Writers—The Secret Weapon of Corporate America

I’ve often wondered, what has been the formula for my success in Corporate America. As much as it would please me to say my intelligence, that would be a lie. I’m no smarter than the next man—well maybe, a little… Rather, I’ve always recognized that it is my English Degree and my writing skills that set me apart as a stand-out employee. Writers by nature are excellent researchers. Possessing a commitment to evade unverified facts, it is a certainty that most writers have the innate ability to find accurate facts, and quickly. Project management is a given because of the many group projects we thrived on in college. Triaging work, managing workflow, even confronting the stifled go-getter isn’t a problem for us. We have been programmed to meet deadlines and we refuse to stop until a finished product is in our hands. Communication skills are both polished and ready for execution. Why? In our minds, we all house the world’s next best seller in our hard drive. If you want to hear an awesome speech, ask a writer to make a sales pitch of their manuscript-in-progress. After years of addressing target and intended audiences, we specialize in tone—be it formal or informal. We know how to address any audience and will do so with precision, proper content, and at the appropriate time, even humor. We are not only time-efficient, but our work is accurate. This means we will have little trouble meeting and exceeding quality and production standards. Spelling mistakes and grammar botches not only irritate us, they cause our skin to crawl. Want to ensure that your company’s publication is up-to-par? I dare you to unleash an English major as the second set of venomous eyes. Considering we had non-English classes to complete too, we multitasked miraculously in order to finish our non-important classes so we can return to our writing. Juggling many projects and shifting priority work in an instant seems to be a core competency for almost any job today. We too, are marketers. After convincing countless professors that our many writing projects are both feasible and relevant, it’s likely we could pitch the sale of a pastrami sandwich to a vegan! Though oftentimes we are compensated far less than we are worth, English Majors are versatile professionals ready to take on a broad spectrum of work. So if any of you HR managers ever see the attribute of English Major in the educational portion of a resume, know that you’ve found the weapon to your corporation’s success!