A Ticket to Work

 

As a teacher of writing, I constantly emphasize to my students the importance of learning writing skills for the future. Having come across this report from the National Commission on Writing over a decade ago, I have been bringing it to my students’ attention ever since: “Writing: A Ticket to Work …Or a Ticket Out”. Although AI has lately facilitated writing, what this old report shows is still noteworthy. Based on a survey of 120 major American companies employing around 8 million people, the report concluded that in the modern workplace writing is a “threshold skill”. Here is a summary of the report’s main points:

         ·         Good writing is essential for both employment and promotion; half the responding companies reported that they factored in writing when hiring.

         ·         Job applicants who cannot write or communicate clearly are unlikely to be hired and may not last long even if they are.

         ·         The vast majority of salaried employees in large American companies have some writing responsibility.

         ·         Most companies in the service and finance, insurance, and real estate (FIRE) sectors consider writing as part of the hiring process. Those with poor job application letters are rejected.

         ·         Half of all companies factor in writing when making promotion decisions.

         ·         Most of the responding companies affirmed that they “frequently” or “almost always” generated technical and formal reports besides memos and other correspondence.

         ·         A substantial percentage of responding firms offer or require training for salaried employees with writing deficiencies.

The above report was published almost two decades ago, so some students might object, claiming that AI can write for them. However, AI can get its users into trouble if they are found out as we can see from a Forbes article entitled “I’ve Never Hired a Writer Better than ChatGPT”: “Clients on job marketplaces like Upwork and Fiverr are being flooded with nearly identical project proposals written by ChatGPT” (Shrivastava). Since AI detection software is becoming more accessible, readers such as potential employers will easily distinguish the lazy from the hard-working writers. When Google detects low-quality AI-generated content, it de-ranks it. Even without the detection software, AI-generated text appears to lack detail, depth and thoughtfulness. 

Students beware; take your writing skills seriously. It’s worth the time and effort.