Why Spelling Matters (Soft Skills)

Menu, Arugam Bay. Wait for it…

I read a few CVs and cover letters a week. The cover letters are just a test, it doesn’t really matter what people say. We’re reading them to check grammar and spelling. You’d be surprised. I see maybe one coherent cover letter per month. It’s so simple, so important, yet so many people fail.

I don’t get it. I have errors on the blog, but anytime I’m asking someone for money I try to get things absolutely right. Some of these kids are dropping ‘i’s like it’s a Google Chat. Should I mail and tell these kids that ‘loose’ is not ‘lose’ and that capitalization is not a matter of whim? Just for their edification, we definitely don’t call them back.

If I do see a good cover letter I immediately walk over to HR to recommend that person, simply because they can read and write. Is it just me? Am I a spelling nerd?

Nope. Basic soft skills are important to employers everywhere, especially India.

Call Centers

Call centers live and die by the word. Spelling isn’t so important (unless you’re doing text/web support), but the polish of communication is – in this case, tone and confidence. Basic coherence.

Call-center company 24/7 Customer Pvt. Ltd. is desperate to find new recruits who can answer questions by phone and email. It wants to hire 3,000 people this year. Yet in this country of 1.2 billion people, that is beginning to look like an impossible goal.

So few of the high school and college graduates who come through the door can communicate effectively in English, and so many lack a grasp of educational basics such as reading comprehension, that the company can hire just three out of every 100 applicants. (WSJ)

As a first-hand example, this story of an American applying to an Indian call center (Mother Jones) is both entertaining and enlightening.

Engineering Jobs

Even for engineers, soft skills are often more important than software. “The results of the analysis are consistent with the qualitative findings, which report that employers in India are trying to broaden the talent pool and develop a recruitment philosophy to hire for general ability and attitude rather than specialized domain and professional skills” (World Bank/FICCI).

64 percent of employers hiring fresh engineering graduates are only somewhat satisfied with the quality of the new hires or worse. After classifying all skills by factor analysis, the authors find that employers perceive Soft Skills (Core Employability Skills and Communication Skills) to be very important (ibid.)

Customers

Interestingly, what customers write about the business is also important. Basically, badly spelled reviews (positive or not) make a company look bad. As per Harvard Business Review:

The better the writing and the fewer the spelling errors in reviews of a product or a service, the higher the resulting demand for that product. Sure enough, some smart companies have figured out how to take advantage of this. Ipeirotis estimates that online shoe retailer Zappos has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars hiring helpers through its parent company Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service to improve grammar and spelling in its product reviews.

The guy he’s citing did a really interesting study and said “we noticed that demand for a hotel increases if the reviews on TripAdvisor and Travelocity are well-written, without spelling errors; this holds no matter if the review is positive or negative” (Panos Ipeirotis).

The Value Of Speeling

If that effect holds true for customers, then it’s probably true for employees as well, and they’re supposed to represent your company. So it is important that they spell and speak well.

Incidentally, regarding the Arugam Bay menus above, the bumping soup is really pumpkin and the food there wasn’t very good. Or perhaps it was just the review.

273 Comments

  1. No, you denied that an election took place in 2001

    No, I didn’t deny an election took place, which is why your whole argument is total and utter worthless rubbish. The PM was not elected by the people, as you yourself have just admitted:

    Nothing. Except common sense

    You admit that Ranil could have been elected MP and someone else chosen to be PM, which was my point along.

    Especially since the author of that article you quoted actually begins the paragraph by acknowledging that there is NO LAW that prevents the Queen from dissolving Parliament.

    But THERE are laws that allow the PM to pick the timing of the dissolution. Only fools like you actually thinking the Queen would use some outdated ceremonial ancient power from 600 years ago to needlessly interferer in British politics. Then again, it is not surprising, since you’re also the kind of fool that doesn’t care if MR extends the terms limits, and handpicks the election commissioner and Supreme Court judges. You and your fellow 2-celled fools were waving Lion flags and gouging on kiribath when MR promised to abolish the EP. In any event, democracy is alive and well in England, and there is no absolutely no comparison to the crumbling system in SL, despite all your pathetic efforts to equalize.

    Sadly that little snippet you have chose to paste here actually indicates no such thing

    It demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt your less than elementary knowledge of economics.

    EXHIBIT A: Rajivmw does not understand the use of a price index in calculating real GDP:

    Comment by rajivmw
    2011-05-08 15:56:33

    Heshan, if you think that GDP data is compiled by surveying households, then it’s utterly pointless arguing with you. But then I knew that already.

    EXHIBIT B: Rajivmv now understand the need for price index (which relies on household surveys) in said task, but thinks the PCE trumps the CPI:

    You probably haven’t even read, much less understood, the article you yourself have linked to. If you did, you would realize that the CE and the PCE are two separate things used for different purposes. ONLY the latter is used for calculating GDP, and as I have clearly shown before, does not rely on house-to-house surveys.

    Comment by Heshan
    2011-05-10 01:10:38

    @ rajivmw,

    You’re a first-class idiot. I say idiot, because GDP calculation is what first year business students learn. Now you’re writing some meaningless crap about “GDP deflator.”

    Once again, the CPI, not the PCE is the primary tool used to measure inflation:

    CPI is a primary inflation indicator because consumer spending accounts for nearly two-thirds of economic activity.

    http://mdafx.com/fundamental_analysis.php

    I presume you know what “primary” means.

    The CPI is the most commonly used price index to measure the inflation rate.

    http://www.colorado.edu/Economics/courses/econ2020/section6/section6-main.html

    I presume you know what “most commonly used” means.

    rajivmw says: The BEA does NOT use the CPI in calculating real GDP

    This is what happens when people try to argue things with only superficial knowledge. You really need to take the class; I believe its called “macroeconomics 101.”

    The CPI plays a role in the determination of the real GDP; therefore, manipulation of the CPI could imply manipulation of the GDP because the CPI is used to deflate some of the nominal GDP components for the effects of inflation.

    http://www.investopedia.com/articles/07/consumerpriceindex.asp

    Of course, if they began teaching macroeconomics at rajivmw’s government school, 2 cells might actually become 2 and a half cells, which would pose certain dangers for Rajapakse Ltd… after all, you need a bunch of gullible fools like rajivmw to ensure your 100-year tenure; fools who believe the Queen will dissolve the UK parliament, the PCE is the primary tool for calculating inflation, real GDP doesn’t rely on a price index, and Prime Ministers are elected by the “will of the people” (despite the “will of the Dictator” putting them out of work a year later).

  3. “No, I didn’t deny an election took place”

    Yes you did. Here is what you said: “The election you speak of did not take place.” No amount of lying can remove what is on the internet, Heshan.

    “You admit that Ranil could have been elected MP and someone else chosen to be PM, which was my point along.”

    Ranil was certainly elected MP, so there is no “could” involved. No one else could have been chosen PM because the PM must hold the confidence of parliament, and the UNP held the majority in parliament and wouldn’t have accepted anyone else but the head of their party. So no, no one else could have been chosen PM, but even if someone else had been, it would still be an MP. And since all MPs are elected (except for the few from the national list), the potential PM is democratically elected to parliament. Therefore Ranil W was elected in 2001.

  4. No amount of quoting out of context will add validity to your faulty argument. Election for what? The Mayor of Siberia?

    No one else could have been chosen PM because the PM must hold the confidence of parliament, and the UNP held the majority in parliament and wouldn’t have accepted anyone else but the head of their party

    Is there a law that mandates what you’ve just said? Or is it just your imagination working overtime as usual?

    Therefore Ranil W was elected in 2001.

    Elected what? Winner of American Idol ? LOL

  5. “Election for what? The Mayor of Siberia? “”

    Really? Were we discussing a Siberian election? What we were discussing was the Sri Lankan general election of 2001, which you say did not take place :D

    “Is there a law that mandates what you’ve just said?”

    Yes, it’s call the Constitution. Ever heard of it? This is what it says: Art 43 [3]: “The President shall appoint as Prime Minster the Member of Parliament who in his opinion is most likely to command the confidence of Parliament.”

    “Elected what? Winner of American Idol ?”

    Were we discussing the programmes you get your information from? I don’t think so. We were discussing the Sri Lankan general election of 2001, which you say “did not take place”, in which Ranil W was one of the elected candidates. :D

  6. The point is, Heshan, that prior to Wijayapala saying “Then how did Ranil win the 2001 election? Did he rig it?” there was NO discussion of ANY elections, and certainly nothing about how Ranil W gained office. YOU misunderstood Wijayapala’s comment to mean that RW had personally won an election to the office of PM because you then said: “I know you have great difficulty with common sense, so let me inform you that after 1978 the Prime Minister is chosen by the President. The election you speak of did not take place.” The fact that the PM was never directly elected even before ’78 obviously escaped you.

    Instead of then simply admitting that you had misunderstood Wijayapala (something your ego could not stand), you began to huff, puff and move the goalposts with comments such as this: “Where did I say there was no election in 2001? I merely said there was no direct election, by the people of Sri Lanka to choose Ranil Wickremasinghe as Prime Minister. Dear stooges, let me define the main point of a election for you. An election by the people involves at least two candidates. If less than two candidates are there, then it is not an election .” In your great striving to avoid looking simply unfocused you managed to convince everyone that you are in fact an ignoramus by deciding to justify your statement that there was no election :D So you brought in the fact there had to be at least two candidates.

    You then made things even worse by displaying the fact that you don’t understand how a parliamentary system works and saying, “Show me where it says in the Sri Lankan Constitution that a Prime Minister is elected by the people,” whereas the average person knows that cabinet posts are not voted on by the electorate, but that all the candidates for those posts (including that of PM) are in fact democratically elected.

    If all of this wasn’t hilarious enough, you went on to then excrete this gem of a turd: “If the Prime Minister is not elected by the people, then there are only one of three possibilities: (I) the PM is “elected” exclusively by the Parliament, (II) the PM is appointed exclusively by the President, and (III) the PM is chosen via consultation between the President and Parliament. The 2001 scenario is a case of (III)” without understanding that when the president’s party doesn’t hold a majority in parliament, he/she hasn’t any say in who the PM will be.

    All of this rigmarole was spurred by Wijayapala’s query on how RW came to be PM if he hadn’t won the 2001 election. The point is RW did indeed come to power in 2001 via the democratic process of being elected by his constituency and winning his seat. You’re a fool, Heshan, who has been humiliated and made to look like an idiot all over the internet because your fragile little ego cannot bear to ever be wrong. Ha ha ha

    Whoever’s really interested in enjoying Heshan’s desperate wrigglings can see the original thread here: http://groundviews.org/2010/12/27/democratic-debates-in-2011/

  7. “I know you have great difficulty with common sense, so let me inform you that after 1978 the Prime Minister is chosen by the President. The election you speak of did not take place.”

    Exactly, there was no election for a PM because the PM is chosen by the party. Even if (I), (II), and (III), are not the only possibilities, it still follows that the PM is not elected by the people (damn, I’m right even when I’m wrong)

    Perhaps you should stick to abusing naked corpses, Blacker. Wasn’t that what your “higher education” in the SLA taught you to do best D:

  8. But no one said that there was an election for PM. Wijayapala asked you how Ranil W won the elections of 2001 (which did take place BTW), and you replied that “The elections you speak of did not take place.” There’s no getting away from your ignorance, Heshan. Lol

  9. Comment by David Blacker
    2011-08-02 12:40:58

    “The election you speak of did not take place.”

    Comment by David Blacker
    2011-08-03 13:25:47

    “The elections you speak of did not take place.”

    You know when you quote someone out of context repeatedly , it’s a good idea not to change your story each time : D

  10. Since “election” and elections” is the same in the context of the General Elections of 2001 (you know, the ones you say did not take place), the story is the same (and the context is given in detail above) :D Keep it up, Heshan. With every comment you make you draw people’s attention to this thread and your stupidity ROFL

  11. Unfortunately for you, “election” is not the same as “elections”; your whole theory rests on the premise that Ranil was elected PM in 2001, which I have proved is a false assumption. You have not disproved the fact that anyone in the UNP could have been chosen as PM, despite Ranil winning the parliamentary seat for MP.

  12. I’m afraid it is the same in this context, if it isn’t please explain the difference. No one in any thread on that or any other site claimed that RW was elected PM in 2001 or any other time. The question was “How did RW become PM if he did not win the 2001 elections?” Can you answer how RW could have become PM if he hadn’t won that election, or if in fact there was no election as you claim? That is the only question.

    I don’t need to disprove the fact that anyone from the UNP could have been chosen PM because anyone could NOT have been chosen. ONLY an elected or national list MP in parliament can be chosen, as the constitution states.

    Keep it up, Heshan. This thread will never die.

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  15. Heshan is obviously a very bitter and confused person, with little education on stuff he comments as if he is an expert.

    Hesha writes: “Besides sharing the same DNA, there are other markers to check for genetic affinity. ”

    For your information the genetic study done by G. Kshatriya is based on serum proteins, which are not reliable as markers, specially to check the origins of people who have lived in the same enviorenment for centuries, as people can develop these blood proteins independant of actual admixture. To trace the origins of people molecular markers must be used, and Sinhalese show little affinity to Tamils in studies done using molecular markers.
    http://tinyurl.com/d45ycg4
    http://tinyurl.com/yfa64rt

    Heshan says: “So if Tamils have been on the island for at least 2000 years, interacting with Sinhalese on a near daily basis, what would the Tamil admixture be on the Sinhalese end?”

    Using your study and your argument, can you say why Sri Lankan Tamils show absolutely no admixture with the Veddahs, if they have lived in the island for 2000 years, especially when you yourself say that the black americans show 18% white admixture already?

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