Re: Want ads

[Laura Lemay <lemay -at- DEATH -dot- KALEIDA -dot- COM>]

>The oops was when I hit, "typing, 60 wpm desired." This, to me, says in
>big red letters, "WARNING! This company has absolutely no respect for the
>profession of technical writing!" And I resumed scanning. Am I offbase?

>Do you out there have any other huge red flags that you see in want ads.
>The only other one that I dislike is a request for salary history, since
>it implies price shopping, but I ignore that one.

I tend to take printed want ads with a grain of salt, after our nice
recruiter took an ad I wrote for a tech writer and changed my
"technical background highly desireable" into "MS in Computer Science
required."

<sarcasm> Yeah, we got swarms of responses for that one.  Sigh.

The 60wpm would bother me, yes, since I don't type particularly fast, and
if they quiz me on it, then I'm in trouble. :)  But if everything else
looked right, I'd go interview.  No harm in interviewing.  If it starts
to look bad, walk out.  Don't waste your time or thiers if the position
isn't right.  Could just be that the person writing the ad copy didn't
understand the position.

I don't have too many hot buttons about ads, but there are a few I have
about interviews.  I hate standardized writing or editing tests.  I'm
uneasy about technical writing departments that report through marketing
rather than through engineering.  And I hate technical questions with
no context ("Define BIOS.").

I won't even go into the other strange nits I have about work hours and
dress codes.  :)


Laura, tech writer



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