to be shocked at the poor quality of graduates

[tredaswe]

At work we are recruiting for a graduate trainee position and we have been swamped with applications. I've been doing the sift and the standard of applications is absolutely woeful. At least half of them have spelling and/or punctuation errors in, many of the cover letters are so general you get the impression that they are sending them to every job they are applying for and there are even some that are applying to different companies than us.

From the initial 79 that we received only 6 don't have at least one or more of these flaws. AIBU to think that with youth unemployment people should be putting far more effort into their applications.

Wow at all the schadenfreude from people who never went to university, probably started out at least a decade ago when the dullest tool in the shed could walk into an ''entry-level'' job, who are now enjoying watching graduates struggle. Sickening.

Nah, it was all there yonks ago.

My dad still has school reports with snide comments from his teachers about how these days even idiots who can't spell properly can get into university and the world is going to hell in a handcart. There's an autobiography written by a woman in the late nineteenth century whose family were mostly teachers, where the same stuff is all cropping up, except it's mostly 'woe, woe, students who no longer conjugate Latin properly, the end is nigh ...'.

Oh, and in 1357 the bishop of Exeter is whining on about how bad teachers have become and how they let students loose on advanced texts before they've properly learned the basic technical skills they need.

snort

Waddlecakes - no schadenfreude here, despite the name. But the people you describe as "the dullest tools in the shed" who have been around a bit, are now senior managers, and responsible for the recruitment.

I don't enjoy watching graduates struggle. But I do think - and it has ever been thus - that a lot of them have an over inflated sense of their own abilities and worth. And I will freely admit that I was one of them, when I walked onto a graduate trainee scheme, age 19, many, many years ago! There was a recession then, and there's a recession now. The difference back then, when God was a boy, is that every man, woman and his dog didn't have some wanky, worthless degree in Mime or Interior Design from some fifth rate former "College of Higher Education" masquerading as a university. If you had a degree then, it meant that you were in the top 10% of the country. Now that 40% of 22 year olds have degrees, employers have to sort through the dross to get to the top 10% that they want to employ.

I turned down my university place, rightly or wrongly, to go on this graduate trainee scheme. I had a place, at what is now a RG university, to read German and Russian. The offer from the university, which I just about achieved, was a C and a D. What would grades would they be looking for now? AAB, no doubt.

I did get a job enquiry in txtspk once... "can u tell me if u r recruiting?" I wanted to reply "soz, no."

No, that doesn't follow, thewicked.

As I've said, several times now, good SPAG is important, and these are useful skills.

So is reading comprehension, btw.

But I don't think it is ok to assume that graduates are all lazy and ignorant based on a few typos in a CV. Of course errors in a CV are likely to bar you from a job, because they look bad and might indicate your weaknesses in that area. But they don't really prove that everything is as dire as people on this thread suggest.

Just out of curiosity, thewicked, is that 'infact' a persistent typo or simply ignorance?

I know it doesn't matter on an internet forum, but it does rather undercut your point.

Oh, grow up.

You obviously have no clue about how spelling and grammar relate to intellect. The fact your own spelling and grammar are poor shouldn't make you assume what's true of you is true of others.

- that's excellent Mrs Schadenfreude.

Wow at all the schadenfreude from people who never went to university, probably started out at least a decade ago when the dullest tool in the shed could walk into an ''entry-level'' job, who are now enjoying watching graduates struggle. Sickening.

What a really bizarre post

I certainly don't enjoy watching graduates struggle. However, if the graduates (and it's not just graduates - but that's what this thread is about) have not learned that accuracy and attention to detail in job applications are two things that will HELP them in their struggle when they are looking for work - then they are either daft or they have been let down somewhere in their education.

albeit - one word
insofar - one word
a lot - two words
in fact - two words

If you say so, I am sure you are right.

I didn't go to an 'old school university' (whatever you mean by that) more than 15 years ago. I'm a relatively recent graduate, which is partly why I find these threads so intensely annoying, of course. But I also research education in history, and that is why I am aware that these same criticisms have been made again and again and again - they say a great deal more about how people react to change and their own aging than they do about actual educational standards. The other thing that influences me, as I think I said, is that my mum and brother have worked quite a lot with adults in need of remedial literacy teaching, and I know how disadvantaged by their education people have been in the recent past. The situation has actually improved, and it's important to recognize that.

You and I don't disagree about some points to do with university education, but I think you are being uncharitable in a lot of your comments.

Standards haven't dropped, though.

I am always astounded at the number of applicants who don't know how to fill out an application form properly. We ask them to do a personal statement which reflects the person spec and we say that CV's will not be accepted in place of this. We will look at them in addition to the supporting evidence but many still only send in a CV.

Btw, I've already explained how I mark SPAG errors, and it certainly isn't with a pat on the head or burbling on about streams of consciousness.

The English have a tradition of hiding prejudice and shoddy thinking behind pedantic grammar and claiming this makes them better educated than others with a lesser command of what are merely good proof reading skills.

I don't think that's particularly true (red brick and new brick), but if you say so.

Yes, it would be kinder to teach students properly in the first place. But it would also be kinder to be sensible about what errors say about someone's employability.

By the time students get to university, of course they should have learned these basic skills. If they haven't, it would be good if they could pick them up there, and there are usually quite a lot of opportunities to do this, though probably no-one marking essays is going to waste time on extensive teaching of the basics.

The issue is, if someone hasn't learned these basics, do you look for reasons why and excuse them (because sometimes this is appropriate, eg., with dyslexia or a second language)? Or do you say, right, no degree for you.

It'd be silly, IMO, to do the second when these skills aren't that relevant to the degree.

For employers, it is of course more variable: if you need to employ someone with good SPAG, that's fine. If you feel it's an important indicator of someone's ability to be precise, courteous and careful, that's fine too. But I don't see why it indicates a general drop in standards that a few graduates send in badly written CV forms.

Bonsoir has a point.

Wonders never cease. I agree with bonsoir completely.