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.

YANBU. I used to teach undergraduates. The mature students tended to have good SPAG, and the European exchange students at least made the effort to have someone proofread for them, and understood if you explained grammar rules. Spelling and grammar in the work of many of the British 18-21-year-olds was dire and I marked them down for it.

My own DC are bilingual and I pay attention to their SPAG in both languages.

I'm amused by people's utter disgust at the literacy of graduates when this thread is littered with poor grammar.
I'm a recent graduate (last 5 years). I have a degree in French/German. We aren't all idiots.

Some 20+ years ago, dh's employer were recruiting for a Scientific Officer. It was a government agecy, and all applicants were expected to either be Chartered Chemists (Part 2 GRSC or 1st/2nd Hons in Chemistry + 3 years post-grad experience), or eligible to become so.

At least 50% of the applications had absolutely no qualification relevant to the position. I helped him sift through about 400 applications, and many were dire. It was also obvious that many had been completed on instruction to make 'n' applications a week by their job centre.

It's not fair on the the recruiter, nor is it fair on the candidate who much become increasingly demoralised and demotivated as the ratio of applications to interviews gets greater.

You're right, Auntfini, there are plenty of very good grads out there (and I only finished my undergrad in 2009 so it's not like I have years of experience!) When I read an excellent essay or dissertation, I genuinely want to hug the person who wrote it! And I've definitely learned a lot of fascinating things from reading undergrad essays.

I just wish they would all put in so much effort, as I'm sure you did.

Of course the number of grauduates is increasing and of course the quality is therefore declining.

Education may be about a love of learning for some, but for most people it is about furthering their prospects. So as each generation passes through, it becomes essential to have been in school until, say, O Levels. Then A Levels. Then a BA/BSc becomes the norm, then an MSc etc. It's something I have discussed a few times recently with different people. My husband has a PhD and my sister is working towards one atm. I'm working towards a professional qualification after a BSc and MSc. My dad (an educated, professional man himself) was saying how is in his day a PhD was so incredible, that it really was something. He can't understand how it isn't really to us, in our groups of friends we're all pretty normal. All of our friends have degrees, most have post grads and plenty have PhDs. It's just the requirement of our generation - just as all of his friends finished school and a good few went on to further study.

Most people try to make the most of the opportunities that come their way, so as the competition gets more intense, each generation creates new opportunities. As someone above said, the top 10% will always have the same kind of opportunities, as will the top 20%, 50% etc, the level of qualification required just increases. My theory is that PhDs will start to be graded and my (thus far fictional) children or grandchildren will be applying to jobs that say "2.1 PhD minimum".

SPAG are important, in my field you wouldn't (ok, shouldn't, it does happen) get hired if you can't write well, part of our job is to write reports and there's no one to come behind you to tidy them up.

But numeracy is also vitally important and hasn't been mentioned on this thread once, as far as I can see.

I'm Irish and in our system those wanting to go to university take at least six subjects to Leaving Cert (A Level equivalent) including English and Maths and generally including a modern language and a science subject. It gives a broader education and is a better system imo.