker jobs to places where they have to train them which side is left or right. Can somebody please explain to me how that's supposed to cut costs and increase quality?

[Ptah]

7. For my trade, abstract reasoning, trigonometry and a helpful nature

are the three most important skills (or talents).

[XemaSab]

9. I work in environmental consulting

and what we sell to our client is documents.

A strong command of the English language is essential.

[UrbScotty]

10. Nearly impeccable, I would think. Especially in jobs where precision counts.

Now, if I was hiring people (which I don't), I'd probably be forgiving of a small error here or there - especially if the candidate is otherwise well-qualified for the job.

But if the competition is especially fierce (as it often is), a mistake or two could be the difference between someone getting an offer and someone not even getting an interview.

It all depends.

[Spike89]

11. Hmm, in book and magazine publishing, so it is critical

I really don't care how they spell, punctuate, or abbreviate on the Internet, or in e-mail but they better be clean as hell in their resume' and cover letter. That said, some of my colleagues will rule people out for using chatspeak on a Facebook page (if they are given the page to view).

I actually prefer people who are situational with their writing style--they usually are very good at identifying and writing directly for an audience. Pure grammar snobs tend to have a hard time adjusting their writing to connect to particular audiences.

[RebelOne]

20. True, I was a copy editor at a publishing company.

And grammar, spelling and punctuation are very, very crucial.

[tjwmason]

23. I totally agree about situation style.

We naturally adapt our spoken English depending on whether we're chatting over a few drinks with some friends or giving a formal presentation at work - so to, we should vary our written English. If I'm posting on Facebook or e-mailing a friend I'll use all manner of informalities which I'd never touch in more formal writing (I'll and I'd being fairly minor examples).

[Major Nikon]

13. It's only as important as it needs to be

Employers are not allowed to give English/grammar tests unless the job requires it. Otherwise they would be in violation of civil rights laws.

[HopeHoops]

17. Fuck. The Unicode doesn't work in the reply title...

Я не говорю на английском языке

[struggle4progress]

21. I am think to be proficiently in speak or to write are a job most important skill

[shadowrider]

24. You must be the guy that sends me e-mails from Nigeria..:) n/t

[struggle4progress]

25. Not is ever being the Nigeria from. But just finding behind dumpster

paper brown bag with $100,000,000 cash! You seeming honest good person in my. So I are sharing $100,000,000 with you, only except you must am me send $5000 first, OK?

[shadowrider]

26. Your offer is extremely generous. I'll send you your $5000

Just as soon as I fire up my printing press.

[struggle4progress]

27. is dealing!

[Generic Brad]

22. It depends on the job

If it is a job connected with communications, then it is highly important to possess that skill. I also expect a degree of competency in that area from native born speakers.

That being said, I look for self confidence, education, and experience. Personally, I prefer diversity in the workplace and I hold bi-lingual employees in very high regard.