Is there discrimination hidden behind the phrase good written and verbal communication

Question

Sometimes I search for web developer jobs and one of the skills is "good written and verbal communication". Anytime I see it it looks like a red flag meaning that they don't want foreigners, introverts, or people with some kind of verbal or speech impairment. From my experience, anytime I apply for these jobs I don't even make it to the interview stage and it looks like it's because my name is foreign.

I also noticed that with this phrase they also mention that applicants need a permit to work in the USA. However, from my experience they also don't consider those with green cards or foreign accents.

So, my question is, what do employers really mean when they say "good written and verbal communication skills" if even some native speakers say that they don't have it? How could a foreigner ever be considered? Why would they even require this skill to be strong in a web developer if the position doesn't include any sales or writing?

Answer 1

It's possible some employers are blatant racists and trying any old trick in the book to avoid hiring foreigners. It's also possible you're reading too much into it. I think the latter happens way more often than the former.

Good communication skills is almost never about the language, but about your ability to express yourself clearly. There are ways to demonstrate that by maintaining a blog, etc. but that's outside the scope of your question.

However, from my experience they also don't consider those with green cards or foreign accents.

Correlation does not imply causation. I'm not familiar with US laws but I understand that a green card is a legal requirement. This may be a company's way of signalling their law-abidingness.

If a company is willing to consider green card holders they'll likely get far more applications than one who isn't. This means that, statistically, they'll get more CVs that are better-looking than yours.

The best way to deal with these "Schrodinger's racists" is to ensure your skill level eclipses any other factor. You can't do anything if they're dead-set against hiring foreigners, but you can certainly make yourself attractive to those who are willing to.

Answer 2

Language skills are part of communication skills. That's just how it is. I read a lot of posts on The Workplace which clearly are written by non-native English speakers. Some are quite clear and some are not. Your proficiency with a language is not the only factor in whether or not you can communicate. My last boss was not a native English speaker and it was obvious, but he still communicated effectively so it didn't matter.

they don't want foreigners, introverts, or people with some kind of verbal or speech impairment.

I think you're misunderstanding what the point of this is.

In many fields, the ability to communicate is even more important than the technical aspect. A director at my company frequently says that communication problems are harder problems now than technical problems.

It's also a lot easier to hire someone who can "just code" than it is to hire someone who can "code and communicate."

What this means is the question isn't, "can the person speak fluent English?" but "can the person communicate effectively." English skills are part of that but I'd rather work with a non-native English speaker who had passable English but excellent communication skills than a native English speaker who thought communication was beneath them.

From my experience, anytime I apply for these jobs I don't even make it to the interview stage and it looks like it's because my name is foreign.

Don't make assumptions here. While there will definitely be those who do discriminate, in the tech industry you are not going to categorically be excluded based on your name.

The fact is that you are writing off something that is actually very important to employers - the ability to communicate effectively. This is actually more important if you are clearly a non-native English speaker as that's a primary concern anyone reviewing your application will have.

However, from my experience they also don't consider those with green cards or foreign accents.

One thing to consider is that the paperwork aspect of sponsorship is non-trivial. In addition, there are extra monetary costs. Some companies, particularly smaller ones, likely don't have experience in this sort of thing and/or the ability to actually sponsor those who otherwise would not be eligible to work.

Why would they even require this skill to be strong in a web developer if the position doesn't include any sales or writing?

I think you are fundamentally misunderstanding how important communication is. Over the course of my day yesterday I communicated with dozens of people - this is a fundamental part of software development.

Whether it's writing/reading specifications, tickets, or documentation, writing/reviewing code, communicating with customers or stakeholders, working with a team, participating in standups, asking others questions, a software engineer must be able to communicate effectively.

Answer 3

Why would they even require this skill to be strong in a web developer if the position doesn't include any sales or writing?

Probably the most important skill of a developer other than writing code is communicating with the rest of your team and your manager. You need to explain your code structure to the rest of your team, you need to give clear descriptions to the impediments you're facing to your manager (or scrum master, or whoever), and depending on the role you may well need to talk to designers, the support team and lots of other people, both inside and outside your company. That needs "good written and verbal communication", so it's a skill a web developer (or any other knowledge worker) must have. That you don't seem to think it necessary immediately raises concerns in my mind about whether you'd be able to do everything the role entails beyond simply churning out lines of code.

Answer 4

If the requirement is "good written and verbal communication" and it is not verbiage, it is quite clear what is to be expected and it is neither racist nor does it mean foreigners or people with speech impediment. I will demonstrate.

A person who has the qualification knows that this skill is critical. He/she writes documentation or talks with laymen and people should understand immediately what the problem is, how it can be solved and how much time is needed. Let's say your client wants better typesetting support in your product. Then you inform him about the requirements of good typesetting (Readable font, correct hyphenation, harmonic size and format of heading) and tell him how much is currently implemented and how long (in this case 6 weeks) will be needed to meet the current demands. Even if this skill is not required, it is definitely a bonus point.

A person who has not the qualification, well, you know, it's a little bit complicated to explain. You have this text, I mean it's more correct to talk about layout, there are all kind of different things to explain like ligatures, widows and orphans and microtypography, all very important things to remember, you see. And it's very hard to judge, yes, yes, oh, I have made an own algorithm for the hyphenation, it is based on TeX, do you know TeX ? Oh, you do not know, oh, sorry, yes, yes, I get back to the question. Where was I ? Oh, yes, it is very complicated to estimate, wait, I have some memos here, do you see it ? It is very small, you mean, and hard to decipher ? Yes, I should typewrite it, but I like my handwriting, it is something personal, you understand ? Ah, I cannot give a hard estimate for implementing the hyphenation, it is a very fascinating topic and if I do not do my best, our speed of the product will be slowed down by at least 2%, perhaps even 4%. Oh, you are talking about the timeframe for the whole product ? Wait, wait, until you see it, it will be formidable...can you wait a moment, I need to get my papers, I forgot to take them with me....

Answer 5

It is possible, but my experience is that companies are usually looking for people who can add to the business, and this means contributing more then just code to a spec, it means being able to help refine and define that spec.

To do this someone needs to be able to communicate, code does not exist in a vacuum, and there are always other stakeholders be they the senior developers, the architects, the UI types, the guy writing the backend, the manager defining the business logic, the security audit team or the accountant paying the bills.

Coding is EASY at least most of the time, developing a PRODUCT is hard and is a lot more then just writing code, and adding value to the product is what any company is looking for in an employee even if the job is superficially that of a code monkey.

We try very hard not to hire people who can only code, we want people who can add to the design and specification efforts, who can improve business processes and who are not afraid to push back when the stupid ideas come calling, doing any of these things effectively puts a higher value on communication then on bashing out javascript and HTML, and they are generally more important.

Answer 6

So, my question is, what do employers really mean when they say "good written and verbal communication skills" if even some native speakers say that they don't have it?

When I was interviewing people to hire, "good" would mean "good enough". I'd want to:

1. be able to talk about work-related topics (software development)
2. be understood
3. understand what I was told in reply.

That's what "good" would mean to me. I wouldn't mind about a 'foreign' accent.

How could a foreigner ever be considered?

A lot of people learn to speak two or more languages, e.g. to speak English as a second language.

Why would they even require this skill to be strong in a web developer if the position doesn't include any sales or writing?

It has to be "strong enough". For example if I'm to be their team leader and someone doesn't really understand what I say when I talk to them, that's a problem.

As for why "good written skills" are important, even when you don't face customers, many jobs need you to read and write: emails, status reports, documentation, functional specifications, test cases, and comments (not to mention source code).

Answer 7

I worked at a development company that asked for strong communication skills, and we discussed the policy at length. The intent was to hire developers who could communicate directly with clients, and, of course, with each other. Some hiring decision-makers were quick to notice mistakes in perfectly intelligible resumes or correspondences because they thought it was sloppy and wouldn't look good to clients. In that way, "good communication skills" was also code for "willing and able to create a grammatically flawless piece of writing if needed."

The effect could very well have been a lack of diversity. It's hard to know for certain, but it seems likely enough that it discouraged certain people from applying in the first place, that it disadvantaged people who grew up speaking a different language or dialect, went to an underfunded school with poor quality English instruction, learned English from ESL parents, had dyslexia, etc., and that it ultimately hurt our company by weeding out great developers and making us less diverse. To some extent, hiring people who wrote like us ultimately led to hiring people who talked like us, looked like us, thought like us, and came from backgrounds like ours.

Answer 8

While the other answers are good, I'd like to add another justification for good communication skills. Over time, I have noticed that it can reflect well-organized thought, which eventually is the basis for excellent code. A coder who plows through may get the job done and meet spec. But the one who really thinks clearly can produce software so good, he never has to look back. That thinking can show up in good communication, too.

Answer 9

I have a number of things to say so I'm going to attempt to make this as brief as possible, but this is a complex topic so I apologize if this gets lengthy.

Before I begin: It is extremely unlikely that employers are "discriminating" by indicating that they want good written and verbal communication skills. While there may be some people out there doing that, it's honestly pretty ridiculous to imply that it's discrimination and I'll explain why in a moment.

Ok, so let's break this down a bit and look at a few factors I think you're overlooking:

1) Being a native speaker or fluent in a language has almost nothing to do with being able to communicate effectively. I know plenty of incredibly intelligent, native English-speaking people who can't clearly and concisely convey an idea to someone with a lower-level understanding. Which brings me to my next point...

2) Just because a job isn't a sales/customer-facing position doesn't mean the ability to communicate is less important. There are multiple facets of communication and being able to speak to strangers and empathize with people (sales) has basically nothing to do with being able to convey ideas and concepts effectively.

One of the most critical aspects of a software development position is the ability to work with team members, analysts and customers to identify and resolve issues. If you can't explain technical information or relate concerns effectively then you're going to waste valuable time re-discussing or even worse re-developing things because there was a lack of communication.

3) Frankly, I think IT is one of the most diverse fields you could discuss and that out of all the possible things you could complain about discrimination shouldn't be very high on the list. I've worked with people of all genders and nationalities, both in person and through online collaboration. If anything the stereotypical Asian/Indian engineer you often see in media/advertising is an indication that discrimination isn't a major issue.

As for your experience with interviewing:

I think that you're attempting to rationalize to yourself why you weren't selected, and if I had to guess I'd say it's because you're either overestimating the relative strength of your qualifications or your resume isn't doing a good job of highlighting why you're a strong candidate for the positions.

As another poster said: you're not being passed over for having a foreign sounding name in a field where a TON of companies are outsourcing IT services overseas and everywhere you look in the online community are developers of all races and nationalities. That's what I meant when I said it was a little ridiculous to imply, because I don't think you could pick another field that's as diverse or forward-thinking.

I would suggest that you try to keep an open mind about things and not be too quick to dismiss the importance of them. IT is a good field to be in, but just like a college education... it's not a magic bullet. There has been tremendous job growth over the past 20 years, but there has also been an explosion of people getting educated in the field. Some people seem to think you can't look without bumping into countless opportunities, but that just isn't realistic.

The point I'm driving at here is you still need to differentiate yourself from other candidates, and the number one thing for many companies is your ability to communicate. I'm currently a software developer, but I spent a decade working in sales/management and if I were hiring today I would MUCH rather an average programmer with excellent communication skills and a good attitude than a "rockstar" programmer with middling communication and a bad attitude.