Establishing the legitimacy of a profession is not a new idea. Many others have attempted to do so within their own field, most notably Kenneth Boulding. As an economist and a philosopher, Boulding published over 400 papers during his career. About 10 of these were concerned with the concept of legitimacy. The authors will use the model developed by Boulding and used by him to establish the legitimacy of economics to advance the legitimacy of the profession of business communication. Examples meeting the criteria identified in the model will be discussed to support this legitimacy. The future of the profession must include an awareness of characteristics that assist in the legitimization of a profession. Internal and external acceptance of professional legitimacy is necessary for continued success.

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Traditionally one-half of the job seeking process has been stressed by writers in the field of business communication.' Numerous books and articles have been written offering advice to job applicants. Authors of these articles stress that application letters must be written with due care, citing the need for courtesy, choice of appropriate words, and use of a writing style that reveals the personality of the writer. The applicant is urged to put forth his or her best effort in writing. But what about the other side of the fence? Can we simply disregard the fact that many of our writing students will be in the position of replying to job applicants? And many times these replies must be &dquo;no.&dquo; REPLYING TO JOB APPLICANTS During the winter and spring of 1976 approximately thirty-five NABTE (National Association of Business Teacher Educators) schools announced position openings in business and office education. One of the writers sent a reply (letter and data sheet) to schools announcing a vacancy in the areas in which the writer qualified. The impact of the response letters prompted this article. It soon became apparent that many of the professional people, themselves business communications teachers, did not practice what they preached. Some of these letters are excerpted below. &dquo;We have reviewed the credentials of all the applicants for our announced vacancy, and we regret to inform you that you were not selected.We have reviewed your application for a position at the Campus. Unfortunately, we have decided to interview candidates other than yourself for the position. As you might expect we have been flooded with applications in your area. However, your application will be kept on file.Our Faculty Affairs Committee has reviewed your credentials, and we do not believe that your interests or background will fill our needs at the present time .... This is to inform you that the selection committee met to judge applicants and your credentials were not moved forward.&dquo;Although the writer received offers from several NABTE schools, the impact of many replies was demeaning and insulting. Surely that was not the intent of these professional business communicators.Every business message is sent to fulfill a specific need of the sender by evoking a favorable response from the receiver. The most difficult message to send or receive is the &dquo;bad-news&dquo; message. Such messages need to be carefully thought through and couched in terms that retain the good will of the receiver of the message. A person can say &dquo;yes&dquo; poorly and still be forgiven. To say &dquo;no&dquo; gracefully, without alienating and insulting the person involved, requires knowledge and finesse, especially when that &dquo;no&dquo; applies to the job market. Cannot the &dquo;bad-news&dquo; strategy, so often taught in textbooks, be employed in this situation? ' BAD-NEWS STRATEGY Consider the following suggestions:(1) Use the first sentence or paragraph as a buffer zone between the person and the news. Use the buffer to provide a n...

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