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.

TheWickedBitchOfTheBest Fri

"It's not the student's fault, as I said."

You are doing this on purpose, right? Or have numbers suddenly dropped and we are down to one single student?

That might be a good idea, to cut numbers back (though it'd have pretty tricky economic ramifications, I think).

However, it wouldn't solve the basic problem, which is, are these skills essential, or just desirable and useful, to doing a degree?

I don't believe that an academic elite are necessarily those with perfect SPAG.

However, I also don't think that - at the moment - degrees are designed to create the perfect employee for every business, are they? So if your business requires a certain skillset including SPAG, fair enough - but why expect universities, which have academic priorities, to produce students with those skills?

If there were only one student, it would be the opposite of elite. You can't choose from a pool of one.

This is how our marking works: we have a list of different categories, including SPAG, referencing, style, originality, clarity of argument, force of argument etc, and all these go to make up the final mark. So an otherwise brilliant essay would not fail if the apostrophes were wonky, but if your essay was a borderline First in other respects poor use of the apostrophe might well pull it down.

Which I think is sensible, isn't it, cory?

I don't think anyone is advocating not bothering with these things.

Should add that force and clarity of argument are weighted more heavily: perfect spelling and referencing alone won't get you a First.

Bonsoir - good proof-reading skills are useful when it comes to job applications.

I know a lot of very bright, capable, articulate people who are somewhat careless spellers - they either don't feel it's particularly important, or they don't see their mistakes. They are all people who are successful in what they do - and they are all currently employed.

However, as they ARE bright and capable and sensible, they would either check their own spelling or get someone else to do so if they were applying for a job. They would realise that these things matter on job applications - because it is the first impression someone gets of your abilities.

I'm not dissing good proof reading skills. But it is as well to remember that they, just like RP, are packaging for thinking skills. Which are much more important.

having so many student at university does have a diluting effect, yes.
the problem is that there just aren't jobs for school leavers.
like one of you said earlier, it's better than them being on the dole at 18.

It would be more realistic for the government to create better prospects in terms of apprenticeships. But they won't do that, because they seem to believe it's down to the private sector to make sure there are jobs - that's the private sector that's crumpling under the weight of the crap the government is throwing at it.

At one time, if jobs were short, the government would payroll it by creating public sector jobs - in the days when utilities, railways, etc were state-owned. Yes, it meant that they were paying for wages, but the public put the money back in to those "companies", so it all went round and round.
These days, it seems the only option is benefits, and that means that all the money is going out of the system, and none is coming back into it - no taxes, no money from fuel or water or phones or travel.

you are employed by the government and you get say £1000.
probably £900 of that would go back to the government (if you rented your house from the council)
(if you bought your own house, then maybe £600 would go back into the government)
with about £100 being free money for food, leisure and other stuff.

Of course they are. But if you are pitching for a job (a job application) then you can get a lot further if you make sure the packaging is tip-top. If you don't, it looks like carelessness or even arrogance - and if you are in competition with others who have paid more attention you are likely to miss out on an opportunity to make the most of your thinking skills. I think .

The point is that the packaging is something it is quite easy to do something about - so why not do it? It's the same as turning up to an interview in something appropriate for the business and - if you are not sure what is appropriate - erring on the side of formality. It just makes good sense. If you have thinking skills you probably will do this. If you have good thinking skills and don't do this you are not making very good use of your thinking skills...

If your skills are not brilliant you can get a lot further along in the process by making sure you are not chucked out in the first round by completely ignoring the packaging.

Poor presentation does not instil confidence in someone who does not yet know you (and your brilliant thinking skills).

Previous post "of course they are" was to Bonsoir re: thinking skills...

I agree. I recruited a few years ago, for very specific strengths in research and writing. The covering letters were shocking.

One candidate in particular took my breath away, after receiving a polite letter of 'not taking it further' (due to her almost illiterate application and clear ignorance of the role applied for and referring to a completely different company in the first line, I could go on...) began an aggressive campaign of demanding interviews, feedback and a full free analysis of her application because apparently it was her 'right' to receive such.

She swore at my assistant and threatened her.

It was an extraordinary experience.

Well, why do you think that many students were encouraged and taken into universities in the first place?

So that with all those young people in full-time education, Labour could claim they had cut unemployment figures.

I don't vote Tory, in fact last time I voted Lib Dem, but I have to say I feel a bit sorry for the Conservatives. Labour effectively spent their time renaming, reshuffling, tucking bits in here and there to make all sorts of figures look better, and the current government is now doing the equivalent of unearthing a box, tugging it open and finding it full of worms.

This current situation with an over-supply of university graduates who really weren't bright enough to go to university in the first place and who now face the bitter disappointment of unemployment and a job (or not) they might have had in the job market 5 years ago without the degree, is a fine example of Labour having well and truly screwed over a whole generation.

It should have stuck to its name and helped young people by putting more money and resources into apprenticeships and rethinking that system to look more like what Germany currently has.

Treaswe. Maybe you could look at "NON GRADUATE"S who have abilty and skills that would enhance the position. It is time people who are not Graduate"s but have abilty and willing dont have their applications thrown in the bin.

I had the misfortune to teach at Leeds Uni for a few years and came across quite a few disinterested students. I would approach them all individually to ask if there was a problem with the course (too tough, too easy, what could be done to interest them more, etc. nice friendly chat) and inevitably the answer was that they only came to Uni to party. They had chosen their subject because it was the department most likely to accept them and all they wanted was a third class degree so that they could rightly claim that they were graduates. For a third class degree they did not think I had the right to expect them to contribute to seminars.

And a little anecdote from another (Ivy League) Uni: I had gone into the Students' Union to sort out some paperwork and the guy helping me excitedly told me how he had just graduated from my department. Apparently he had quite enjoyed the course and then he had to fill in the form with the name of his alma mater...so he asked me how to spell 'philosophy'!!!

Good luck OP, count yourself lucky that you found 6 possible candidates!

I would have thought being disinterested is a good quality in a student.

Yes that's what we hope for, 3 years of complete silence and total lack of engagement with any of the ideas!

Do you know what disinterested means?

dis·in·ter·est·ed

/disˈintəˌrestid/
Adjective
Not influenced by considerations of personal advantage.

or

Having or feeling no interest in something.

Ooops cross post! I looked like the kid jumping up and down shouting the answer in class now