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Not at all... if part of the job they're applying for requires good communication skills. (And these days, even the most heads-down programmer needs that... bug reports, support docs, etc.)

That said, I think grammatical errors from an ESL speaker aren't the be-all end-all of good communication. It would really depend on what else I had to go on. Was there a cover letter? "Responsibilities" section of his/her resume?

Often extremely clear thinkers more than compensate for non-native language skills with incisive, compelling expression.

tl:dr Bad writing (communication) is just cause for putting a resume to the side. But one-off grammatical errors wouldn't be the only think I'd go on.



It was bad writing more than the occasional grammatical error :)


Then by all means, put it in the No pile. Love it or hate it, email is the place employees spend most of their days. Good writing makes that time both shorter, and more worthwhile. (Not to mention blogging, announcements, support materials, bugs, documentation, and meeting requests.)




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