Yes, Good Grammar Does Matter
Posted August 20th, 2012
So you are writing up your resume and cover letter, making sure it’s neat looking, organized well, and free from spelling errors. But as you write, you come to a spot where you’re not sure if you need to use a comma or not. At another place you’re not sure if you should use its or it’s. And you wonder: Is it really important? Will it really matter?
The answer is a resounding yes, according to one CEO. If you claim to be a person who pays close attention to detail, as almost everyone does, then grammar is one of those details you should be paying attention to, says Kyle Wiens, CEO of an IT company. In fact, Wiens says, he will not hire a person who doesn’t know his past from his past participle. Another reason to pay attention to grammar, Wiens says, is because a lack of it just makes you look uneducated, and worse.
Employees at Wiens’ company do a lot of writing as part of their jobs, so it would make sense for him to put such an emphasis on writing well. But he says you should be able to use good grammar no matter what company you are working for – or applying to. Some people might think that grammar has little to do with how well you do your job, your creativity or your intelligence. But those people would be wrong, Wiens says.
He looks at it this way – if you have graduated from college and you still do not know how to properly use “it’s,” it doesn’t say a lot about your ability or willingness to learn. Wiens says that he also has found that people who make fewer grammar mistakes also make fewer mistakes in other areas.
He found that programmers who pay more attention to how they write also pay closer attention to how they code. And that’s not so surprising, he says, because code is another form of writing.
At his company, details are very, very important, and if someone can’t be bothered with the details of writing, Wiens says, he or she probably cannot be bothered with the details of other activities.
And, he says, when you send in that resume, you can be sure hiring managers are noticing bad grammar. After all, Wiens says, “Sloppy is as sloppy does.”
Proof your resume and your cover letters two or three or even four times and then send it to a recruiter at Bayside Solutions. We have many terrific opportunities at some of the Bay Area’s top employers and we’d love to prevent your – error-free – resume to them. Contact us today!
