Re: job-hunt weirdness

["Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>]

If you're legitimately a publications manager and not just the first 
tech writer in through the door during some company's startup, the 
hiring process is an eternal quest for people who can do the writing 
part of your job better than you can.  At least it is for me.  I don't 
think I'd hire a candidate who couldn't run rings around me in 
FrameMaker or whatever authoring tool we're using, or who didn't have 
some critical skill that I either lack or am not strong in, and one of 
the arguments that I use the most in trying to get approval to hire such 
people is that staff members with stronger hands-on skills than mine 
will improve day-to-day productivity and free me up to concentrate on 
improving process and project management.

No, I probably wouldn't hire someone for a staff position whose resume 
was a long chain of publications manager positions, but I'm not sure if 
it would be because I wanted to avoid having to sleep with one eye open 
or just because I had doubts about the candidate's reading 
comprehension.

Gene Kim-Eng


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "bryan johnson" <bryan -dot- johnson -at- motoman -dot- com>
>I've had circumstances where I've "dumbed down" a writers resume 
>because I knew the (non writing) hiring manager felt very threatened 
>that this new, professional writer, would come in and take their job. 
>They had moved up through the company from admin work to putting 
>together basic documentation and been given the title of Tech Pubs 
>Manager. The documentation was good considering the source, but nothing 
>a professional technical writer would consider acceptable.

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