

Ask HN: is it unfair to refuse a job application simply based on bad writing? - petervandijck

I just refused a job applicant simply because they had bad writing in their resume ("I have advance knowledge ..."), although their skillset actually looked relevant. I've done it before, will likely do it again. Is that unfair?
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howardtharp
Not at all... if part of the job they're applying for requires good
communication skills. (And these days, even the most heads-down programmer
needs that... bug reports, support docs, etc.)

That said, I think grammatical errors from an ESL speaker aren't the be-all
end-all of good communication. It would really depend on what else I had to go
on. Was there a cover letter? "Responsibilities" section of his/her resume?

Often extremely clear thinkers more than compensate for non-native language
skills with incisive, compelling expression.

tl:dr Bad writing (communication) is just cause for putting a resume to the
side. But one-off grammatical errors wouldn't be the only think I'd go on.

~~~
petervandijck
It was bad writing more than the occasional grammatical error :)

~~~
howardtharp
Then by all means, put it in the No pile. Love it or hate it, email is the
place employees spend most of their days. Good writing makes that time both
shorter, and more worthwhile. (Not to mention blogging, announcements, support
materials, bugs, documentation, and meeting requests.)

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brk
There is no easy answer to this.

I've seen many resumes that contain 1 or 2 small grammatical errors or typos.
I don't get too hung up on those.

However, if the resume is poorly constructed overall, I usually won't choose
that candidate for further consideration.

Every part of our jobs todays involves communications with others. I
personally HATE chat-speak in email. "R u going 2 lunch 2day" drives me
fucking bonkers, and I don't care if you're typing it on a phone where you
have to tap 2 wires together to spell out the message in morse code. So, for
me, I really don't want to interact with someone where every other
communication is likely to make me want to strangle them. Similarly, even if
they have poor English, I don't want people to require a decoder-ring to
dissect their every message.

So, depending on the exact details of the resume, I would have probably done
the same thing. The exceptions tend to be when you require a particular skill
set that seems to be most predominant in someone that is not a native English
speaker. EG: if I were hiring an expert on Russian social networks, I would
not expect to find an ideal candidate that didn't also make some grammatical
errors at times.

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jasonkester
Probably. But that's not a reason not to do it.

Since you're trying to hire developers, you are undoubtedly aware that roughly
100% of the people who apply for your job are completely unqualified to
program computers. Anything you can do to narrow that stack of 300
incompetents down to the 4 you can actually interview is worth doing.

So yes, ditch anybody who can't be bothered to proofread their resume. As
other people have said, communication is an important skill for a developer.
You have in your hands proof that they're not particularly good at it. Toss it
and move on.

~~~
teach
I think this is the key issue for me. My wife is a PhD but admits that she
can't spell. However, she has others look over any important documents or
emails before sending them out. Someone who won't do this for something as
important as a job application communicates (to me) either arrogance or
troubling lack of self-awareness of their weaknesses.

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iamdave
Somewhat. They might not be a native English speaker, and granted while some
would argue that should be mentioned very early or at least _at all_ , I tend
to say what employers ought to be looking for are the things that directly
impact the candidates ability to prove they're worth the salary the position
offers. This does involve communication, but it's not, nor should it serve as
a be-all-end-all.

If nothing else, it's worth it to the employer and the employee to invest in a
course audit at a local university to help improve those skills. You might be
surprised to see if that helps improve retention and reduce the attrition of
human capital. Especially if you include those types of programs to your
organization to improve key skills.

~~~
petervandijck
"it's worth it to the employer and the employee to invest in a course audit at
a local university"

Really, you think that's worth it?

------
paulhart
If someone claims they have "excellent verbal and written communication
skills" and then has a litany of spelling and grammar errors in their
application, it goes to the circular file.

It doesn't take much to have another person review the thing for correctness.
If you don't know anyone who can, spend the money to have a professional check
it over.

------
pzxc
It's not unfair and I've done the same thing. A resume is the first impression
you give to a prospective employer; if you can't bother to make sure the
details are right on it, how likely are you to bother with details on all the
projects you'll be doing over time when the boss isn't necessarily looking
over your shoulder?

That said, "I have advance knowledge..." isn't necessarily incorrect, if they
are talking about their prophetic talents and not their level of expertise. :)

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forgotusername
If you were hiring them to write documentation, then yes. If you were hiring
them to understand and build complex systems, where the occasional grammar
error in a comment is not only forgiveable but extremely likely, then your
nitpicking may have just cost you a good candidate.

My resume gets tailored as often as once per application, and the occasional
mistake does end up on there. I fix them when I find them, but I expect their
presence should not impact the essence of the resume for a manager with a
clear understanding of the requirements they're hiring for.

~~~
follower
> but I expect their presence should not impact the essence of the resume for
> a manager with a clear understanding of the requirements they're hiring for.

I read that as: if you're not prepared to get the details right when you're
applying for the job why should I expect you'll get the details right when
you're on the job?

Why stack the odds against yourself? Given two equivalent candidates, one who
appears (by virtue of their application) to get the details right and the
other doesn't, I'm going to pick the former.

But then again, I'm not a manager. :)

~~~
tomjen3
>I read that as: if you're not prepared to get the details right when you're
applying for the job why should I expect you'll get the details right when
you're on the job?

You shouldn't. Nobody gets everything right the first time (why do you think
we have bug systems) and it would be a waste of company resources to reread
every email for every grammatical error, especially when they don't actually
cause the recipient to misunderstand the intended point.

The same goes for who/whom, its/it's, weather/whether, phrases such as "in a
timely manor", etc.

Perfect grammar is like bug free programs: desirable in theory but too
expensive and impractical in reality.

------
DanielBMarkham
Making technology do things for people is a highly-complex skill, the foremost
part of which is communication, not programming. (Sucks to say that, though.
In our hearts I think all programmers would like programming to be some kind
of super-intellectual puzzle. But it's really more along the lines of
understanding other people, then making yourself understood, then finally
going through a bit of technical fun)

You did the right thing.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Depends upon the job. Still room for a technical nerd out there I hope.

------
eengstrom
Communication Skills should be evaluated as a part the total sum evaluation.
When going through a stack of resumes, I look for clarity, not grammar, and if
_I_ can spot your spelling mistakes, you're in trouble. :)

Communication gaps are like any other quality/time/scope/cost factor when
managing people. If the lack of language skills aren't counterbalanced by
brilliance in other areas, you'll end up with a net loss in investing in the
employee.

Evaluating whether the poor language skills is a sign of being lazy, hasty,
arrogant or simply from another native language group, you could miss a good
deal of other high-value talents.

------
d4nt
To quote Parkinson:

    
    
      When all candidates alike have to write Greek or Latin
      verse, it is relatively easy to decide which verse is the 
      best. Men thus selected on their classical performance were 
      then sent forth to govern India. Those with lower marks 
      were retained to govern England.
    

The current "system" for getting hired might be arbitary and unrelated to
programming ability, but it does at least present a consistent and knowable
environment in which candidates have to operate. So you have to question the
judgement of someone who makes basic errors like this.

------
gorbachev
Are good writing skills a requirement of this position?

I'm sure pretty much everyone here has worked with people, who don't know how
to write English worth a damn. For example in my last job I worked with this
Scandinavian dude, whose written English was atrocious. It was so bad we made
jokes about it (with him, not at him). I had to repeatedly correct his
writing.

But the dude was a brilliant technologist. Innovative, incredible work ethic
and he just got s __* done at an unbeliavable pace. The projects we were
working on were much better off with him than without him.

~~~
petervandijck
Good communication is a requirement, yes.

~~~
gorbachev
That's different from good writing skills.

~~~
petervandijck
Not different as in exclusive. Writing ∈ communication in this case. It's
strongly indicative. (ps: we're not talking about 1 typo here, I should
probably have clarified that.)

------
JoeAltmaier
Unfair to you, yes.

If there is a huge stack of resumes and the chances of finding the right fit
is good, then no harm to you.

But if (like everyone else) you are looking through a huge pile of chaff for
the one right person who may not even be in the pile, then you are doing it
wrong.

Nitpicking grammer, or paper color choice, or resume-writing skills in
general, is probably not the critical skill your job requires (unless you are
starting WriteYourResumeHere.co of course).

------
nikreiman
Good communication trumps good programming skills. As for non-native speakers,
they tend to get a native speaker have a look over their CV or provide a CV in
their native language.

If they have no native-lang CV which you could understand, you will almost
certainly have troubles communicating with them, which means no hire. If they
didn't go through the trouble of getting a native English speaker to edit
their CV, then how badly do they really want the job anyways?

------
compay
In my experience most of the programmers I know and consider to be very
talented also have good writing skills, at least in their native language.
When I meet a programmer who writes poorly I immediately suspect they're not
going to program well either.

However, I'm willing to concede that I might be engaging in a bit of
stereotyping. I'm not sure your actions can be legally or even logically
justified, but I can say that I would probably do the same thing.

------
ceilingfish
Sometimes it's worth doing a phone interview, as applicants with English as a
second language may just have significantly worse written skills than spoken.
As long as they can communicate verbally, then it might not be that relevant.
I am assuming that you're all working at the same geographic location, thus
making talking way more important than email.

------
sucuri2
One word for you: foreigners (or people that English is not their main
language).

Very capable, very smart and awesome to work with (most of the time), but can
make some silly mistakes when writting in english... Specially on things that
a spell checker wouldn't catch.

Not unfair, but you could miss a lot of good people by doing that.

~~~
petervandijck
Missing good people isn't the issue when hiring, hiring bad people is.

~~~
sucuri2
Not when it is so hard to find qualified people...

~~~
petervandijck
No, even then.

------
DjDarkman
Was the job about writing letters or coding? If the later is the case then
yes, you were unfair and may have rejected a good coder.

------
Ben_Dean
No. Would you hire someone who made basic arithmetic mistakes?

------
damoncali
Don't know if it's fair or not, but it's not smart.

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jasonlotito
> Is that unfair?

Short answer: No. Long answer: Yes. Correct Answer: It's a poor question.
Given the limited data you provided, anyone here passing judgement is basing
it off insufficient information. Furthermore, the information provided (a
typo) doesn't make the described situation ("bad writing"). Furthermore, you
provide no information regarding the candidate.

Anyone giving you an answer is doing so without all the information. Expecting
an answer after providing such limited information is unreasonable.

~~~
pzxc
It's not insufficient information. I've disregarded resumes before because of
a single typo. Usually in situations where I have more than enough candidates
to choose from, but still. A one page document that is your primary and in
some cases sole reference upon which to have an employer judge you, should be
proofread multiple times and should have no errors. There's really no excuse.
If you don't have sufficient skill to ensure there are no errors by
proofreading it yourself, then have someone who can ensure that proofread it.
Come on, it is the single major document you give to someone to evaluate your
potential as an employee, and in most cases it is (or should be) a single
page, so it's not like you're editing a book here. "Attention to detail" is
not only important, it's crucial when evaluating an employee. Even one typo on
a resume can demonstrate a lack of that vital skill. I wouldn't blame someone
for overlooking the error or not, it's a judgment call, but as to whether it's
"unfair" to toss someone's resume because of it, the answer is unquestionably
NO, it is not unfair.

~~~
jasonlotito
> I've disregarded resumes before because of a single typo. Usually in ...
> blah blah blah...

What does this have to do with my comment? I was remarking on the limited
information provided, not whether it's unfair or not to dismiss a resume based
on grammar. I'll just assume you inferred more from my comment than was
stated.

> It's not insufficient information.

This is the _only_ part of your comment discussion mine. So, let's see what
information is missing.

So, someone whose primary language is, let's say, Italian, French second, and
English third is required to have impeccable English skills? In Quebec, whose
primary working language is French? These aren't exceptions. These are the
rule outside the US. Knowing 2 languages is common. Knowing 3 is not at all
unusual.

It's insufficient information precisely because it doesn't provide us any
context.

Employer is where? Employee is from where? Employer is hiring for what
position? From where? Employer has few/many candidates to choose from?
Employer seeking highly specific skill set? English mistakes were real
mistakes, and not merely a single typo?

Now, you can make a lot of assumptions and say that the employer was hiring
someone from the USA, a native English speaker, for a job in the USA. You can
also make the assumption that the employer isn't looking for a specific skill
set, and that the mistakes were more than just typos (despite that being the
only example offered). I can make a lot of assumptions. But that's all it is,
an assumption.

> the answer is unquestionably NO, it is not unfair.

Such a hard and fast rule. Unquestionably? I think it would be grossly unfair
to hire in a region where people aren't native English speakers for a
programming position and demand better English than the employer.

