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?

Yes 100%. The number of candidates I've seen not able to write a simple email! I recently added it into the interview process. All that is a required in the test is to prioritise a list of 10 tasks & write an apologetic email (maybe two sentences required). The number who don't pass is staggering - both simple errors or poor tone. One told me 30mins wasn't long enough.

Having said that, I do think email is used a lot less by Gen Z and like our workplace, organisations need to take that onboard. We now provide a webinar on email comms for entry level roles.

I don't know what is taught in schools these days but clearly there is a lack of knowledge of grammar and spelling. A few errors in the opening post don't really negate the point. Most people do make mistakes or lack full knowledge of grammar but when a recently qualified solicitor didn't know the difference between the words 'formerly' and 'formally'. I was shocked and embarrassed for him.

Apart from errors, there's an inability to communicate in a coherent, explanatory way, which is more serious. That's why I don't agree when people say grammar and rules don't matter. In a narrow sense maybe not but the lack of knowledge does affect the ability to communicate well. There also seems to be a casual attitude and a lack of of effort.

It may be partly that people don't know how to apply themselves to a task and to communicating clearly. Employers probably need to instruct them into how to write a report or letter as they appear not to know. They also don't know what is expected and what the standards are. Maybe they feel all at sea through unfamiliarity with how things are done in business or in a particular company, although that still doesn't make up for the lack of basic literacy which they should have acquired long ago.

You can teach them the house style and how to think in a structured way by giving them a format or headings to steer them: set out the subject or issue; what happened and why; what specific information the recipient needs; any advice or additional relevant information and how to get further help and how to contact the writer.

The thing with engineers and some scientists in my experience is that they are not comfortable with and not great with words. One I worked with used to jump up and start drawing things on a white board as soon as we began to discuss something. Another I used to meet on the train would turn over his papers and start drawing diagrams on the back. I was always highly amused by them.

IME experience it’s been going on for years. I work in the construction industry too. We had one chap maybe ten years ago who was severely dyslexic. He wrote better reports than the majority of the other grads. The females were generally better than the males.

I’ve just finished project managing a significant domestic renovation project, during which I had the misfortune to have to deal with structural engineers.

When I emailed them asking for reports supporting building regs compliance at various stages, they’d either ignore me or just respond to me (the client) attaching the report with a blank email. No email at all, never mind a salutation.

Client handling skills were DIRE. I’d have been severely ticked off as a lawyer for “communicating” with a client like that.

Does he write 'I am writing to yourself to thank you for your message to myself'?

@Abitofalark

Question - if you combine:

1. A recruitment consultant/estate agent (unnecessary reflexive, e.g. “I’ll get that tenancy agreement over to yourself”; with
2. A country singer (incorrect/missing reflexive eg “I’m going to buy me a Mercury and cruise it up and down the road”)

Do you basically get a perfect grammarian?

Using commas to join two or more independent statements or clauses. For example: It's raining, I have so much work to do, I am going to work tomorrow.

You can't join those three statements with commas. You can't tell from the above whether you are relating going to work tomorrow with having so much work to do or whether they are unrelated. You need to join them with a conjunction such as 'and' or 'but', if they are related. If they are not the same clause, you need a full stop or a semi colon.

I was taught not to write like that but the term comma splicing wasn't used (1960s)

No 'e' in Muphry's law. Have I got it right? I mean as in correctly wrong!

For English Composition we had to write a letter at the age of 7- 8. It wasn't a formal business letter. Mine was to my aunt, I think.

My 21yo hasn’t read since she was about 10 - finds it boring. Didn’t stop her getting A*s in English language & literature at GCSE and an A in politics at A level. Her spelling, punctuation and general essay writing skills have always been perfect since she was well taught at a young age. There isnt always a correlation between bookworm and the ability for form a sentence.. lazy teaching more like!

I love estate agent lingo: deceptively spacious; dual aspect; prestigious area.
One of my favourite songs is 'Gonna Find Me a Bluebird': Gonna find me a bluebird, let him sing me a song. 'cause my heart's been broken much too long; gonna chase me a rainbow through a heaven of blue, 'cause I'm all through cryin' over you...

I generally agree, except that the basic grasp of grammar does come into play when comma splicing obscures the actual meaning of what you are trying to communicate. Losing and loosing is annoying but you can tell what is meant.

Over 15 years ago I had an A Level English teacher who would use “there” instead of “their”.

I was involved in graduate recruitment at a household-name conglomerate more than 20 years ago, at the time we switched from a (hand)written application form to online application. The online process include some basic psychometric testing and applicants either passed or failed that, so the ones who made the cut got written confirmation of progression to the initial telephone interview stage before the application was ever actually read by a human.

I remember the head of the programme doling out application forms to interviewers and getting annoyed that I went through the motions of interviewing someone and then rejected them anyway because I had stopped counting errors at 50 - on the second page. This was someone with a Master's.

The OP's post is full of comma splicing and in desperate need of semi-colons between main clauses. E.g., "It’s not just the recent intake that are like this, I’ve noticed it over the last few years." This sentence needs a semi-colon where the comma is. It's composed of two complete sentences (subject and predicate), which are loosely connected in meaning/subject. Each could stand on its own grammatically, but the second clause expands upon the meaning of the first, so they naturally go together.

Comma splicing is a contemporary plague upon even professional writing and published works. Nobody seems to know how to use a semi-colon anymore. It seems they're either wildly overused or completely absent. tuts

I don’t think it’s lazy teaching. It is taught in schools. It obviously doesn’t go in. What more can be done beyond pointing it out every time (but then you get accusations of being pedantic, that there might be dyslexia issues etc)?

I’ve been an engineer for 30+ years and am very comfortable with big words and can mostly string some together in a coherent sentence. When I was doing my degree one of the lecturers thought I should go into technical report writing.
I will draw a diagram at the drop of a hat; as they say, a picture paints a thousand words.
Don’t get me started on graduates that have no idea how to set out an engineering drawing though!

Thank you!! I don’t recall ever being taught this. I did say I’m not perfect. I’m complaining that the staff cannot spell or even write a coherent sentence most of the time.

It's still a common noun. He's a chartered engineer.

Thanks all, an interesting thread. I knew I wasn’t brilliant at this myself but I’m head and shoulders above some of the efforts from the youngsters in my team.

Today’s shocker - Haddoc.

Haddoc?! What is that? I was told ‘you know, when they’ve come up with a way of doing something in their own way, not following the method’

Ah! Ad Hoc!

Haddoc... now do you want chips with that?

I’d love to know how it should have been written. Are you able to explain where I have gone so badly wrong?

We are primarily providing technical advice. I do like to see well set out and clear to read emails to enable our customers to fully understand the reply though.

Are there any short training courses I wonder? Seems like I could do with a brush up on these skills myself!