Texting & Tweeting Do Not Ruin Job Prospects

Today’s Ypulse Youth Advisory Board post comes from media analyst Libby Issendorf who was spurred into defending her fellow Millennials after catching a BlackBook article we recently cited in Essentials. Remember, you can communicate directly with any member of the Ypulse Youth Advisory Board by emailing them at youthadvisoryboard at ypulse.com…or just leave a comment.

Texting & Tweeting Do Not Ruin Job Prospects
Last week BlackBook commented on whether social media is “stunting today’s youth.” When I read the claim that youth are “verging on unemployable as their vocabulary and grammar skills start to cave in” due to texting and Tweeting, I instantly jumped to the defense of short-form communication.

We’ve all heard the stories of how social media helps college grads find jobs, but this debate is different. It addresses the tactical level of 140-character limits: “u” saves two characters over “you,” and commas are completely superfluous. Be sure to save room, though, for at least three exclamation marks and a ♥ or two.

As a former English major, I’m likely to be in the minority, but I have never come close to confusing the punctuation-free messages I send my friends with the professional emails I send daily. In fact, many Baby Boomer professional contacts I’ve encountered are more likely to type an entire   email like this and sign a period after their name.  Lamebook.com chronicles many social media spelling disasters, but I’d argue those come equally from 13-year-olds and 31-year-olds.

Like Anastasia has chronicled so well in Totally Wired, today’s teens aren’t that different than those of generations past. Goofy scribbles in notebooks passed between classes surely didn’t contain impeccable grammar, did they?

Instead of poor grammar and unprofessionalism, Twitter and texting have taught me this about communication:

- Be concise. If you can’t say it in 140 characters, it might not be worth saying.

- Be accessible. By making my phone number available to co-workers and clients, and politely requesting theirs, I make myself accessible after hours. A quick “can you send me that file?” text message has saved us several hours of tracking down emails and documents.

- Stay professional online.  Sites like Lamebook (and articles like the one in BlackBook) have brought to my attention how ridiculous excessive abbreviations and absent punctuation can look. It also reminds me yet again that the Internet is public. I’m making a conscious effort to keep my typos to text messages and IMs.

I’m likely to Gchat my friends in all caps, with typos left and right, but you’ll never catch me making grammatical errors in professional documents.  Though young people use careless grammar, they’re still absorbing what they learn in English. They just selectively apply it.

Sorta related
Phone texting ‘helps pupils to spell’

After growing up on a farm in North Dakota, Libby Issendorf moved to Minneapolis to attend the University of Minnesota. She discovered her passion for brands and media as a member of her school’s first-place National Student Advertising Competition team. After graduation in 2008, she began her career as a media analyst at an ad agency in Minneapolis. Libby now works as a New Media Strategist at an ad agency in Fargo, ND. Outside of work, she loves blogging at Yaybia.com, the Minnesota Twins, being really geeky with her iPhone, and finally living in the same city as her fiance.