I have an electric scooter, as everyone knows. Consequently I am a member of quite a few Facebook pages related to eScooters in general and my brand in particular.
These are, almost entirely, inhabited by pleasant, mostly young, helpful people. On the rare occasion there is ridiculous behaviour it is from young kids, like 14, and of no relevance.
What I do notice though, particularly on the British sites, is that the standard of literacy is utterly appalling. Decent, employed, helpful, capable and worthwhile people who simply cannot spell and to whom correct grammar is certainly known and presumably of little interest.
Has UK State education really sunk that low?
Such a shame.
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I'm not sure that literacy/spelling/grammar has declined so much, it's just that the internet has revealed how many people can't be bothered.
We wll makes mistakkes but how hard is ait to learn whe to put an apostrophe in its? Or the difference ebetween their, there and thye're? You only have to do it onece.
That's the standard of my uncorrected typing BTW.
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I'm smart enough to detect the difference between careless typing and grammar knowledge.
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>> What I do notice though, particularly on the British sites, is that the standard of
>> literacy is utterly appalling. Decent, employed, helpful, capable and worthwhile people who simply cannot spell
>> and to whom correct grammar is certainly known and presumably of little interest.
Do you have any feel for how old these people are?
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>>Do you have any feel for how old these people are?
Difficult, but a WAG says 20 - 35.
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>> Difficult, but a WAG says 20 - 35.
My children's age then. The Lad is pretty good and his sister's grammar is OK but her spelling isn't so hot. At 60 now I'm part of a cohort who got relatively little training in formal grammar but were nonetheless taught to write properly. Some comic in the seventies (Milligan?) referencing the end of selective education referred to Mrs Williams' (or was it Mrs Thatcher's) 'incomprehensibles'.
I think with the youngsters it's a combination of typing on phones and seeing Social Media as a place where spelling and grammar don't matter.
The Guardian used to run a column called homophones corner about words that sounded alike but were spelled differently.
The youngest of my colleagues invites people to 'bare with me' while they're doing benefit calculations.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Wed 24 Feb 21 at 17:56
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>>I think with the youngsters it's a combination of typing on phones and seeing Social Media as a place where spelling and grammar don't matter.
Perhaps.
But it seems to me a result of little importance being attached at school. And since we all face judgement from our peers, there's no drive to put it right since our peers will be the same as us - if you see what I mean.
I believe it is a lack of education in a world where the importance of education is being forgotten.
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>> The youngest of my colleagues invites people to 'bare with me' while they're doing benefit
>> calculations.
>>
Probably become the way it's said in the future, that example is a good one about how language changes and words get substituted.
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In my experience an intelligent person with insufficient knowledge / education / exposure will do a good job of phonetically typing out they want to say in a perfectly understandable fashion.
Typically with no punctuation and little construction.
Mostly the individual is not the problem.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Wed 24 Feb 21 at 18:13
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>> (or was it Mrs Thatcher's) 'incomprehensibles'.
You might recall, in Yes Minister, Jim Hacker bemoaning education standards, and coming up with a scheme. "And we'll give them a comprehensive education...to make up for their Comprehensive education." 35 odd years ago now.
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>> correct grammar is certainly known and presumably of little interest.
That should have been UNknown. Perhaps a mod???
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Its facebook FFS not a dissertation or CV - , speeling and puntuashon matter not wun jot.
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I think you may have rather missed the point.
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>> I think you may have rather missed the point.
I think not. You have assumed that idiosyncrasies on Facebook posts (and other social media) is an indication of general standards of education.
Completely ignoring the type of media it is, littered with memes, colloquialisms, abbreviations, jargon, strange punctuation sequences, usually done at speed in less than ideal situations with inadequate input methods, hampered by dubious autocorrect intervention.
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No, I have not. You are assuming that I did.
As I said, point missed.
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>> No, I have not. You are assuming that I did.
>>
>> As I said, point missed.
No, your opening post more or less explicitly says that.
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I don't think one can be more or less explicit.
However, I don't really mind what you choose to assume or indeed believe, but your assumption about what I have ignored in particular and my thought process in general is quite wrong.
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Prior to retirement I was in Training for a number of years.
The course involved a number of scenarios which became more testing as the course progressed, to be fair not particularly testing. But designed to lay the foundations.
Statements and files had to be prepared and marked.
Considering that in the not to distant future these would be presented to all parties in the legal process a good percentage were dire. No evidential content, structure, punctuation and some questionable spellin. Sometimes it was difficult to know where to start.
Considering many of these students came with degrees and other qualifications it made you really wonder what is taught in the education process. Trying to get over to them the importance of getting it right was met with a sort of indignant 'whatever' look.
In an attempt to void the critical red pen I even tried specimen summaries and statements to give them a form of template demonstrating how to introduce such things as descriptions and exhibits. Some just didn't get it. A sort of 'that will do' mentality. They just didn't get the importance of the written word. It was a chore.
However the one redeeming feature was that we ran an abbreviated practical court exercise based on the scenarios with . For many it was the time of realisation. :)
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Whilst not involved in the recruitment process, I do get CVs passed across my desk for comment.
Before CVs are passed over we ask HR to remove any attached photos, blank out names and details of schools and universities to prevent unconscious bias.
As a rule, the better the grammar, punctuation, formatting etc, the better reception a CV will have, but we have an important rule which is not to lose the correct candidate because of a poorly written CV, because there are good, smart people from poorer areas who haven't been taught the rules of grammar and how to present a smart CV. We can teach report writing skills.
There will always be short lists, but we try to be as balanced as possible.
BTW we are forbidden from researching candidates on line (Facebook etc.) as we are told that by researching the individual as part of an organisation it would be illegal processing of data under GDPR. It does go on though and one would be wise not to post anything that a future employer might see.
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It all sounds so difficult and tedious these days. We used to just employ the secretary with the best legs.
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>> We used to just employ the
>> secretary with the best legs.
>>
Years ago and a different employer.
A director employed an absolute stunner for a junior role.
She was allowed to leave early on her first day and when the director walked through the office all the guys gave him a solid round of applause.
How times have changed!
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>>How times have changed!
Thank God. Awful behaviour. And quite stupid and counter productive.
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>> blank out names and details of schools and universities to prevent unconscious bias.
What???
So if they had got a degree from some internet pile of crap postal establishment or a first from Oxbridge you wouldn't want to know or factor that in?
>>we have an important rule which is not to lose the correct candidate because of a poorly written CV,
If I am employing someone to communicate with customers I would absolutely dump their a*** for a badly written CV. If nothing else you are devaluing the efforts of the kid who put a bunch of effort into his CV. I am a potential employer, not their mother or their school.
>>BTW we are forbidden from researching candidates on line (Facebook etc.) as we are told that by researching the individual as part of an organisation it would be illegal processing of data under GDPR
b******s. You are free to view any and all information which has been made public and you may form an opinion from it. What you may not do is 'friend' them and then check. Nor may you ask for access to any information which has not been made public.
What a very strange approach your organisation has.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Wed 24 Feb 21 at 20:54
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>> >> blank out names and details of schools and universities to prevent unconscious bias.
>>
>> What???
>>
>> So if they had got a degree from some internet pile of crap postal establishment
>> or a first from Oxbridge you wouldn't want to know or factor that in?
These are people that would have gone through a sift already so academic qualifications will have proved satisfactory for the role. Degrees will need to be from accredited universities and I wouldn't knock a good candidate with a correspondence degree from the OU who hasn't had the chance to go to a bricks and mortar Uni against a poor candidate from Oxbridge.
>> If I am employing someone to communicate with customers I would absolutely dump their a***
>> for a badly written CV. If nothing else you are devaluing the efforts of the
>> kid who put a bunch of effort into his CV. I am a potential employer,
>> not their mother or their school.
We are recruiting people that can make the right decisions. How to analyse whether a loan is a good risk and how to maximise income from it. We are looking for analysis, mathematics and the ability to read between the lines. These people will not be selling to outside customers. If they want to move to that type of role then the organisation provides top notch training - as many large UK employers do.
There is also a huge difference between a CV that's an absolute crock and one that is far from perfect but masks an otherwise good candidate.
It's funny, but when I analyse business development managers' performance, there is a trend, the ones that are far from perfect, who don't write the clearest reports, don't have the poshest of accents are the ones that perform the best. They simply sign up more customers with better income ratios that guys with degrees from the smart unis. Whether that's because they are more hungry or get on better with our mix of new business customers, I don't know, but because they perform better, they stay longer and get promoted.
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>> b******s. You are free to view any and all information which has been made public
>> and you may form an opinion from it. What you may not do is 'friend'
>> them and then check. Nor may you ask for access to any information which has
>> not been made public.
>>
I thought along the same lines as you, but our (very large and expensive) legal team has made it clear that even reading social media accounts is processing personal information - even if it is in the public domain and therefore cannot be done by an organisation without explicit permission. Apparently this is the same as being able to view public domain credit information - it cannot be done without express permission. As our search activities are recorded I will stick by their rules.
>>What a very strange approach your organisation has.
I suppose the test is whether we get candidates that are good at their job and stay with us (the cost of recruitment is huge) and we are targeted on staff turn. We are very successful at what we do and a market leader, so I would suggest the mix is right.
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>>Degrees will need to be from accredited universities
So what was all that about hiding school names?
>> I wouldn't knock a good candidate with a correspondence degree from the OU
I didn't mention the OU, I mentioned "some internet pile of crap postal establishment". And I wouldn't knock an OU student either. In fact in some cases it's more valuable. However, that's not the same as someone hiding that information from me so that I don't know. That's simply ridiculous.
Unless you cannot trust those doing your recruitment, of course.
>>I thought along the same lines as you, but our (very large and expensive) legal team has made it clear that even reading social media accounts is processing personal information
Somebody has misunderstood something. And it's not me.
I might respond by asking if they think I can check Linked-in - which of course you can.
>> the ones that are far from perfect, who don't write the clearest reports, don't have the poshest of accents are the ones that perform the best
Ah, so you do discriminate, just not in the same direction as I.
>>so I would suggest the mix is right.
That can also be called resting on your laurels. Improvement is always possible and always required.
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>> Unless you cannot trust those doing your recruitment, of course.
And therein lies the crux. IT's not that you cannot trust them not to appoint their mates but you can do stuff so unconscious bias is not in play; or at least dealy its effect.
People appoint in their own image. Not for Oxbridge back-scratching but because they have a subconscious image of what a 'good candidate' looks like.
You cannot eliminate the influence of accent or almost subliminal stuff about language, posture etc at interview but you can at least make sure that some other people make the shortlist and make the panel think.
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Facebook pages (et al) - Manatee
