Today’s Daily newspaper from the University of Washington headlined an article entitled,”Writing Ability has Become a Marketable Skill, and That’s Scary.”
If you’re a good writer, you can actually use that to differentiate yourself from most other candidates. That probably says more about us than about our potential employers. Some people, their verbal abilities further atrophied by texting and tweeting, might not be aware of this deficiency, but companies absolutely hate it when their employees can’t write a proper sentence and string it into a paragraph. Some departments in the Michael G. Foster School of Business have mandated more writing in business courses as a top-down measure after companies complained that graduates lacked sufficient writing skills.
I hear this over and over from companies I work with. All employees, in every position, need to be able to write clearly and correctly if they are to convey information and connect meaningfully. Without this skill, employees are far less valuable.
