RE: Providing Samples (Was RE: Why they don't ask for candidates by technology skills.)

[Rose -dot- Wilcox -at- pinnaclewest -dot- com]

Bruce Byfield sez:
<<
Why not? They're legitimate writing samples, and some employers will be interested to see that you have an interesting life outside work. I also  have a Misc. section in my portfolio for exactly this kind of work.

You might also find yourself being interviewed by another animal-lover. I once  got a job because we keep parrots. When I went into the interview, I saw that the interviewer had a birdie playground on his desk, and we spend most of the interview exchanging cute stories about our conures and his cockatiel. The interviewer asked so few questions about my professional qualifications that it was obvious that our mutual interest was a major part of his decision to hire me.
>>

I must confess that one of my "human" interview questions most often asked had been, "Do you have any pets?"  (Does that question verge on illegal?  The "last book read" question seems safer, eh?)  Although startled by the question, I found that most techwriters did, indeed, have pets.  We had a little enclave of dog-people (people who love dogs, I mean, not people who were half human/half dog or anything like that, heh!) on the team.  It was certainly not required to be accepted by the team, but it didn't hurt!

Those were the days.  Currently I am a lone technical writer and am not sure about which of my coworkers have and don't have pets...

Missin' the team ...

Rose A. Wilcox
CHQ, 14th Floor
Tranz1 QA/Documentation
602-250-2435
Rose -dot- Wilcox -at- PinnacleWest -dot- com

"Success is a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don't quit
when you're tired-you quit when the gorilla is tired."

--Robert Strauss




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