Pinging.
More here,
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1813624/posts
India high-tech industry out of workers; Wage inflation concerns
and also:
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/CareerManagement/story?id=2582776&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312
‘Cover Letters from Hell’ Expose Poor Quality of College Grads
By KATE KLONICK
Oct. 19, 2006 — If recent college graduates apply for a job at Killian Advertising in Chicago, they’d better mind their grammar, spelling and punctuation — not to mention their sentence structure, syntax and diction — lest they end up in the company’s “Cover Letters From Hell” that it posts on its Web site.
Six years ago, Bob Killian, owner and founder of the agency, began posting anonymous excerpts from poorly written cover letters he received from those asking for employment.
The World’s Worst Cover Letters
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=2582846
The mistakes ranged from unfortunate omissions (”I am seeking a new position as i have recently been laid” and “I also have a degree English which serves me well in editing text for poor grammer or typos”) to nonsense sentences and topics (”It is through the innovational process, as well as media, that the features of an image can be highlighted and brought to the forefront for the consumer viewing” or “The colors red, blue, and lavender are those that I identify with the most. I feel they accurately describe my personality. I choose red because I turn red when I get embarrassed …”).
Some candidates even try their hand at poetry — one girl rewrote “’T’was the Night Before Christmas,” editing herself and the advertising company into the story and substituting presents for a job.
The goal of putting the letters online, Killian said, is to show job seekers that, “Hello! This is not a recognizable form of communication!”
Ridicule Not the Point
Recently, Killian went through 100 letters that arrived at his agency from applicants requesting jobs and interviews. Of the 100, not one was without some kind of spelling, grammar or syntax error.
At first, Killian thought that a personal approach was best. When one of the letters came from a senior graduating from a fairly prestigious college and did not contain a single sentence without an error, Killian drafted a “gentle note,” advising the student to get some help with his writing.
What Killian got in response was an angry four-page reply.
“That really set him off,” Killian recalls. “We haven’t done it since. We don’t want to have to change the locks on the building.”
Unfortunately, in the 19 years of the company’s existence, the problem seems to be getting worse, which Killian attributes to changes in technology and everyday communication.
“There are a whole lot of people that can’t speak in an authentic voice,” Killian said. “We’re not a generation that writes a lot. Colleges don’t seem to be very demanding.
“Texting is making it worse. We’re getting printed letters with the letter ‘U’ standing for ‘you.’ And this kid wants to be hired in a communications position!”
While the site started off as just a joke within the company, its popularity has helped Killian find business clients and literary agents find him. A small book is currently being compiled with “Cover Letters from Hell” excerpts the company has collected over the years.
Though the site’s commentary pokes fun at applicants, Killian insists that ridicule is not really the point of the compilation.
“Quite a few [potential applicants] are intimidated from applying, or sending a cover letter at all, but all that they should do is exercise some care,” Killian said.
“I think if people just absorb what’s in there, they’ll at least be able to write clearly and express themselves in a meaningful way.”
I guess my first reaction to this article is, who gets to decide which kids “need” to take this lesser diploma route? I can remember my high school guidance counselor trying to bully me into all sorts of classes I didn’t want to take or, in retrospect, particularly need (basically he didn’t think I had what it took to go to college. Turns out he was wrong.) A jerkwad like that could potentially mess up a lot of kid’s futures, under this new plan, IMHO.
The world needs ditch diggers too. Fortunately we all have a choice in the matter. Under communism, you get assigned a job. Here you might wanna go to college one way or the other, or, enjoy asking ‘would you like fries with that?’.
I’ve read a couple of articles lately that kids are taking part in “speed stacking” competitions where they race to see who can stack plastic cups the fastest. Is that early programing for future fast food positions?
Of course, when my son was in high school and worked at a supermarket, he competed in “bagging” competitions, but he didn’t start his training in gradeschool. What’s next - early childhood mopping competitions?
Coming out of school with a trade. Imagime that. It should be manditory and started in 8th grade.
Vocational education should be tried on just about every student. When I was a teen, “vokes” was regarded as the scrap heap where the dumbest kids went. I was brainy and lazy and my parents were rich, so I never even learned pool maintenance, never mind wood or metal or home ec.
Far older and wiser now in my fifties, I’m homeschooling my youngest. She takes after me, but somewhere between Latin and Greek she goes up to the art studio and gets familiar with power tools, metals and wood, plumbing, framing, locksmithing, gun and jewelry repair. I have someone teaching her how to sew her own clothes on a machine, and how to fix that machine too.
When she’s bigger I expect her to learn how to make furniture and lay flooring and hang sheetrock.
Call it vokes or shop or what you will, to me it’s survival skills and any kid who doesn’t have some, is shortchanged.
Yeah - THIS'll help!!!
The UNION will NEVER ask to have the schools OPEN an extra 2 days!
It beats leaving at that age with NOTHING!
Some pupils are impossible to educate and are, in fact, condemned to low paying jobs.
Others are not interested in academic pursuits, but could excel in skilled and semiskilled trades, and could lead successful, productive lives. But they are frequently deprived of that opportunity due to the mistaken notion that everyone should go to college, thus setting these kids up for failure.
But they will be easy to manage - which is what Public Education is all about - producing easily managed, albiet slow and dull, adults who like to buy things.