eevBLAB #3 - Engineers Can't Spell

[Richard Crowley]

(nothing inherently wrong about judging an applicant on irrelevant skills

How are decent communication skills "irrelevant"?
How can someone judge your "relevant skills" if you can't communicate at some acceptable level?

[mxmarek]

Hi.
Is it really that hard for professional blogger to make the audio right ?
Cheers

[Richard Crowley]

Hi.
Is it really that hard for professional blogger to make the audio right ?
Cheers

Excellent point. As an audio professional I asked that myself.
Even though Dave owns a good wireless lav mic (Sennheiser G3), his response was "my audio is as good as any of the other YouTube bloggers.".
So apparently the bar is deliberately set lower.  It is what it is.   

[Marco]

How are decent communication skills "irrelevant"?

If I had said grin and bare it, would you have understood what I meant?

How can someone judge your "relevant skills" if you can't communicate at some acceptable level?

I'm saying that if you reduce what you consider acceptable to what is necessary to clearly communicate the technical concepts he will be working on you might get better talent (natural language is pretty poor at being unambiguous in the first place and as texting shows can be mangled quite badly while still being interpretable). I wouldn't know one way or the other, I'm just adding the possibility.

[jpb]

I think that the view that technical skills are all that matters is something that young engineers tend to think. I thought that way myself to some extent when I'd just graduated - after all up to that point everything tends to be assessed on anonymous exams.

Unfortunately, in the real world, even technical people need to be salesmen. You may have to sell your project to higher management to get funding. You may well need to communicate and sell technically in support of sales and marketing. As Dave points out, the person he employs is going to need to communicate - Dave is so successful because he is a good and lively communicator (as well as having the technical skills - don't throw me off the forum ).

When I first worked for GEC one of the things they did was make us give a videoed presentation and then critically appraised it in front of us - I hated this but it was a good introduction as to what is important in the world of industry.

[mxmarek]

Hi.
Is it really that hard for professional blogger to make the audio right ?
Cheers

Excellent point. As an audio professional I asked that myself.
Even though Dave owns a good wireless lav mic (Sennheiser G3), his response was "my audio is as good as any of the other YouTube bloggers.".
So apparently the bar is deliberately set lower.  It is what it is.   

Maybe the one he finds will help with it and will push the 'normalize audio' button before uploading, or maybe he/she will know how to use dynamics compression, and also offload Dave with other details, so new videos can be deeper in details, but made in the same length of talking.

[SteveyG]

I will almost always bin an application form to join our development team if it has bad grammar in it. When documentation is so important for ISO6061 projects and submission to the FDA (we design medical devices), an applicant that "can't write good" is never going to succeed.

Maybe the one he finds will help with it and will push the 'normalize audio' button before uploading, or maybe he/she will know how to use dynamics compression, and also offload Dave with other details, so new videos can be deeper in details, but made in the same length of talking.

Jeez, who the hell turns on audio compression other than the clinically insane 

How are decent communication skills "irrelevant"?

If I had said grin and bare it, would you have understood what I meant?

You mean "grin and bear it"?

[Richard Crowley]

If I had said grin and bare it, would you have understood what I meant?

A few years ago, I may have just automatically assumed the "decent" interpretation.
But given the depths to which culture appears to have devolved, it makes me think about those references to "American Pie" and "Animal House", and take the word "bare" more literally.

I'm saying that if you reduce what you consider acceptable to what is necessary to clearly communicate the technical concepts he will be working on you might get better talent (natural language is pretty poor at being unambiguous in the first place and as texting shows can be mangled quite badly while still being interpretable). I wouldn't know one way or the other, I'm just adding the possibility.

If we don't maintain proper standards of grammar and spelling, the language will devolve back into caveman grunts.

[mxmarek]

Jeez, who the hell turns on audio compression other than the clinically insane 

If you can tune parameters it can be useful in some cases, instead of manually tuning for every head movement, but I'm not the professional audio guy, and am clinically insane

Anyway for the blab video - it's content is a big 

[Richard Crowley]

Jeez, who the hell turns on audio compression other than the clinically insane 

I don't have a problem with in-camera limiting (or even "auto-level").  We hardly ever hear raw, unprocessed audio anyway. 
It keeps the levels out of the mud at the bottom, and prevents clipping at the other end (which is truly horrendous here in the digital era).
I DO have a problem with that "off-mic" hollow room echo that, at least to my ear, is the quintessential hallmark of sloppy audio.
Especially when it can be solved with something as simple as a $5 clip-on computer mic which works remarkably well in consumer cameras.

[SteveyG]

I DO have a problem with that "off-mic" hollow room echo that, at least to my ear, is the quintessential hallmark of sloppy audio.
Especially when it can be solved with something as simple as a $5 clip-on computer mic which works remarkably well in consumer cameras.

I can agree with you there 

[Wilksey]

There are 2 interpretations of the video.
1. Dave is slagging off people / Engineers who cannot spell.
2. Dave is saying that if you cannot spell then you are up against stiff competition for the job as that is part of the requirements whilst making a point about presentation of the CV.

I expect the people thumbing down are interpreting as #1.

Personally I tend to send any CV's through as PDF AND DOC as sometimes the recruitment agencies request DOC so they can put their own headers on, but if I were to apply to a independent company via their HR department for example I would send just PDF.

I read the video as saying something along the lines of it is desirable to be able to spell, although most packages these days include a spell checker and grammar checker, so perhaps it is not vital, but if there is another applicant that can spell then they might be in with a better chance.  If you do not bother to get a CV spell checked or proof read by someone before submitting then perhaps you are not that bothered about first impressions and you more than likely do not deserve the job over another candidate that has taken the time to go through and make sure their CV is up to scratch.

Perhaps do not fully disregard the badly spelt ones just yet just incase the meticulously written ones do not cut the mustard in the actual interview!

[pickle9000]

Funny, I took the video as a PSA.

Dave simply said what to do to get your resume noticed. I would probably have added tape a bare pcb of your work or make up a pcb in the form of a business card and attach that.

I come from the hiring side and if you have 200 resumes sitting there you will narrow them down.

On the minus side, soup stains, 200 pages, 50 staples, hearts after every line.
On the plus side, business card attached, neat and readable first page, phone number

 

[apelly]

Wow, that thumbs down ratio, one of my biggest ever.
The amount of people who don't seem to understand the point in this video is quite staggering 

I've encountered this too. I don't know why people are so precious about being judged on ability, not appearance. Part of the ability is to play the application game properly. You have to stand out in a crowd. What's the best way to do that? Nobody can spell any more, I certainly can't, but an inability to have your spell checker turned on is inexcusable.

I agree with your blab 100%. I would have binned those resumes almost immediately for taking the piss and wasting my time. They need some very remarkable skills to be evident very quickly to avoid it.

[jpb]

I read the video as saying something along the lines of it is desirable to be able to spell,

I think that the video acknowledged that engineers tend to be bad at spelling but that for a document as important as a CV you should take the effort to check and make corrections.

Of course it is good to be able to spell, but it is almost as good to get the spelling right with the aid of a spell checker or a dictionary. I fall into the latter camp, even though one of my hobbies is doing cryptic crosswords I am not good at spelling, but I have an electronic dictionary to hand as well as a spellchecker. I also generally know that I've spelt a word incorrectly even when I can't work out the correct spelling without looking it up.

[JonnyBoats]

I think I have to defend Dave on this one, with a slight proviso 

Whether it is hiring a candidate or buying a piece of equipment one should always try to get best value for money. Spelling is just one of many factors which contributes to value.

Consider if you were buying a used oscilloscope for your home (hobby) lab and you found two identical units at a flea market except one came with a calibration certificate that was two months old while the other one had a certificate that was two years old. Which one would you buy, all things being equal? It's probably not that a calibration certificate is essential to a hobbyist, and you would probably not pay much extra to get one, but if it does not cost anything....

Now consider you are an engineering student at a prestigious US institution like MIT, Cal Tech etc and that you were raised in the USA and are a native English speaker. IS it too much to ask that the instructor and teaching assistants also be native speakers of English? Certainly having a lecturer with a heavy foreign accent and limited fluency in English has a major impact on the ability of students to understand the lecture but for some reason that is considered acceptable among major engineering universities in the USA.

Here is the proviso for Dave, if he has two candidates who are otherwise equally qualified, how much extra would he be willing to pay for the one who is the perfect speller?

The free market works, when there is sufficient financial incentive  people respond accordingly. In fact if you offer enough money you can get people to do almost anything.

The problem with most firms is that start out deciding how much they want to pay and then complain that they can't find qualified candidates. Do you suppose if salaries for Electrical Engineers in the USA were made higher than the salaries for lawyers and MBAs there would be more engineering majors? 

[Corporate666]

It is strange that job applicants are judged on things that have almost nothing to do with their job. Writing skills, clothes, ..., while the most important aspects of their job are ignored.

Writing is important though, but are you looking for someone who can write well or someone who can do electronics well?
Even journalists and professional writers are being proofread before their texts are published, and they make mistakes too.

Furthermore, I hate first impressions.
I have some degree of autism. I do not make good first impressions. This ruins a lot of opportunities for me.
It is a pitty that "smooth talkers" can get their way into good jobs while maybe not having enough skills, while people who do have the skills get shown the door because they can't impress with words or appearance.

Hire the person with the right skills, not the person who seems to have the right skills. A portfolio should be infinitely more important than writing skills.

I think the mistake is in thinking that writing skills, appearance, presentation and such don't have anything to do with one's job.  Engineers aren't locked in a cage and tossed assignments through the bars - they are expected to interact with coworkers and often with customers.  One of the big mistakes a lot of people don't realize is that all of us are always selling, all of the time.  Whether it's to a potential girlfriend/wife, to our boss/employer, to friends, or whatever - we are always being measured and judged in some way.  Someone who is good at all the 'soft skills' in addition to technical skills is way more valuable than someone who isn't. 

It's most certainly unfortunate for anyone who isn't adept at those soft skills, and especially so if it's because of something beyond their control.  But all of us suffer from some setbacks due to things outside our control, whether it's due to our appearance, our accent, our baldness, our weight, our vocal pitch, our nervousness, our inability to match clothes, our stutter, or whatever else may be the problem.  One of our responsibilities as humans is to acknowledge that we get one shot at life, and we need to recognize our shortcomings and take action to minimize them or overcome them instead of becoming victims to them. 

It may be unfair, but society is never ever going to have some sort of 'awakening' where we realize that looks don't matter and bad first impressions are OK - it's just not gonna happen.  And we are each the ones who have to live with the consequences of our lives and have the greatest interest in improving ourselves.

[apelly]

If we don't maintain proper standards of grammar and spelling, the language will devolve back into caveman grunts.

Don't underestimate the communicative power of the grunt. Grunting got me through my teens!

One problem is the disconnect between writing and speech. I believe English is better than some other languages in this regard, but it's far from perfect. How many of you would put a smiley in an email to a friend? I certainly wouldn't, but here on the internet, where you aren't know as well, it's a simple way to convey tone: Written communication evolves to suit it's purpose.

That aside though, I agree strongly. We write for our anticipated audience and anticipated style. If you're sending an SMS to a friend, then gr8 m8, but there is an appropriate style for professional communication. Consider TV news, newspaper journalism, contemporary prose, technical documentation, internet forum posts...

[Corporate666]

And FWIW, I am 100% complete with Dave on this one.

I got lambasted shortly after joining EEVBlog for saying that dress was important in the workplace.  A lot of engineers went nuts, saying they don't want to work in a company where wearing jeans and a t-shirt is unacceptable, because it means management is short sighted or whatever.

Well, fact is that these soft skills DO matter.  Appearances and impressions DO matter.  It's a rare individual who is highly regarded enough in their field as to be able to suffer quirks and still be given equal credibility as someone who doesn't have those quirks.  And I'm going to guess nobody here's last name is Zuckerberg, Gates, Jobs or Brin

[HeywoodFloyd]

Agreed. I tend to reject CVs with more than a couple of spelling mistakes, although I may allow a few more for non native English speakers. Anyone can run a spell checker (and should), but it doesn't catch everything.

Communication skills are important almost no matter what they do. They need to document it, they need to produce specifications and documents for their colleagues.

I also value the ability to be concise - nothing worse than people who waffle on and on and don't say very much. (Accordingly, I shall shut up now  )

[Electric flower]

I tend to disagree with grammar in every ocassion i can, but i agree with Dave at this one, checking your grammar for your job application takes few minutes but it gives the impression of competence, responsibility and some reliability to let you do the talking with costumers or maybe get better deal on ebay... from my own experience when working in pair it's the most important to work with someone sane who gives his most to learn new stuff, even if he doesn't know a thing (that is dedication and dedicated person would check his grammar mistakes).

I love choice of t-shirt for this video

[vargoal]

I agree with Dave because of the simple fact that you can use spell check to find errors. I take a more neutral stance when it comes to grammar because some English grammar mistakes are hard to spot.

[Macbeth]

A good one that seems to flummox even the best spelling bees is "Bureaucracy". It used to get me every time and I consider myself pretty good with spelling and grammar, even though concepts such as nouns, vowels, adjectives, conjunctions, prepositions, interjections, adverbs, etc. just flew over my head in English lessons. I somehow flew through the exams I had despite not understanding all the theory. I guess I am just good at noticing patterns.

Way back when not everyone had a PC and a printer in the 1990's, I was often called upon by my graduate friends to knock up a CV (Resume), and print out a few copies. I developed a template and essentially replaced bits of corporate bullshit bingo words of the day with others, then printed them off for them. Sure enough, they ended up with work.

Now my Aunty asked me if I could help a distant cousin of mine with a job application that required a CV. Of course, no problem. Now this girl is the opposite of a Uni Grad. She was kicked out of home at 14 years of age and essentially lived day to day on her own wits. Not beating around the bush she is a bit thick. Lovely girl, nice but dim. Of course no qualifications, but she was enrolled in the community college to learn "dance", and had so far had jobs as glass collector for a bar, dancer for a nightclub, and an extra on a movie that Samuel L Jackson was in.

There was a new bar opening in town which wanted barmaids and she applied for the job. I got the most recent CV I had used for my grad mate and replaced all the qualifications, etc, and all the bullshit bingo words to something that would apply to this girl and her new job. After printing it out, I had to explain what all "the big words" meant.

She was employed by the new bar instantly. In fact, on the strength of the CV with "the big words" they gave her the bar manager position!    Needless to say, she didn't last 2 weeks, bless her! 

No worries, she is a trooper and has always found work, travelled the world too. I should call her up sometime as she recently moved a street away from me I hear from the grapevine.

[Bloch]

This is my answer to Dave's YouTube comment to me.

[tautech]

This is my answer to Dave's YouTube comment to me.

idear 

You'd have done better to remain anonymous