Most Valued on-The-Job Writing Characteristics

Most Valued on-the-job Writing Characteristics

The ability to communicate clearly is a very important writing skill that employers expect from their employees. Cynthia Linville, a CSUS English Professor, in her essay "Real Word Writing: What Employers Expect," mentions that according to the survey of National Commission on Writing, "ninety-seven percent of corporations listed clarity, along with accuracy, as the most valued characteristic" in professional writing. College students should keep this in mind and work hard on their writing skills while they are still on campus. I plan on majoring in Human Services, and the work of an eligibility worker seems challenging to me. From the information that I have gathered by speaking with my career counselor and some online research, I found out that the most important skills in this career field are clear communication, conciseness, and good grammar.

An essential part of my future job is clear communication. This job includes communicating with people in oral and written ways. According to a job description for an entry level eligibility worker that I found on Merit System Services (MSS) website, during an intake interview an eligibility worker has to determine the eligibility of people who apply for public assistance programs and to gather needed information, to identify their needs, and to make appropriate referrals for health, social, and/or employment services. This job also requires a lot of email writing. Workers need to communicate via email with their co-workers and other agencies. Consequently, clarity in communication plays a significant role in this job because as Linville, mentions in her essay "Real Word Writing: What Employers Expect," misunderstanding due to ambiguous writing may cause serious problems, including lower productivity, costly mistakes, and even lawsuits. Therefore, the eligibility worker needs to keep accurate and concise notes, maintain records, and prepare correspondence and reports, all of which require clear communication skills.

Conciseness is also an important skill in this particular job. "Along with clarity, conciseness is also highly valued by 92% of corporations surveyed by the National Commission on Writing," stated Linville in her article. As it was mentioned above, the eligibility worker needs to prepare reports and correspondence and maintain records, and it is very important that these pieces of writing are concise and accurate. When the worker opens a file for a client, every piece of communication with that client has to be documented in that file. The eligibility worker needs to make short but specific notes during an interview with the potential client, and to take notes as they follow up via phone and in-person conversations. Because of the fact that this job requires a lot of writing, candidates for the job need to practice writing concisely. This view is supported