I was just reading this article posted at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel web site and it highlighted some interesting statistics. A new report released on Monday states that written communication ranked highest of all deficiencies among new employees. More than 80% of the respondents said the high school graduates they hired had insufficient writing skills, compared with 47% for two-year and technical college graduates and 28% for four-year college grads.
The National Commission on Writing assembled a report last July concluding that writing is considered an even more important job requirement for the states' nearly 2.7 million employees than it is for the private-sector employees studied in the Commission's previous survey of leading U.S. businesses. State agencies were more likely to consider writing skills in hiring and promotion, and to require writing samples from applicants. However, based on survey responses, the Commission estimates that providing writing training for those employees who do not meet state standards costs state agencies about $221 million annually.
So while there is an obvious emphasis on writing from those doing the hiring, it seems that most new hires aren't equipped to write effectively, and the cost of teaching writing skills after they're hired is high.
So where is the disconnect? Is it between school and business? Curriculum and the real world? Or is it a trend spurred on by instant communication medium such as email, instant messaging, and all the tools that go with it?
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As someone who teaches technical communication in the College of Engineering at the UW, I think that the disconnect is between what students think of as school work and the "real world." They often just don't believe instructors who teach them about communication skills. Students don't believe that writing prowess counts as much as the content in many cases.
Too, we rarely have on-campus visitors (like CEOs or recruiters) who emphasize communication skills, even if it's important to the company as a hiring factor.
Rarely are students asked to specifically pay heed to their writing skills in other classes beyond the comm courses. Writings for other courses, internships, and co-ops are reviewed for content almost exclusively. And while professors and bosses ask for well-written reports and other documents, they rarely critique or grade those reports on the communications strategies that the student employs.
In other words, there is no skills-transfer by the students. However, it's not all their fault. Those writing skills are not being demanded systematically by all courses; such practice would better emphasize to the student that communication is part of everything, not just one class on the way to earning a major.
This is one of my pet peeves as an instructor of writing! So, if any of you want to come talk to my classes about this, contact me!
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