
I Won’t Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar. Here’s Why - jkuria
https://hbr.org/2012/07/i-wont-hire-people-who-use-poo
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fractallyte
Wow, some really outraged comments so far...

Bottom line: if you're going to work for a company that does significant work
with language and documentation, your grammar had better be up to it.

Further, if you're hoping to get into a role where attention to detail really
_is_ important, yet you still (after a couple of decades) can't figure out how
your own _native_ language works, you're not really suitable for that role -
because the implication is that your purported 'attention to detail' isn't
truly so.

Is that really so unreasonable??

~~~
parkersweb
Other comments rightly point out that grammar capabilities are not always good
indicators of ability in other areas. But you'd be amazed how many job
applications we see (from both designers and developers) with very basic
grammar errors.

Even if the role doesn't demand skills in English you should at least care
about creating a good impression enough to make sure you've ironed out grammar
errors in your application.

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farhanhubble
The URL of this page contains the path "i-wont-hire-people-who-use-poo". I
can't stop laughing!

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nameless912
I just did a phone interview for someone whose resume was littered with small
grammatical and spelling errors. It's too bad, because she was really pretty
articulate, if only middling when it came to technical chops. But the lack of
attention to detail in her resume was enough for me to take a hard pass on
her; even if it wouldn't ever reflect on her code, it would very likely
reflect on her diligence as an engineer and her technical documentation.

If your resume isn't grammatically _perfect_ , I'm going to have serious
reservations about you. If you can't take the time to proofread the living
hell out of a one page document that's supposed to be a summary of your entire
career and supposed to make me notice you, how am I supposed to expect you'll
put in that attention when it matters for your job?

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perfectfire
In short: bad grammar is correlated with everything else that I consider bad
and here's a complete lack of data to prove it!

~~~
malcolmgreaves
Spelling grammar.

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RcouF1uZ4gsC
Assuming iFixit is meant to be read as "I fix it" why the weird
capitalization? As a stickler for correct capitalization, I would not even
apply. If I did apply, the whimsical capitalization of the name of the company
would (incorrectly) tell me that the company was not that big on following
strict English usage rules.

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jmcdiesel
iFixit got it's start with apple products... tear downs, screen replacements
guides, etc... their focus was the iDevice market, hence the name.

An intentional decision is not a grammar mistake

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buzzdenver
Meh. Some of the best IT people I know cannot spell "lose" to save their
lives; it always becomes "loose".

~~~
dozzie
I'm yet to encounter an exceptional programmer or sysadmin who can't spell. I
don't think your "best IT people you know" gives much credit to your
acquaintances in this light.

~~~
buzzdenver
Right, so none of the people who worked on the HTTP RFC/standard are
exceptional because they all missed HTTP_REFERER.

~~~
dozzie
_One_ spelling error that somehow evaded reviewers is something totally
different from people who make spelling errors on a daily basis and "cannot
spell `lose' to save their lives". Don't you think?

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joncampbelldev
A mandatory grammar test for his writing based company seems sensible, but for
a company that doesn't rely heavily on writing would be going too far, I think
other qualities will start to come into play. Although I can agree with his
general point that good programming requires attention to detail, but I'm not
sure thats related to knowledge of grammatical minutiae.

What I cannot understand is how anyone is so careless to submit a CV or cover
letter with spelling and simple grammatical errors. Spell check + proof
reading from someone else, its not hard.

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hjhfjhkdfd
My spelling is shocking. I'm mildly dyslexic I often notice what I actually
have written isn't what i think, words missing etc etc.

If I applied for a role where I write public facing documentation sure I'm not
a copywriter, don't hire me for a copyriter's job.

Hire me for a technical job? Well I've done alright so far. The thing about
coding, the compiler / tests gives instant feed back if you are wrong,
programming languages are very small syntax wise. Lack attention to detail?
Try putting me on a code review. Yes I suck at spelling, yes I have to
forcibly try and still get it wrong, however I'm not a writer I'm a developer
and that's where all my concentration goes, in development.

Some peoples skill sets suit different things. Not giving someone a job
because they struggle spelling? If it's a copywriter job fair enough, if not,
I don't want to work for you anyway, good luck on your employee search.

~~~
luca_ing
Well, he wrote that he would account for extenuating circumstances like
dyslexia, so if he actually does as he says you'd be fine (for a non-writer
position).

But I'm inclined to agree with him. Getting the itses right is trivially
simple - there are no judgement calls or anything. And English isn't even my
first language. Yet many people people get it wrong, and I can't comprehend
how this happens. My only explanation is sloppiness.

Honestly I don't know much about dyslexia and I might be wrong, but it seems
to me that even a dyslexic would have no trouble getting its/it's right, even
though they might be orders of magnitude slower than non-dyslexics. Am I wrong
it this assumption?

I suppose for important texts such as job applications, re-reading to be sure
that you get these things right can just be expected of you.

~~~
r_smart
For me, I've found its / it's is a class of mistake that I never made when
writing by hand, however, now that I type almost everything, and have a decent
typing speed, I just sort of get whichever one comes out. This happens in a
number of other cases (their, they're there). If I'm typing at a stream of
consciousness speed I start making all kinds of rudimentary mistakes from what
I can only assume is a corrupted mental lookup table :)

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spriggan3
My grammar is horrible and I get what he is saying. I'm not a native English
speaker so I have to dedicate a lot of time to improve my writing in a
professional environment. While day to day spoken English is not that
complicated, written English is.

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amazingman
The employee version of this is "I won't work for a company run by assholes."
Good luck with the fallout from this article, Mr. Wiens.

~~~
Chris2048
I think you mean "i not work for company run by asshole".

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jmcdiesel
Reeks of elitism... he's probably one of those owners who forces everyone,
even those who are never customer facing, to wear dress attire to work.

Walking into a business when I'm job searching, If I see a room full of
engineers who all have ties on, I walk out.

Grammar, Dress code, etc - those things can be priority in some roles... if
you are client facing, of course your dress matters, if you speak or write for
the company, of course grammar matters... if you are an engineer who only
interacts internally, forcing business dress codes is a sign that your
priorities are out of line, and thats a big red flag...

~~~
jmcdiesel
That said...

Even I personally am guilty of being judgemental about grammar, but only at a
basic level.

If you ask me for "a apple" though, I have an almost uncontrollable reaction
to sigh at you in judgement.

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gragas
Based on this article, this guy would _never_ hire ebonics speakers. He openly
admits that he selects against them.

Almost anyone with rudimentary knowledge of linguistics would realize that
selecting people based on grammar is not a good idea. This video really
changed my view on people with bad grammar:
[https://youtu.be/pkzVOXKXfQk](https://youtu.be/pkzVOXKXfQk)

This man is publicly shaming himself in my opinion.

~~~
zemblan
No, he won't hire people who only speak Ebonics, just as he won't hire people
who only speak any other regional or ethnic variant of English.

He will hire people who can write in correct standard English, which should be
anyone who has an education, regardless of the variant they speak in their
community or family.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Correct and standard are not the same thing. It's one thing to say African
American Vernacular English (AAVE) isn't standard, and that Standard American
English (SAE), what with the Standard in the name, is. It's a totally
different thing to say AAVE is "incorrect".

Regardless, the idea that everyone in your company needs to speak SAE because
it's an important part of the business is a little like Facebook saying
everyone in your company needs to program in PHP because it's an important
part of their business. There is such a thing as specialization. Not everyone
at the company has to be able to do every job.

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zejn
So, basically he has a zero tolerance policy to bad grammar.

Nothing good for society ever comes from zero-tolerance policies.

~~~
Chris2048
Would you at least tolerate them a bit?

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jaoued
Funny, the first paragraph has nothing to do with knowing or not knowing
grammar but rather with knowledge of vocabulary. its more on having no
tolerance of people who have issues with vocabulary, grammar, and writing
skills, and not grammar only.

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liamcardenas
I agree with him. I would never hire someone who mixes tenses.

I.e.

"And I guarantee that even if other companies aren’t issuing grammar tests,
they pay attention to sloppy mistakes on résumés."

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Joof
People justify things after having already made the decision (often
unconsciously).

Sorry!

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MatthewWilkes
> If it takes someone more than 20 years to notice how to properly use “it’s,”
> then that’s not a learning curve I’m comfortable with.

Ending a sentence with a preposition? I hope for the author's sake that no
conservative grammarians arbitrarily hold that against him.

~~~
cafard
Fowler's _Modern English Usage_ has no problem with that, or with split
infinitives, to name two standard middle school bugaboos.

~~~
MatthewWilkes
Indeed, it's now widely considered to be correct. The same wasn't true just a
few years ago. It's ironic that he uses a construction that would have
signalled him as unworthy of employment to his spiritual predecessors.

Language change is a constant thing, using differences between your written
English and that of a potential employee as a proxy for intelligence rather
than group membership is foolish and exclusionary. It's only really relevant
if the person needs to write in a specific register for their job.

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deeteecee
so what ur saying is no one should work with ur rigid ass, okay got it.

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typetypetype
Seems a little biased against folks who are not native English speakers.

~~~
brianmcc
4th paragraph: "Extenuating circumstances aside (dyslexia, English language
learners, etc.),"

