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Subject:RE: Preparation for a phone screen interview From:"Mike O." <obie1121 -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 7 Jan 2003 08:27:41 -0800 (PST)
IMHO employers often approach technical writer interviews a lot
more carelessly than other positions. In John's story, there is
an officer of the company who is preparing to commit six figures
annually to a tech writer position, and he apparently doesn't
even know the first thing the employee is supposed to do. I
can't imagine that ever happening in a programmer interview, or
even a sales or marketing interview. Usually the technical leads
insist on interviewing programmers themselves.
John wrote:
In fact, I'll give an example:
When I interviewed here, I met with the Dir of NY Operations. We
talked about how I get information and I mentioned that one of
the ways was to ask alot of WHY questions and to offer
alternatives to existing ways the system works. He told me that
this wouldn't be necessary because I was going to be documenting
a system already in place and all I had to do was describe the
way it works.
Find out on my first day that it was the first day of a
stabilization project where the system was being completely
overhauled and the NEW system, which didn't exist yet, was what
I was documenting.
This was not a problem for me and infact, I enjoyed it more.
However, it COULD have been.
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