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I Won't Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar

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Re: I Won't Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar

#81

Post by jfoutz »

irahul wrote: post #32
s_henry_paulson wrote: post #8

I think it's a fair, but just to simplify the argument: Poor grammar often is an artifact of a person being inexperienced with reading, writing, or both. Either that or a sign of an unwillingness to learn. Both of these are red flags when hiring. On the other hand, if your "zero tolerance" policy includes things like my usage of an oxford comma, chances are I don't want to work for you.

Saving the google search for people who don't know what an oxford comma is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma "Portugal, Spain, and France" (Oxford comma) "Portugal, Spain and France" (Not Oxford comma)

Even oxford discourages its use in public writing. http://www.ox.ac.uk/public_affairs/services_and_resources/st...

Re: I Won't Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar

#82

Post by ianterrell »

raganwald wrote: post #76

Applicants who don't think writing is important are likely to think lots of other (important) things also aren't important, "Citation needed." Or to put it another way, what is the difference between this statement and: Applicants who don't think wearing a tie and polished brogues to an interview are important are likely to think lots of other (important) things also aren't important

The difference between those two cases is well explained by the internal logic of the article (which I find spot on):

> In blog posts, on Facebook statuses, in e-mails, and on company websites, your words are all you have. They are a projection of you in your physical absence.

Re: I Won't Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar

#84

Post by crazygringo »

As long as it's a reasonable test, you can argue its merits.

But on a site of mine, I've gotten so many e-mails complaining that I say "the data is" instead of "the data are", or arguing that either "what year were you born in" or "in what year were you born" or "what year were you born" are variously wrong, and only one is right (but they all seem to disagree on which one).

Beyond a certain point necessary for clear communication, one person's proper grammar is another's irritating pedantry.

Re: I Won't Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar

#85

Post by nirvdrum »

irahul wrote: post #17

My train of thoughts: > Everyone who applies for a position at either of my companies, iFixit or Dozuki, takes a mandatory grammar test. Whoa. Who do you think you are - google? What makes you think I am going to sit through your grammar test? If I am agreeing to your grammar test, either you are one of the most desirable places to work for(never heard of you), or economy is about to collapse and this is the only job…

My issue is if you're unable to delineate between "it's" and "its" and it's the language you've been speaking natively for the past 25 years, I tend to doubt your ability to know what form of "const" to use in C++. At the very least, lack of proofreading suggests to me you might be rash with your code as well.

Many disagree with me on this point of view, but routinely I've found that those that express themselves well in their native language write better code. That may be a self-reinforcing feedback loop because a lot of bad projects have a lot of terrible or non-existent documentation. And on a personal level I don't want to work with someone that communicates like a tween (NB: I'm not saying that you do, but I've run across it many times).

I also take a lot of issue with the "you know what I mean so you're being a pedant" retort. Not only is it wholly counter-productive, but it's not even accurate when you're talking about globally connected people. Quite frequently a non-native speaker will stumble upon what is written and be thoroughly confused.

Re: I Won't Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar

#86

Post by kenjackson »

espinchi wrote: post #7

I do the same: unstructured e-mails, poor grammar and, in general, bad writing style make me reject applicants instantaneously. However, I wonder if I'm letting good candidates go just because of my grammar nazism. How do you (folks in HN with more experience at hiring) feel about this?

It really depends. If you've looked at 100 candidates and one guy just knocks it out the park. He's an expert at everything you need. He wrote the framework that your company relies on and wrote the book that your team uses as the reference bible. Upon contacting him one of his sentences is "Im not available next week." It would seem foolish to not hire him -- at least IMO.

Re: I Won't Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar

#87

Post by bane »

irahul wrote: post #23
einhverfr wrote: post #10

Now I want to know the following: 1) Will he hire people who can't tell active voice from passive? (Check out the Language Log archives for how many grammar and style nazis can't tell the difference.) 2) Does he require that you can tell who and whom apart and use them in their correct cases? If the answer is "yes" to both of these then I would assume that the people who pass the test are English majors with minors i…

> If the answer is "yes" to both of these then I would assume that the people who pass the test are English majors with minors in Linguistics ;-) I don't know. I am not a native speaker, and am not an English major, but the answer is "yes" to both of them. Am I understanding you correctly that you are saying people can't make out active and passive between "I wrote a letter", "A letter was written by me"? "Who" and "…

"Whom" is also almost impossibly archaic and no longer considered part of modern English (having almost completely fallen out of usage around the start of the 20th century). It survives almost entirely in discussions of when to use it and almost never appears in modern writing except as a demonstration of what linguists call a "prestige form".

"To whom did you give it?" vs. "Who did you give it to?" the latter is more modern and natural in modern English.

Re: I Won't Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar

#88

Post by FlyingSnake »

If he's talking about general grammar skills in any language then it makes sense. Poor grammar always stands out as a negative trait, but should not be the sole criteria to hire. Some of the best developers are immigrants and not always have the best command over the native language.

What if iFixit/Dozuki decides to expand into Germany or Japan and the OP fails on the basic level of grammar there? Will he be consider himself a sub par resource?

Re: I Won't Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar

#89

Post by nollidge »

benihana wrote: post #40

Oh please. I can understand not hiring someone who communicates poorly. That makes sense. But grammar is just a set of arbitrary rules that some person or group of people decided were correct. It's like a secret handshake that lets people know you're part of some smart boys club (by and large it seems like men are the only ones who enjoy bitching about grammar). To me, it says, "I went to a good school system and was…

> But grammar is just a set of arbitrary rules that some person or group of people decided were correct.

That's like saying the evolutionary tree of life is just a set of arbitrary rules someone came up with. It's not, it's a description of an existing evolved system.

Grammar wasn't handed down from on high by an authority, it's an evolved, undirected cultural artifact. There were definitely influential actors, like the (IIRC) monks who first developed the capitals, lowercase, and italics we now use without a second thought, or Noah Webster's personal preferences for spelling which he published and we now largely accept.

> To me, it says, "I went to a good school system and was taught correctly!"

I'm not sure. I guess it depends on the test - if it's asking "which is the past participle form of 'run'", then I'd agree, that's just memorization. But if it's simply asking "which sentence is more correct" and one of the sentences has an improperly conjugated verb, that's not something one even needs to be formally taught if they've read much.

If you can't string a sentence together such that it can be read unambiguously, how can I expect your code to be readable?

> I've met more people who couldn't figure out their and there or you're and your to save their lives who were both fantastically good software engineers and effective communicators.

I'd be willing to bet if you laid out two identical sentences, one with "your" and one with "you're", these people you speak of would be able to choose the correct one. They may not always use the correct one in the quick, ad-hoc process of writing a sentence, but I'm sure they know right from wrong if asked to scrutinize.

Re: I Won't Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar

#90

Post by ianterrell »

debacle wrote: post #16
rheide wrote: post #6

I think that's perfectly reasonable. Although I'm not a native speaker I quickly get annoyed at people's inability to form proper sentences. But only in formal situations, such as the job application scenario in the original article. I went to a Barclays bank in the UK the other day to try and open a business account. One of the main reasons I didn't go with them was that the guy who was going to be my 'personal bank…

I don't know, sometimes I misspell maintenance on purpose out of spite for the English language.

Don't get me started on 'curiosity' and 'judgment'.
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