Re: Test assignment for a tech.writer candidate?

[Connie Giordano <connie -at- therightwords -dot- com>]

Daniel makes an excellent point about testing for technical writing and
other writing skills. Content duties are converging at many organizations
(and have always been converged at others, in my experience). Being able to
write clear procedures is useful, being able to create material that helps
the customer feel good about the investment (of money or time) is essential.

M2C

Connie GIordano

On Mon, Dec 8, 2014 at 9:39 AM, Caroline Tabach <caroline -dot- tabach -at- gmail -dot- com>
wrote:

> When interviewing candidates you need to find a task that you don't need to
> invest too much time explaining to the candidate what to do, and will not
> take you too much time to review.
>
> We once asked candidates to explain how to do 3 basic tasks using Outlook.
>
> Not everyone was familiar with this, but everyone knew how to use email.
>
> Outlook was installed on the computer used, screen caps could be taken.
>
> It is surprising how many mistakes could be made.
>
> This was quite a few years ago, but it gave a good idea whether the
> candidate could do technical writing.
>
> You could see if someone knew how to use headers, or knew how to write a
> procedure, divide up a topic, use relevant information etc.
>
> So asking someone to write a help procedure about a familiar process is not
> really irrelevant at all.
>
> You can discover a lot of information about the peraon's writing skills.
>
> Sent from my mobile
> Caroline Tabach
> caroline -dot- tabach -at- gmail -dot- com
> On 8 ×××× 2014 08:38, "Alec Chakenov" <alec -dot- chakenov -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
>
> > Hi everyone,
> > If you had experience with hiring technical writers, what kind of test
> > assignment would you recommend to assess technical writing skills?
> > At one software company I was tasked with writing a help article about
> how
> > to use an elevator. I thought that was so irrelevant and did not want to
> > proceed with them.
> > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
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-- 
Connie P. Giordano
Principal Consultant
The Right Words of NC, LLC

"It's kind of fun to do the impossible" - Walt Disney
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