Why use capital letters, punctuation, good grammer?

[KmH]

Because a future job may depend on it.

Red Tape - When it comes to online reputation, 'life's not fair, and companies aren't either'

 

[Derrel]

KmH--you failed to get the job, since you spelled grammar incorrectly. Grammar contains an "a" in front of the last r, and has no "e".

 

[kundalini]

[h=2]Why use capital letters, punctuation, good grammer?[/h]

That's what Mrs. Ellerby tried to drill in my head Junior and Senior years in High School.

 

[jake337]

So people can understand what the F___ your trying to write!

 

[480sparky41 40]

Replace the comma between punctuation and good with the word and.

 

[analog.universe]

I realize not everyone will agree, but to me, if this sort of thing is part of a company's hiring practice, then they're not a company I want to work for. If a company judges me by anything besides my performance at work, then I will not work for them. You always have to sacrifice somewhere, but I'd rather make less money than endorse these practices. Work stays at work, home stays at home, and employers that don't respect that get no respect from me.

 

[480sparky41 40]

But how do you know you didn't get the job because of what a company found out about you online?

And on the flip side, suppose your current employer decided to start using such a practice? Are you willing to tell them to Take This Job and Shove It?

 

[JClishe]

I realize not everyone will agree, but to me, if this sort of thing is part of a company's hiring practice, then they're not a company I want to work for. If a company judges me by anything besides my performance at work, then I will not work for them.

ALL companies look at many factors besides just past performance, whether you'd like to believe that or not. When they have 5 candidates for one position and all of their professional accomplishments are relatively similar, they need to have other factors to evaluate. Online reputation will be one of them. If one of the candidates looks like a drunken fool online while the other 4 don't, well, guess which candidate is immediately eliminated from the running?

You can dislike it all you want. That doesn't change that that's how businesses operate. Companies are making an enormous financial investment when they hire someone and it's their responsibility to know what they're getting. Effective employees understand that this exists - EVERYWHERE - and they protect their online identity as appropriate. They're also glad that not everyone feels that way, because those are the people that effective candidates love to be competing against when they apply for jobs.

 

[emoxley]

Companies like to think they hire people with a little intelligence. When you don't capitalize when you should, use bad grammar, and don't punctuate correctly, you appear to be some backwoods hillbilly with no schooling, and probably can't make decisions that is good for the company. I know if I ran a company, I wouldn't hire anyone like that. If you don't care what the top people thinks of your grammar and other schooling, chances are you're not going to get along with the other workers either, since they won't appreciate some dummy getting the same kind of job, making the same kind of money, that they are. Someone like that is a bad apple from the start.

 

[2WheelPhoto]

Corporate America and technology has been good to me even though I post terrible nooB/student photos on the TPF

 

[analog.universe]

I suppose I'm a little bit spoiled. In Vermont, a lot of companies feel a social responsibility, and openly make an effort to accept all types of people. As a result of this climate, companies that are less respectful find their employees going elsewhere. There is a sense of realism about what is required to get a job done, and I've worked with plenty of great people who do great work, who would never have a chance in the other parts of the country that I've lived.

I have told employers to shove it when they broke my trust. I've also worked for people for years who were decent, respectful people that minded their own business.

 

[DorkSterr]

 

[JClishe]

This has nothing to do with minding your own business, or where you live, or being respectful. Heck it's not even about punctuation. It's about professionally effective communication. Employees communicate with other employees as well as with customers. If your job is to write tweets on a corporate Twitter feed, then punctuation clearly is unimportant. If you are a salesperson that writes proposals, then punctuation and grammer is clearly of the utmost importance. Most employees will fall somewhere in between the 2 examples, and in fact the formality of their communication may vary day to day. Managers need to know that their employees can be trusted to recognize what level of "proper" grammer and punctuation that any given context calls for. This professional communications 101.

 

[tevo]

This is too perfect.


Good to see that Keith is (not replying to tevo's PM) using his splelling and grammer

 

[molested_cow]

I realize not everyone will agree, but to me, if this sort of thing is part of a company's hiring practice, then they're not a company I want to work for. If a company judges me by anything besides my performance at work, then I will not work for them. You always have to sacrifice somewhere, but I'd rather make less money than endorse these practices. Work stays at work, home stays at home, and employers that don't respect that get no respect from me.

Lol then you are not going to find a job easily.

In fact, if a company don't consider your character integrity as a part of who they are going to hire, I doubt they will think twice when they are thinking about cut backs.


If an employer is serious about hiring a person who they intend to keep for a long time, it's a huge investment on their part. Not only does this candidate need to satisfy the professional skills and performance, he needs to be able to work well with others. This means if humor is a part of the group dynamic and this guy is a straight face all, stuck up and arrogant douche all the time, then it's not going to turn out well for the group. So how do you measure humor? You can't, and the employer don't need a reason to reject a candidate's application.

Once hired, it is very hard for companies to fire someone because companies are afraid of being sued. Usually, companies will dish out a severance package with the condition that the employee will not pursue any legal action against the employer. Which means, unless absolutely necessary, it's unlikely that a company will take action. This means bad news for the particular group because it's now stuck with someone who doesn't work well as a team member, yet the company cannot hire someone else to fill the gap because there is no vacancy (occupied by this said individual). It is worse in Europe because the labor laws make it even harder to let someone go.

So unless that individual does something ridiculous, like surfing porn at work, it's hard to cut someone off cleanly.