The Cover Letter: Hiring Good Writers Makes Business Sense | ALEX

(Flickr Commons/Dan Patterson)

Recently iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens wrote a terrific piece for the Harvard Business Review. Perhaps you?ve seen it. Titled, ?I won?t Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar. Here?s Why,? the article outlines why employing people good grammar makes good business sense.

I think the guy has a point.

Although The Jellyvision Lab doesn?t subject its job applicants to the likes of Wiens?s mandatory grammar tests, it does emphasize the importance of their cover letters. As a communications company, we need our people?all of our people?to be exceptional communicators.

Good communication is our bread and butter, really, so we?re very up-front with what we expect of the people who want to work here. For example, here?s a line describing the application requirements from a recent job posting we made for a web application developer:

A cover letter that highlights three reasons you think you?d be great for the gig, focusing on how your past work experience has prepared you for this kind of position. Writing is key to all that we do, and we weigh cover letters heavily?even for developers.

Notice that ?even for developers? part? Every candidate applying to our company is required to write something that will knock our socks off, even those who?ll be in jobs that don?t require writing.

In his article, Wiens describes a similar approach for the people hired at his companies. He says he gives his grammar test to everyone, including salespeople, operations staff, and programmers. ?Grammar is my litmus test,? he writes. ?All applicants say they?re detail-oriented; I just make my employees prove it.?

We obviously feel that writing is important, but what about you? Is the quality of a cover letter considered where you work, or is that something for which there isn?t enough time? Will a resume typo disqualify an otherwise stellar candidate? Please share your thoughts in the Comments section below.

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Source: http://www.meetalex.com/2012/07/the-cover-letter-hiring-good-writers-makes-business-sense/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-cover-letter-hiring-good-writers-makes-business-sense

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