RE: Help - my consultants cannot write!

["Michael West" <mike -dot- west -at- bigpond -dot- com>]

To me, and many other old-school geezers, one of the hallmarks of a
well-educated person in the contemporary western world is the ability to
think critically and to express oneself clearly in speaking and writing.
"Well educated" (to me) does not mean highly skilled, highly intelligent,
highly specialised; any of those qualities may be present in people who do
not have a basic grasp of literacy and communication and who are therefore
not "well educated" in the traditional sense, however marvellous their
achievements in whatever specialty they excel in.

 

I too have read (or tried to read) resumes from PhDs and (self-proclaimed)
Mensa members. I rejected them because they showed no regard for the reader
and no sense of what was or was not relevant in a clearly defined business
communication scenario. As Andrew put it, they blathered and yammered.

 

In the present discussion, what I am not too clear about is how people with
poor communications skills get hired as consultants. I'd suggest that it is
easier to teach people who have high communications competency how to be
security experts than it is to squeeze blood out of turnips.

 

Mike West

 

From: Kat Kuvinka [mailto:katkuvinka -at- hotmail -dot- com] 
Sent: Tuesday, 11 October 2011 8:00 AM
To: lporrello -at- illumina -dot- com; mike -dot- west -at- bigpond -dot- com; eddy -dot- skau -at- gmail -dot- com
Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: RE: Help - my consultants cannot write!

 

We get terrible resumes from candidates with MSs, MBAs, and PhDs, applying
for development, SQA, management positions, even some tech writers--and they
can get their foot in the door if they have the right skill set and can talk
the talk.

Seems this inability of some of the well-educated to express themselves
succinctly on paper using proper punctuation and consistent tense is highly
tolerated.  Why should they change if they don't have to?



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