By Steven Kirkpatrick

Like hundreds of other entrepreneurs in Hampton Roads, I own a small business that hires and trains young adults. With the economy in such poor condition, you would think there would be a huge pool of talented people out there eager to work. If only that were true.

Yes, the economy is still weak, and a great many are still out of work, but that doesn’t mean good employees are easy to find.

There are five of us working full time at Squeegee Squad, and we are on the lookout for more workers, both full- and part-time, as we continue to grow. Unfortunately, the quality of many job applicants is so poor it’s truly hard to believe.

Every time we run a “help wanted” ad we get several dozen applicants, the majority of whom can barely speak with a modicum of intelligence and good grammar. It only gets worse when you take a closer look at things like writing skills.

Here, for example, is the entire, unedited text of an email I received from a job applicant who called and spoke with me about a job opening: “Mr. Kirkpatrick Hello again we spoke earlier on the phone about me completing the job app online i have tried severally times and keep getting an error message saying the my submission couldn’t go be received at this time i don’t know what the problem is and would be glad if you could steer me in the right direction.”

This inquiry came through the job posting website without a contact phone number or email address; perhaps it never occurred to this fellow that he might want to share this information with his prospective employer.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development recently completed an extensive international study in which U.S. workers were ranked “below average” in literacy and almost dead last in skills using both mathematics and technology.

The study also noted that about one-third of recent high school graduates are so woefully lacking in basic skills they are unable to perform simple tasks, like completing a job application.

Another interesting finding from the OECD study is that there is a huge divide between the best and worst; our best performers rank high by international standards, and our worst performers are among the dumbest in the world.

I’m not an educator, and I wouldn’t presume to have a solution for this mess, but I do know what the answer isn’t: more money. The United States already spends more money per student than any other country in the world. If spending more money on education produced better students, we would rank No. 1 in all disciplines across the board. Instead, we spend a fortune producing far too many inept, ignorant and incompetent high school graduates.

Students in, garbage out.

If you’re a business owner, what options do you have? My advice: Keep looking. There are great employees out there, you just have to know how to find them; you also have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince.

I went through about 100 job applicants and probationary employees to find only three cleaning technicians. But they’re fabulous. My customers love them, as do I.

Steven S. Kirkpatrick, of Chuckatuck, is president of Squeegee Squad Window Cleaning and works as a consultant and advisor to entrepreneurs and other small business owners. Email him at steven@SqueegeeSquad.com.