Does anyone else find recent graduates very lacking in grammar and spelling skills?

[headtohead]

I manage a team where every year we have a graduate intake. It’s a technical role (think construction industry). All of these people put in decently written CV’s and interview well.

In a lot of cases though, when it comes to them starting the role it’s pretty clear that they are hopeless at writing simple emails. Their spelling and grammar is atrocious, they have no understanding of setting out a letter or a mail, they cannot use commas and full stops, nor do they use capitals at the start of sentences.

We need to write succinct, technically accurate replies to customers, they write as they would talk about the subject. ‘You can’t use that brick there’ - no explanation to customer of what the correct product is and why etc. Just like a child would write a sentence.

It’s not just the recent intake that are like this, I’ve noticed it over the last few years. I’m constantly rewriting their replies or helping them to word things in a better way. They totally reply on spellcheck but that will often change the word to something totally different but the writer simply does not see it as they don’t know how it’s spelled in the first place.

These are adults with good degrees, how did we lose so much written English ability? Is anyone else noticing this?

Or it demonstrates that the OP isn't as educated as they feel a recent graduate should be?

A fine example of "do as I say, not as I do"

It doesn't surprise me.

I work at an attraction that regularly has visits from primary schools and the grammar from so many of the teachers and TAs is appalling.

"Where was you?"

"You should of said where you were going"

It's been getting steadily worse for the last 15 or so years.

Or it demonstrates that MN isn’t her workplace?

My manager (who I like, btw) cannot spell for toffee. I'm 54 he's 48.

But these kids are graduates who have (presumably) read vast amounts of long form academic text - it's not just that they don't read.
I think it's texting culture

I haven’t noticed that. In fact I’d say the standard of graduates has been frighteningly good in the last few years. I’m in the finance industry. Maybe your recruitment process needs improving.

God, the OP is posting on MN, not at work. Pointing out errors in her post is neither helpful nor asked for.

OP, it’s pretty depressing that graduates have such poor language skills. Definitely add a written component to your interview process.

Oh behave

Is it just graduates? I’ve just been recruiting and the standard of CVs (both SPAG and basic layout) is absolutely shocking from a range of age groups. I guess I should be grateful they’re not AI created but these people are applying for customer ‘facing’ roles that require coherent email writing. Don’t get me started on applicants listing 3 dozen past employers they've worked for for anywhere between 12 days and 2 months. It’s honest I guess, but it doesn’t scream ‘I’ll be committed to the job’.

Hire foreign graduates. The education standard is way higher in Europe on the whole and their written English will hv been tested.

Meantime, train the ones you’ve got for an hour a week.

I work in a caring profession with very little admin, just lots of ticking drop down menus on an app. With seniority the admin increases but still is occasional, we need to write reports, minutes of meetings, notes to clients etc. There are a number of dyslexic people, 1 currently on my team. We have a lot of immigrants who speak English as a second language. My dyslexic colleagues will always ask for correction and explain where their difficulties lie. My dual language colleagues are really meticulous when preparing reports, often double checking phrases and asking for proof reading. I've had to correct people more senior than me on little errors or wrong turn of phrases because I am often invited to do so. A native English speaker doesnt tend to seek correction making it more awkward to do so. My point is that a culture can be created where it is acceptable to do this as a team mate and not see it as a personal criticism. Of course people can't proof read all their colleagues work but creating a positive culture around this would help. I've worked in admin positions in the past and seen errors but not been in a position to say so because it would have been considered rude. Supporting new colleagues especially new recruits and identifying training gaps would be a better practice.

Lord spare us from smug, boorish, male engineers who think they know it all after 5 minutes in the job.

Practise, even…

Nope, ‘proofreading’ was correct.

BTW, it’s all one word these days too.

Some of my students find the British Council web site useful
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/grammar/english-grammar-reference
Most prefer to put their work through Grammarly because it does the thinking for them.

‘Chartered engineer’ and ‘engineer’ take lower-case. They are common nouns.

Its not just recent graduates. Back in the late 1970s I was employed in a profession (librarianship) where tranches of graduates were coming in from the new unis with a bit of paper I didnt have. They had mostly never worked in a library and had no idea how to run one. We were expected to mentor these kids and within a couple of years they were being promoted over our heads. It caused a lot of anger and bitterness.

One day I was sitting in an office with one of these recent graduates, attempting to add up statistics. My colleague was writing some kind of report. Three times he interrupted me to ask how to spell words I could have spelled in secondary school. Eventually I fetched a dictionary, plonked in down in front of him and told him to use it.

Shortly afterwards I left the profession and attended uni as a mature student. I never returned to librarianship. I became an academic. As a lecturer I was horrified by the poor standard of English and grammar among the undergraduates. That was in the 1980s when a 1st class degree still meant something.

But Grammarly is terrible. Wrong as often as it’s right.

What is comma splicing?

???.

My thoughts exactly. I worked in the legal profession and it was a given that you were capable of writing succinct, clear, and grammatically correct correspondence from emails to letters, pleadings, etc. The impromptu ask at the interview to write a response to whatever you give them, with any guidelines you choose to add should tell you a lot about their skills in that area.

Sentences crawl off and die

I love this and am sorely tempted to use it in my next batch of feedback to my MA students.
These same students complained that I was asking them to be too concise and had not provided them with a structure or template to follow.
I had to restrain myself from telling them to fuck off and instead politely suggested they start thinking for themselves.

Apart from the inevitable undesirable effects of using online text for all communications, the poor quality of written work is simply the result of young people not being taught grammar, punctuation, spelling, and syntax in English. Teaching accuracy and clarity is unfashionable nowadays. It's a pity because pupils generally enjoy getting their work right.
I was one of that horrible breed of English teachers who used to underline mistakes and expect them to be corrected. I also used to spend time teaching things like punctuating speech, and how to use paragraphs. It was hard work, but no-one I taught really objected. However, I always commended good content.

Two recent graduates where I work. Both good at verbal communication but really lacking in writing skills. Writing in a more formal style was something they were not prepared for.

that’s because there isn’t much importance attached to those skills in school nowadays