What is the quintessential trait of a top employee? Is it burning ambition and drive? The capacity to learn and lead? While these elements are invaluable to a person’s success, one skill gatekeeps them all – the ability to write clearly. A person can have oodles of talent, but if they can’t communicate their strengths properly through a resume or online profile, it’s unlikely that an employer will bother with the all-important interview. Join Wordsmith as we explore how to write clearly and concisely.
Writing – the lost step
Writing is a skill that takes practise to hone. Unfortunately, it’s one that is often neglected in pursuit of other crafts and passions. Ashley Stahl, a Forbes contributor and career coach, finds this to be an often encountered problem in her line of work. “I’m a big believer that the best job offers don’t always go to the best candidates; they go to the best communicators,” she writes. “In fact, a survey found that 44% of managers felt that writing was the most common hard skill that recent college graduates were missing.” It’s one thing to write a term paper and thesis, but communicating at a professional level is completely different!
To improve our writing, Stahl advises:
1. Know the distinction between commonly mixed-up words and phrases
You’d be surprised how many people can’t differentiate between your and you’re. Even if English is not your first language, it’s important to be able to know when to use their/there/they’re… otherwise, nobody would take you seriously! For a refresher on easily mixed up words, check out our previous article.
2. Avoid run-ons
There’s nothing worse than trying to read a sentence that has too much to say at once and it’s annoying to read because it just goes on and on forever so you can’t read everything in one breath but still try to anyway before giving up halfway through to avoid passing out. Break up thoughts with punctuation – it’ll give the reader breathing room and make your writing more coherent… but just because you can punctuate and phrase correctly does not mean you should load up a sentence with dozens of conjoined clauses, verbs and subjects. “Simplicity is your friend,” advises Stahl. Keep sentences short and simple to get points across efficiently.
3. Know the difference between active and passive voice
A sentence in an active voice describes the performing of an action – eg. John threw the ball. A passive version does the opposite – eg. the ball was thrown by John. While there isn’t a hard rule on when to use either, the active generally conveys confidence and is essential when persuading others. Passive voices tend to be wordier and more laid-back, so in circumstances where you want to impress recruiters, we suggest finding a way to express yourself in an active voice.
4. Remove the apologetic tone from your correspondence
When contacting a recruiter, it’s not unusual to think that you are bothering them with your enquiries and messages. Whether true or not, it is important to assert yourself and avoid apologising. “Many of us approach writing emails and professional correspondence like we are always asking for a favour, or concerned about bothering someone…,” explains Stahl. “I believe that we could all benefit from eliminating any apologetic tones and getting right to the point.” Remember, the recruiters are paid to handle your enquiries. Just be polite and courteous when making requests.
More food for thought
While Stahl made some great points, we feel the list of bad writing practises goes even deeper. Let’s consult Caroline Taggart and J.A. Wines again through their book My Grammar and I (or Should That be ‘Me’?) to identify more common errors.
Redundancy and needless reiterations are the nemeses of conciseness. Rhetoric has its use in writing eloquently, but not so much for everyday communications. Take a look at this example by Taggart and Wines:
“This quarter, we are presently focusing with determination on an all-new, innovative integrated methodology and framework for rapid expansion of customer-oriented external programs designed and developed to bring the company’s consumer-first paradigm shift into the marketplace as quickly as possible.”
Before we tear into the above, let’s discuss the use of industry jargon. In most circumstances, especially when marketing to consumers, it’s best to avoid jargon – not everyone may be familiar with their meaning, so use layman’s terms whenever possible. From this example, it looks like a board meeting or a discussion with a knowledgeable audience, so jargon is acceptable. What isn’t acceptable, however, is using jargon for the sake of sounding smart and sophisticated. Furthermore, there’s a serious overuse of redundancies – for example, aren’t all innovations expected be new? Have you ever heard someone boasting about an old innovation? Let’s clean up the example:
“This quarter, we are focused on an innovative and integrated framework for rapid expansion of customer-oriented external programs. They’re developed to bring the company’s pro-consumer vision into the marketplace as quickly as possible.”
Although we don’t have context as to what “frameworks” or “external programs” mean here, the writing is at least legible now!
Filler is also a notorious problem. One of the biggest culprits are nonsensical and empty statements like “needless to say”, “and that sort of thing”, “do you know what I mean?” etc. “Nine times out of ten, they will add nothing,” write Taggart and Wines.
Tautological phrases like “safe haven”, “fictional story”, “final conclusion” or “HIV virus” are also redundant – a haven should always be safe, so a safe haven is akin to saying a safe-safe place. These redundancies often slip past editing because everyday society uses them so nonchalantly (even internationally reputed news sources like CNN are guilty of using them). Aside from a keen editing eye, we find the easiest step to avoiding common tautological phrases is to restrict the use of adjectives. Treat professional writing like journalistic writing and you’ll find that you can get by with minimal adjectives!
Taggart and Wines also find a problem with adverbs like “terribly” or “horribly”. Terrible or horrible are powerful words used to express something significant, but converting them to an adverb often emasculates their effectiveness when used as a replacement for “very”. “In formal writing, keep these words for when they are needed: eg. He was horribly scarred by the accident.”
Lastly, be on the lookout for confusing word placement. In Taggart and Wines’ example of “visiting relatives can be so boring”, the phrase carries a dual meaning: are we bored because the visiting relatives are boring? Or are we bored because there’s nothing exciting to do when we go visit relatives? Be clear on what you mean to avoid confusing readers.
Every little trick helps when it comes to conciseness. With recruiters placing greater emphasis on communication and writing skills, you don’t always need to be top of the class to score a job – you just need to outwrite the other applicants. Beyond job prospects, the art of brevity is a vital skill for just about any professional and commercial setting!