EMPLOYERS BASH YOUNG JOBSEEKERS – BUT SURELY SCHOOLS ARE TO BLAME?Â
The scrapping of GCSEs has re-ignited the debate about standards of literacy and numeracy among today’s young people entering the workforce.
But are the criticisms fair? And if standards in maths and English really have slipped, surely this is the fault of the education system, rather than a new, in-built flaw suddenly present in a whole generation?
Last month, the boss of a London PR company Emmett & Smith told Graduate Fog she regularly receives applications from graduates that are riddled with sloppy spelling, punctuation and typos.
And a recent survey found that 58% of business leaders complained that graduates lacked basic literacy and numeracy skills. Scott Payton, editor of londonlovesbusiness.com, which commissioned the research, declared:
“This is a damning indictment of higher education. We are talking about people who have spent three or four years at university who can’t add up or construct a sentence.”
What’s going on? Have standards really slipped – or do people just love to bash the young? As a word nerd, Graduate Fog is very strong on spelling and grammar – but our mental arithmetic and times tables are embarrassingly bad. If these are skills that employers look for, shouldn’t schools and universities be prioritising them?
*CAN YOU SPELL AND ADD UP?
Are you confident about your basic maths and English skills? Is it fair to blame graduates for their poor literacy and numeracy – or are schools to blame? Do you wish teachers had been tougher on your mistakes with adding up, grammar and apostrophes – or do you think these details shouldn’t matter to employers as long as you can do the job?
Even if it is the fault of schools, I do think graduates need to look at their abilities and commit to learning basic grammar and maths!
I have so many friends at uni whose basic spelling and grammar is often awful, but they don’t seem to care or put any effort into improving, despite it being so easy to with all the free internet resources out there. They have As and Bs in English and Maths at GCSE so they must have been able to spell and use apostrophes properly at some point. It’s even worse with maths, I have several friends who have failed numerical tests for graduate schemes but then moan about the existence of the tests rather than going spending a few days re-learning GCSE maths skills!
These friends have all looked at graduate recruiters’ requirements, realised they don’t have enough evidence of leadership/communication skills/etc and put time and effort into joining societies and volunteering to rectify those shortcomings, so I just don’t get why they don’t put the same amount of effort into their basic maths and English skills!
(And yes, I have mentioned it to them… a couple have agreed with me and started to use maths websites/bought GCSE maths revision books, but most of my friends just don’t seem to understand!)
I would say it lies with the parents. My parents ensured I could read and write before I started school. I went to a tutor if I fell behind, which I had to pay for.
Schools have some of the blame, but I went to a great grammar school that made sure we were all up to scratch.
You learn to write well by reading widely. Without a love of reading, a person is unlikely to value the skill of good writing. So it is not the fault of the education system, whatever is meant by that term, if a graduate displays poor writing skills. It is the fault of the graduate for not valuing the written word sufficiently to master its use. Both educators and employers could do more to promote the importance of good writing, but ultimately the graduate must embrace the need and apply his or her self to improve.
It’s difficult for me to say whether the fault lies with the parents, the school or the graduates. I’m lucky enough to come from a school that encouraged us to read widely and ensured our spelling was perfect. I can understand if others have not been so lucky.
However, I have seen some atrocious writing from potential employers, with bad spelling and grammar. In my job hunt since leaving university last year, I have to admit that I’ve only had a handful of thoughtfully and well-written replies, and these can be counted on one hand! Most of the potential employers are obviously from a generation or two before, not from this current graduate generation. I’m not sure whether they can talk, to be honest.
It’s the fault of the graduate. Schools don’t teach you how to spell incorrectly.
You also never stop learning. You’re vocabulary increases massively after school, so your spelling needs to follow suit.
Bad spelling reeks of laziness.
I agree with the view that many employers display poor grammar/writing skills – either on their websites or from HR staff. I personally have never had any feedback on my writing being bad, so I don’t really feel qualified to comment.
In regard to numeracy, I find that the graduate recruitment process in now overrun with so-called numeracy tests that supposedly measure one’s “numeracy” and “analytical” skills. These are now required even for positions that require very little actual numeracy (such as a PR position – how much Maths is really needed there?), but HR staff love them because they cut down the number of applications that are progressed by more than half. In reality, these tests have little to do with actual numeracy or analysis, and more to do with the ability to either cheat or somehow miraculously perform a batch of random calculations in under a minute each without any mistakes. I actually feel that this is one of the biggest obstacles in many competitive sectors, as they don’t take into account the applicant’s numeracy, or any skills/capacities relevant to the job in question. In my opinion, the complaints about numeracy come from this cycle: a consulting firm sells these tests to an HR department with the promise of significantly cutting applications -> the tests are set up to purposely eliminate a large part of applicants -> the consultancy firm justifies its existence -> HR staff see a huge failing rate at the test -> they complain today’s graduates aren’t numerate.
Sorry for the rant and for sounding like a conspiracy theories freak, but you can probably tell that I’ve failed too many of these tests at this point (and I haven’t even graduated yet).
@Kayla
If you haven’t got the job anyway, you can always take your revenge by asking the recruiter for feedback on your psychometric results! You’re entitled to this, under guidelines laid down by the British Psychological Society. The feedback must be delivered by an appropriately trained and qualified person.
It’s a good idea for a test-taker to ask for their test results whatever the job outcome. You may pick up a lot of useful information that could guide your future job search and / or allow you to correct the recruiter’s assessment of you.
I feel it is a mixture of both, yes the school probably need to up their teaching techniques but also I think graduates applying for jobs need to take extra care when it comes to spelling. We have Word processors now which check spelling and I know Google Chrome checks my spelling when typing on the internet. I have had mild Dyslexia throughout my life so know more than most the difficulties when it comes to spelling. However, I get family and friends to check of spelling errors.
How many of these ‘failed’ graduates have an undiagnosed learning difficulty, ie dyslexia or dyscalculia? It is a factor that should be considered. A child can go through his entire school years without the proper learning support. If he suffers from this learning difficulty, it is something that remains with him throughout his entire life. It is not something which can simply be overcome by wider reading or visiting a few Maths websites. There should be more initial assessments at different stages throughout a person’s young life.
There are not enough trained professionals to conduct proper assessments in schools and colleges, as well as nowhere near enough Learning Support Assistants and money for educational resources once a person has been “statemented”. Teachers do not have the time to do assessments, and are not trained to spot a need. Even if they did, they probably dismiss it in most cases because a referral would add more pressure to an under-resourced, over-stretched education system. There might be thousands of individuals who have a learning difficulty.
Whose ‘fault’ is it? I think we need to seek to understand a lot more before we apportion blame. How do you assess every individual for a learning difficulty? Is it done through standard exams? In a tight budget, is there money to address the issue? Or should the small percentage – if it is only a ‘few’ – simply have to live with it and decide for themselves to pay for a private assessment, or a parent pay for the support? Or is it just down to laziness in 99% of cases?
I was not blaming it on that, I am saying I have lived with but then take the care to ensure I do not have spelling mistakes on my CV.
@Steph. Who are you addressing? I have complete sympathy for anyone with Dyslexia or Dyscalculia, however mild or severe.
@Steph. Scratch my last post – not that it’s untrue. But I think I realise why you posted your last comment after mine. I was not posting in response to your comment on Dyslexia – the timing was a coincidence. I posted in order to add a different angle to the discussion.
Sorry Brian, misunderstood.
This is a bit silly really. Spelling is bloody important.
It’s also deflecting the real argument that people are making, that young people are not ready for work. That overarching argument is the one that needs to be called out as the bullshit that it is.
My Dad dropped out from college with 2 Ds at A level, attending a grim polytechnic and walked into an entry level job after writing a letter to the company. I should also say that that entry level job allowed him to rent a squalid flat and move away from his own parents straight away, in fact, when he turned 18 they took away his house keys.
His experience isn’t typical of young people of his generation at all, but my point is that he spent a good amount of his young life taking an assortment of drugs and generally screwing around.
Do I think this behaviour is something to be emulated? No, of course not. Do I think that people should just have jobs just because? No. My point is that, does anybody seriously believe that him and the many thousands like him were somehow better prepared for the world of work than the hundreds of thousands of unemployed kids around now?
@CareersPartnershipUK, thanks for your reply 🙂 My main problem with the tests is speed, really. I would score a lot higher if the time limit were a bit more generous… Which is, of course, precisely the point of these tests.
Also, @Tanya, is there a mistake in the headline or am I just really obtuse about jokes today?
It’s true that there is not much emphasis on grammar and spelling in the last few years of school. In my case my work was rarely marked with my spelling and grammar errors after year 7 or 8. No one really seemed that bothered about it at college or uni either.
Spelling and grammar is important but if you’re in an environment where people act like its not a big deal then I can see how it would rub off on you. This attitude needs to change.
@Jacob, I must take issue with you. Every university graduate is ready for work. Undergraduate courses are entirely structured around the preparation for work in the real world, as well as preparation for postgraduate study. Supplemental Information for a particular degree subject, as stated by the regulatory body for Higher Education, is designed to demonstrate to potential employers the skills that the graduate has attained through their undergraduate study.
The reason behind so many employers having a hang-up over spelling and grammar is that the highly competitive labour market forces recruiters to “sift out the wheat from the chaff” at the outset. Therefore, standards are all that recruiter have to achieve their goal of recruiting that one person out of say 70 who have applied for the job.
The government needs to stimulate economic growth on a massive scale, nurturing new industry sectors in order for the graduate labour market to absorb the hundreds of thousands of graduates who have graduated since the beginning of the economic crisis in 2008, into sustainable graduate careers, instead of accepting that it is okay for tens of thousands to take up low-paid non-graduate jobs merely to keep them off state benefits.
Graduate employers should voluntarily see beyond the spelling and grammar and focus on the graduate’s intellectual skills. Regulations should be introduced to prevent belligerent employers who use spelling and grammar as an excuse not to hire a person where they clearly have the skills for the job.
Currently I do work in customer service and I think the problem of spelling is far bigger than just graduates with poor spelling. I mean way to many customers age 18-60 seem completely unable to spell!
55 year olds are writing to customer service in capital letters. The British customers are contacting us using text language like b4, 2b etc. and slang words.
I know it is customer service and people might take out their anger.. rather than trying to impress a potential employer. But I do think the sloppy composed emails proves that there is a problem in how we communicate in writing today. Maybe it is a result of texting on the mobile phone? And/Or that people forgot that e-mails also shall be composed in a formal format? I am not sure, but I think the point I am trying to make is a bit connected to what Kayla talked about earlier about employers/recruiters inability to spell. Because if that is not important in other parts of society why should a graduate care?
@Samanon
I think you might have meant ‘Your vocabulary increases massively after school’.
Does bad grammar reek of laziness too?
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and believe that if that was a job application, you would’ve checked what you’d written and picked up on that.
@Brian, I don’t agree with your statement:
“Undergraduate courses are entirely structured around the preparation for work in the real world….Supplemental Information for a particular degree subject, as stated by the regulatory body for Higher Education, is designed to demonstrate to potential employers the skills that the graduate has attained through their undergraduate study.”
I don’t believe university study is preparing people for work in the real world. I think there is some preparation going on but I thought university study was study in a subject at university level, not a business school. On what basis do you say the above?
I don’t think a graduate can walk into a job, which might a suggestion your making, as I think there is a need for training (work experience) to bridge the gap between just graduated and the workplace? Or am I incorrect?
Sorry might *be a suggestion your making* not which might a suggestion your making.
@Thomas
‘…a suggestion you’re making’.
Indeed, Thomas, there is a need for training before an employee can do the job. Please note, I say “employee” because it is the role of the university to educate individuals in the theory and part practice, and it is the role of industry/commerce etc to train the individual to do the job. This is what I am implied in my previous statement.
As a country, we have moved so far from the time-honoured and tried-and-tested method of employment that this generation and the last has never known the practice of apprenticeship for school-leavers. Many university graduates have had the wool pulled over their eyes by employers who use them as a political football to kick back and forwards between government, university and employers, where each party is guilty to some degree of acquiescing with employers over who is responsible for training young people – graduates and non-graduates – and, more importantly for employers, who is going to pay for that training. Governments have tried for decades to convince employers that they should have in place an adequate alternative to the highly successful time-served apprenticeships. Employers have retorted that they would be willing to train people to a high skill level, but that it is the responsibility of government to pay for the training. So a stalemate has existed for the past 30 years and the result has been that the remaining apprenticeship schemes have been wound down, the skills base in some industry sectors diminished and manufacturing increasingly moved abroad.
Everyone wants to forget about time-served apprenticeships and graduate recruitment schemes because it means long-term investment in people and the labour market prefers ‘flexibility’, ie short-term investment and a quick return. So the same arguments you get for schools supposedly not preparing pupils for work are being applied to university.
I hope this lengthy answer hasn’t sent you to sleep. In short, graduates have the theory and are ready to be trained – which has always been and should always be the role of employers.
In a way, ‘banking’ as an industry has performed quite an incredible PR feat. It’s an industry which provides a universally useful social function in supplying credit and ‘multiplying money’, while simultaneously being utterly reviled by much of the population…
(…whose fault is it if graduates comment on the wrong post? =) )
(…and write whose instead of who’s?) *gets coat*
@Jack K
You had it right the first time! Whose!
Sorry Tanya, I can’t seem to stop.
Ha ha, don’t worry – it happens to the best of us!