How to write in plain english

Writing in plain english is an essential skill these days. Everyone is so busy. Getting your point over in a few seconds is more important than ever.

But how to write in plain english?

Most people are taught that writing is good and children are praised the more long words they know. This doesn’t bode well for adult life…

However, there is good news.

Almost every document can be distilled down into plain english in the following way.

1. Take any document (you can even print this blog post if you want) and go through it line by line. You are looking for words that aren’t pulling their weight. Get rid of them. Each word must be able to  justify it’s weight on the page as if it were almost paying rent.

2. Retype or reformat the document and repeat the process. You will probably have to do the process  2 or even 3 times and the document size could even shrink by a half or more…

3. Go on – Pick a document and do it now…

Sharp End Training is the UK's leading online training company. We invite you to try our FREE ONLINE TRAINING COURSE. Filed under Personal skills | Comment (1)

Video CV’s – are they a good idea?

The jobhunting market gets tougher and tougher and candiates are looking for the slighest edge on competitors.

Now that advance technology is available on a mass basis and video sharing sites are common place, you may be tempted to try and develop a video cv. Don’t…

Why?

We all watch TV and have become  accustomed to high standards of presentation and sound etc. (This goes for recruiters and employers as well)

Anything which doesn’t match these high standards will just be seen as naff. That’s not a slur on you or your video – it is sub consciously comparing you to what they normally see on TV.

That’s leaving out technical issues such as file format, space required on disc/cd/dvd etc

We would suggest that the stakes are too risky and that a video cv is a non starter.

Sharp End Training is the UK's leading online training company. We invite you to try our FREE ONLINE TRAINING COURSE. Filed under Personal skills | Comment (0)