I was working with a law firm last year on a hiring process. Lots and lots of CVs, cover letters and application forms coming in from some very smart young people. I ended up sitting in a conference room with the HR person and the Hiring Partner screening the applications. One of the ground-rules we laid down was that any application with a spelling error should be dumped on the first pass.
"That kind of carelessness simply isn't acceptable for a job of this nature," intoned the partner. That sounded just fine to me and we proceeded. We had about 500 applications to whizz through on the first pass. We hit a snag. A big snag.
With the first pass completed, we had no applications left. None. Count 'em again - not one.
With the first pass completed, we had no applications left. None. Count 'em again - not one.
Then I saw this on Damien Mulleys's blog (Evil HR Lady has it too)
They're not stupid - to the best of my knowledge, we're not breeding a lower IQ into the gene-pool. But boy are they careless, lazy and, in many cases, ignorant. For that hire, we had to relax our rule to no more than three - three! - errors on any one application. If time had allowed, I would like to have emailed a blanket mail back to every applicant and told them to cop a hold of themselves; that this was the opportunity of a lifetime and that they had to understand the 99% accurate was worth precisely nothing at this level.
But we didn't have time. I did make a point of handing a copy of the application to each candidate in the interview with the errors highlighted. I doubt it made any difference. The most common errors were:
It seems to me that the kids coming through the system at the moment are being let away with this kind of sloppiness. Not a good thing in my opinion.
Case in point. Some years back, I was involved with an e-learning company. We had a prototype that we were showing to some of the big players in the tech market and so we needed the (marginal at best) protection of a Non Disclosure Agreement to circulate in advance of meetings. A top law firm provided us with a 9-page monster of an NDA and charged us more than a pretty penny for it too. Pedant that I am, I checked the document minutely.
Six errors.
Now, the partner who was liaising with us on this project had emailed this document through from his account - the implication being that the document was a result of his efforts, and therefore worth the large-number-divisible-by-a-thousand price tag that came with it. The reality was that this was a boilerplate document with the search-and-replace activity it had taken to generate it made obvious by the double space after each mention of our company's product along with the non-sequential numbering of some of the clauses. Plus the six errors.
I can only presume that the apprentices taken on in that firm had spelling or formatting errors in their applications and that they had been hired despite that. The next time I am involved on the hiring line with a legal firm, I am going to propose an additional paragraph in the job advert:
Related:
Screening & Selection - the process from a hirer perspective
Wooing them with your writing
Shortlist good. Bin bad.
But we didn't have time. I did make a point of handing a copy of the application to each candidate in the interview with the errors highlighted. I doubt it made any difference. The most common errors were:
Your - You're
Quite - Quiet
Heard - Head
Form - From
Too - To
It's - Its
Quite - Quiet
Heard - Head
Form - From
Too - To
It's - Its
It seems to me that the kids coming through the system at the moment are being let away with this kind of sloppiness. Not a good thing in my opinion.
Case in point. Some years back, I was involved with an e-learning company. We had a prototype that we were showing to some of the big players in the tech market and so we needed the (marginal at best) protection of a Non Disclosure Agreement to circulate in advance of meetings. A top law firm provided us with a 9-page monster of an NDA and charged us more than a pretty penny for it too. Pedant that I am, I checked the document minutely.
Six errors.
Now, the partner who was liaising with us on this project had emailed this document through from his account - the implication being that the document was a result of his efforts, and therefore worth the large-number-divisible-by-a-thousand price tag that came with it. The reality was that this was a boilerplate document with the search-and-replace activity it had taken to generate it made obvious by the double space after each mention of our company's product along with the non-sequential numbering of some of the clauses. Plus the six errors.
I can only presume that the apprentices taken on in that firm had spelling or formatting errors in their applications and that they had been hired despite that. The next time I am involved on the hiring line with a legal firm, I am going to propose an additional paragraph in the job advert:
[Oh Lord, please let there not be any spelling errors in this post, please let there not be any spelling errors in this post, please ...]NBPlease remember that this application is all we have to go on - if it is careless or sloppy, we can only presume that you are careless and sloppy. Here at XXXX, we pride ourselves on providing 100% accurate service to our clients. One misplaced word or comma in a contract could leave a client vulnerable to litigation. Therefore, spelling, punctuation, grammatical or formatting errors in your application will not be tolerated. One error and you are in the bin. Don't say we didn't warn you ...
Related:
Screening & Selection - the process from a hirer perspective
Wooing them with your writing
Shortlist good. Bin bad.
6 comments:
Hello,
for me, this sounds quite funny.
Hereover, in the german-speaking countries, we do have strict rules on what ist to spell in capital letters and what is not, as well as pointing is crucially regularized.
Guess what? - First
"The Officials" changed the rules. Children in school are now leraning other, often nit quite easier rules, then their parents did. Most of the newspapers finally "switched" this year - the past five years it was about 50/50 amongst the papers, adopting or refusing the "new rules".
Guess what? - Second
The caos is much greater, then between british and american english.
So if we now try to be this rigid for applications, as you point it out, we'd need help ourselves, to figure out, what is and was correct and what -until now- ever had.*
* = Some proposals in the latest version of "The Rules" were removed or changed, since the first public attempts to make them easier about five years ago.
I wish you all the best and very good luck with your searches.
Best regards
Weekly-Spectator
I've seen this trend first hand over the last 10 years of hiring. It's now as predictable as it is depressing. We didn't have spell-check or other tools available to our generation. These kids have all the technology to polish up their presentation, but can't be bothered to use it. On top of that, most of them lack even basic numeric skills. Are the teachers really blameless? [Rant ends]
Great post! This was a critical part of selecting our interns for this fall, and will be in the future - we chose wisely by not accepting the "slacker" resumes we saw!
Also, you and I are even on laundry bills now, as your "disclaimer" resulted in a rather uncomfortable coffee expulsion!
ok, I guess I don't understand why EITHER "your" or "you're" belongs in a resume, or a job application for that matter. what happened to "one is" and "one's"?
Besides being correct, they have the additional advantage of having identical acceptable spellings.
I don't know about the UK, but I believe that a large part of the laziness of today's US job applicants stems from a growing sense of entitlement among the population at large, as evidenced by the waxing population of (and increasing hostility toward) illegal immigrants who do jobs that citizens don't want.
My organization actually spells out really explicit instructions on what a cover letter must include, and includes this line in the instructions:
"MPP highly values fastidiousness in writing style, grammar, and spelling."
(You can see the whole detailed instruction memo at http://www.mpp.org/jobs/process.html )
Yet we still get error-ridden resumes and cover letters that ignore the instructions above. It's ridiculous.
It's not just a question of lower standards in schools and universities. Applicants need to feel the pain of their mistakes. If employers don't insist on high linguistic standards in CVs, candidates will keep churning out such rubbish.
Your idea for a warning on job adverts is an excellent one.
Post a Comment