eevBLAB #3 - Engineers Can't Spell

[EEVblog]

You're the exception and not the rule in your hiring practices and for some strange reason you don't seem to be able to comprehend that reality. The "point in this video" is based on you thinking that the way you're doing it is normal in the current job market which is why you're getting the thumbs down.

Having been in the industry for more than 20 years, and having interviewed countless people and read countless resumes as an employer as such, I can say IME I am most certainly not the exception.
This is backed up by the number of people (emplyers & employees) saying exactly the same thing in the comments, and it fully reflects my experience in every company I've worked for and the overwhelming majority of people I've talked to over the years about it. They get what I'm saying and why it matters. Thumbs down is "only" 23%. That means the vast majority agree with me even when I didn't explains what I was talking about correctly, they understood what I was getting at.

[m12lrpv]

Having been in the industry for more than 20 years, and having interviews countless people and read countless resumes as an employer as such, I can say IME I am most certainly not the exception.

A hell of a lot has changed in the last 5 years. I discovered that the hard way 12 months ago.

This is backed up by the number of people (emplyers & employees) saying exactly the same thing in the comments. They get what I'm saying and why it matters.

I guess you're not reading the same thread I am.
Certainly I haven't seen anyone supporting your PDF resume's requirement 
With people paying for resume's nowadays you cant trust a perfect resume. The one with a few mistakes is probably a lot more honest.

At the end of the day though, it's up for you to decide how you want to select your candidate.

[EEVblog]

I guess you're not reading the same thread I am.
Certainly I haven't seen anyone supporting your PDF resume's requirement 

There are 563 comments on Youtube, go read them.

[m12lrpv]

I guess you're not reading the same thread I am.
Certainly I haven't seen anyone supporting your PDF resume's requirement 

There are 563 comments on Youtube, go read them.

Youtube comments are hardly the bastion of intellect.

[EEVblog]

Youtube comments are hardly the bastion of intellect.

So you complain about me judging people on their resume, a product they have produced, but you'll happily judge an entire sub-set of people based on where they chose to comment?

[n45048]

Certainly I haven't seen anyone supporting your PDF resume's requirement

Supported.

[Macbeth]

@m12lrpv

I think Dave prefers PDF as it is a final document, as presented by the candidate, and not interfered with by slimy recruitment consultants. I can totally go along with that. I will only ever give my resume in the same way - I also stick a copyright notice in the small print, not that they ever take notice of it. The scumbags rape CVs using the vast Excel skills a neanderthal knows. The pimps even sell the fucked up data to each other, they are utter scum. Never, ever, give a "recruitment consultant" the name, email, and phone of your previous project manager or anything like that (they will usually ask for "references" when they are just after more leads to hit on the phone).

If you ever want a decent job in a fairly small industry again, protect your CV and your references. Protect your network of work colleagues too.

[Psi]

I've always sent both DOC and PDF versions of my CV, It just seemed simpler.

Never used a recruitment agency at my end, but i have applied to quite a few jobs where the business was "listing" the job using an agency. Just listing it though, never any ongoing income from it.

I do quite firmly believe all job ads should be legally required to include the company name.
Sadly that isn't the case.

[n45048]

Never used a recruitment agency at my end

I had the displeasure of using one once when I was younger. Absolutely hopeless, never again. Every job I've ever applied for myself, I've got. Had far less success through a recruiter who didn't understand the industry (IT at the time). It was the first time I heard that I was "over qualified" for a particular job. An 'excuse' like that is the biggest load of crock in my opinion.

[John_L]

With people paying for resume's nowadays you cant trust a perfect resume. The one with a few mistakes is probably a lot more honest.

As a long time small business owner and  employer, I fully agree.

You don't have 100's of applicants. I would at least do a telephone or preliminary short face to face interviews with all applicants that have "reasonable substance" in their resume. With right questions, you can generally get a good first impression within few minutes of the interview.

As the old saying goes "don't judge a book by its cover".

[EEVblog]

As the old saying goes "don't judge a book by its cover".

I don't.
People are reading way to much into this than I intended. I'm not going to can a perfectly good candidate because they made few spelling mistakes.

[pickle9000]

My experience is to pick the best 20, if that fails the next best 20 out of the pile.

A good resume will or can get you into the first group. Once in the door it up to the person. The trick is to get there, in the first group.

[coderAndHackerNW]

How was "bachelor" spelled wrong?  Are there legitimate alternate spellings? 

And, for those listening who may not know: many English words have multiple spellings.  For an easy example see: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/colour#Alternative_forms .

This is a problem for someone writing a resume.  When I write a resume, do I spell check it using my dictionary, the dictionary of the recipient, or some other dictionary?  How do I choose from LibreOffice Writer's 17 (!) English dictionaries?  Ouch!

Oh, and the issue of grammar is just as bad, if not worse.  English grammar is based on the "manual of style" used, and there are many of them.  For example, my use of commas here could be correct, or incorrect, depending on which one is used.

[Psi]

How was "bachelor" spelled wrong?  Are there legitimate alternate spellings? 

Likely one of the following.

bacheler
bachalor
bachaler
batcheler
batchelor
batchalor
batchaler
diploma   

[VK3DRB]

Dave, you hit a raw nerve here. It makes me wonder how people who cannot spell are even promoted beyond primary school, let alone enter university.

When engineers who are incompetent at spelling get a job doing embedded programming, they create a soul destroying mess for someone else to clean up. Their incompetency tends to infest their code in different ways such as inefficient algorithms, poor software design, and poor resource management. If they cannot spell, they should not be allowed to develop any code.

A common example of grammatical ineptitude is the inability for many engineers to know when to use upper case or lower case when writing a sentence. Upper case for common nouns and lack of consistency are common problems. Poor grammar is not tolerated where I work. I will never recommend anyone for a job doing embedded programming or even electronics design if they cannot spell.

I have lived and worked in the USA (Texas and New York), and my observation is that American engineers seem noticeably superior to Australian engineers in spelling. So, what's wrong with our education system? 

[EEVblog]

Oh, and the issue of grammar is just as bad, if not worse.  English grammar is based on the "manual of style" used, and there are many of them.  For example, my use of commas here could be correct, or incorrect, depending on which one is used.

Yes, grammar is much harder, and I personally often don't know know strictly correct grammar, and the wife catches me out occasionally.
By bad grammar I'm usually talking about really horrible stuff that is common of kids these days.

[EEVblog]

About recruitment consultants:

[Bloch]

Dave, you hit a raw nerve here. It makes me wonder how people who cannot spell are even promoted beyond primary school, let alone enter university.

Are you for real ? For mankind I hope that you CENSORED very soon !

When engineers who are incompetent at spelling get a job doing embedded programming

>cut<

Their incompetency tends to infest their code in different ways such as inefficient algorithms, poor software design, and poor resource management.

If they cannot spell, they should not be allowed to develop any code.

WOW David Byrne or do you prefer I call you MASTER ?

I wish that all programmers could spell perfect like you. And make perfekt sofware like you !!.

Do you think that most software bugs /errors are made by programmers that are incompetent at spelling ? 

[VK3DRB]

I remember that EEVBLOG #47. It's a ripper.

Recruiters don't annoy me so much. But once when I was on leave, I saw an engineering job advertised in which I would be the only person in Australia with 100% of the experience and qualifications for that job. In fact it described my exact job in a highly specialised industry. I called the head hunters up and they asked what experience and qualifications do I have. I answered "100% of everything you want". They asked what salary would I been looking at. I replied by telling them the amount which was 150% of what I was already on. When I told them who I worked for, there was silence. They were caught out. When I returned to work, I went to HR demanding them to tell me why they had advertised by job without telling me. They replied the head hunters put out a fake advertisement to gauge what my salary should be. So head hunters sometimes lie by posting fake job advertisements.

Component salesmen are a pain for wasting time. One vendor has called in occasionally unannounced. I fend him off by having nothing to say, except that I am busy. He eventually got the message. A new pain is calls with a very strong Indian accent asking "Can I speak to the decision maker?" We get at least one a day.

[HighVoltage]

I fend him off by having nothing to say, except that I am busy. He eventually got the message. A new pain is calls with very strong Indian accent asking "Can I speak to the decision maker?" We get at least one a day.

You could pretend that you are not speaking any English.
Reminds me of this:

[VK3DRB]

Dave, you hit a raw nerve here. It makes me wonder how people who cannot spell are even promoted beyond primary school, let alone enter university.

Are you for real ? For mankind I hope that you CENSORED very soon !

When engineers who are incompetent at spelling get a job doing embedded programming

>cut<

Their incompetency tends to infest their code in different ways such as inefficient algorithms, poor software design, and poor resource management.

If they cannot spell, they should not be allowed to develop any code.

WOW David Byrne or do you prefer I call you MASTER ?

I wish that all programmers could spell perfect like you. And make perfekt sofware like you !!.

Do you think that most software bugs /errors are made by programmers that are incompetent at spelling?

No one is perfect in spelling. I never said that, nor do I expect it. And people make typos, including mi. But unlike me, you have obviously never had to endure re-factoring an inherited 50,000 lines of convoluted C, where the spelling is so bad you have to do a forensic job to work out what they are trying to say. Many function calls that had no relevance to what the calls were actually doing. One small example: "DAIG". It was a constant name used in about a hundred places. It meant "DIAGNOSTIC_MODE". Another example: "getG2sce_recievepM()". About 98% of the code needed rewriting. You do that sort of work for 15 months and then you tell me how you feel - if you survive it with your sanity still intact.

No, most software bugs / errors are not made by programmers that are incompetent at spelling. Actually those with one or more of the 3A's missing write crap code (Attitude, Aptitude, Ability). Being able to spell to at least a level of what is expected from a high school student is part of Ability. It is not a big ask, surely. Lars Gravengaard, you might see my point.

[SteveyG]

Dave, you hit a raw nerve here. It makes me wonder how people who cannot spell are even promoted beyond primary school, let alone enter university.

When engineers who are incompetent at spelling get a job doing embedded programming, they create a soul destroying mess for someone else to clean up. Their incompetency tends to infest their code in different ways such as inefficient algorithms, poor software design, and poor resource management. If they cannot spell, they should not be allowed to develop any code.

A common example of grammatical ineptitude is the inability for many engineers to know when to use upper case or lower case when writing a sentence. Upper case for common nouns and lack of consistency are common problems. Poor grammar is not tolerated where I work. I will never recommend anyone for a job doing embedded programming or even electronics design if they cannot spell.

I have lived and worked in the USA (Texas and New York), and my observation is that American engineers seem noticeably superior to Australian engineers in spelling. So, what's wrong with our education system? 

A lecturer at our university had a rule for his examination papers - he would knock off 1% for every spelling or grammar error in the paper. For coursework that needed to be typed up he'd knock 5% off for each spelling error given that these could have been spell checked.

We also had around ten lectures throughout the 4 year electronics course about English and writing reports.

[Bloch]

Dave, you hit a raw nerve here. It makes me wonder how people who cannot spell are even promoted beyond primary school, let alone enter university.

So if a person have dyslexia you dont want that person to go to the university ?

I do not like the way that sounds! We dont agree here at all.

But if the person was just lazy then we can talk. 

About you fixing some code with spelling mistakes. It sounds more like too little documentation. And that it is the boss there is to blame. That the documenting of  the code was not better. Did he just write 50000 lines without another person did a check on it? I don't think you problem was, that the programmer cant spell.

[Howardlong]

I did just this - but then had to go through the "preferred supplier" that HR had a contract with.

It's often worse than that, one experience I had was that the preferred supplier agency had been instructed by the <mega_corp> to supply what the agency considered to be the best two CVs. The contract spec was right up my street. The agency decided that I wasn't the right candidate, but didn't give any reason other than they were only allowed to put forward two CVs.

Coincidentally, I knew someone who worked in the <mega_corp> in the same area (one of my proteges in fact) and asked her what the score was. She recommended me, I was interviewed the next day, and was offered the contract there and then. Plus she made a few hundred quid for recommending me.

[jpb]

Dave, you hit a raw nerve here. It makes me wonder how people who cannot spell are even promoted beyond primary school, let alone enter university.

So if a person have dyslexia you dont that person to go to the university ?

I do not like that way that sounds sorry ! We dont agree here at all.

But I am agreeing if the person was just lazy. 

About you fixing some code with spelling mistakes. It sounds more like too little documentation. And that is the boss there is to blame. That it the standard the code has now! Not only the programmer that cant spell.

A lot of these recent posts seem to be conflating having difficulties with spelling with carelessness. I have difficulties with spelling certain words often because I didn't hear them correctly as a child, for example for years I spelt librarian as liberian because that is how I heard it. I am aware of this and I would say that I am much less careless than others who naturally know how to spell. Spell checkers are very useful, and often I'm aware anyway that I don't know the correct spelling of a particular word and look it up.

My spelling issues, such as they are, didn't prevent me getting the top First in my Engineering Degree. A lot of bright people have dyslexia or dyspraxia (including members of my family) and in the past teachers would have written them off, fortunately now there is more understanding.

On the other hand, writing code full of errors  is a sign of carelessness and lack of attention to detail, I don't see that it has much to do with spelling except perhaps in variable names and in the comments. Most variable names are either simple abbreviations or not English words at all.