Public relations executive Susan Pepperdine received an e-mailed letter from a job hunter.
"The two paragraphs had four typos and misspelled words," Pepperdine said. "When I wrote her back and said that her note didn't give me confidence in her writing ability, she responded that she didn't appreciate my 'harsh' words and gave an excuse about her computer."
Memo to the workplace: Do not follow that applicant's example.
In any job -- or job application -- that has a written component, you will be judged by some people according to your ability to communicate clearly, cleanly, concisely and correctly.
And, if you receive constructive criticism, don't sulk, balk or laugh it off. If someone in authority, or someone with hiring power, thinks your written errors are worth noting, they are worth noting.
Those who care about such things see written errors as indicative of a person's conscientiousness and attention to detail, if not basic intelligence.
I've heard many employers say something to this effect: "If she can't bother to proof her cover letter, which should be very important to her, why should I believe she'd care about or take care with the duties I assign her?"
Grammar and spelling rules don't apply solely to people who write for a living. Every office memo, every business bid, every performance appraisal requires writing skill. And the most important skill is clarity. Readers need to understand what was written.
In that regard, e-mail has created an informal writing style, particularly with the use of abbreviations that can cause problems. For example, what if my editor had sent me this e-mail?
"Pls get cty react. Conv at 3."
"Pls" is easily read as "please." But was he asking for reaction from the city ... the county ... the community? Or was "cty" his own shorthand for committee? And what happens at 3 p.m.? Is it a convention? A convocation? Or is he asking me to meet him for a quick conversation about the article?
Even within a business, and using commonly accepted jargon, confusion can occur with imprecise writing.
Across the Board magazine, a publication of the business research organization The Conference Board, focused on effective business writing in its May/June issue. Tips went well beyond correcting typos and avoiding confusing abbreviations.
Readability relies on writing enough but not too much. Studies show that reading comprehension drops to 62 percent when readers are confronted with 25-word sentences. By comparison, a 15-word sentence garners 90 percent comprehension.
The Across the Board article took particular aim at one of my pet peeves: business buzzwords. An example of bad -- in fact, meaningless -- writing: "We continually exist to synergistically supply value-added deliverables such that we may continue to proactively maintain enterprise-wide data to stay competitive in tomorrow's world."
That raises a question: How will we know if your organization has met that goal if we don't have the faintest idea what it is that you do?
There's a problem when writing fails to communicate with its intended audience. The impression left needs to be the one you intended to convey.
Diane Stafford's careers column appears on Sundays in the Kansas City Star. Copyright 2004 The Kansas City Star Knight Ridder. All Rights Reserved. The information contained in this article may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without prior written authority.
