Long Summary: Good Interview Questions

[Alexia Prendergast <alexiap -at- SEAGATESOFTWARE -dot- COM>]

Hi, all,

John Bell sent me some great interview questions --
I've included a summary, with his permission, below...
I've also added a few of my far less creative
stock questions. ;)

Feel free to contribute more!

Thanks,
A.
--
Alexia Prendergast
Senior Technical Writer
Seagate Software
mailto:alexiap -at- sems -dot- com

>----------
>Tell me about your three most favorite bosses.
>(Look for what traits these bosses have. If you share those traits, the
>chances are
> good that you and the employee will work well together.)
>
>Tell me about your three least-favorite bosses.
>(If you share traits with the least-favorite bosses, there's trouble ahead.
>This does NOT
> mean YOU are a bad boss, it just means that the employee's preferred style
>and yours
> are not the same....)
>
>Tell me about your friends at work.
>(Avoid people who don't make friends at work [anti-social] and those who use
>work as
> a means of making friends [social butterflies]. Most of us fall in between
>these two
> extremes. I made the mistake of hiring one person at each extreme....)
>
>How do you stay current in tech writing?
>(Look for what books, resources, etc. a person mentions. I view TW as a
>career, and as such
 I need to keep honing my skills and keeping current with new
>developments....)
>
>Describe how you prefer to get information.
>(The key word here is "prefer". I don't much care how they were forced to get
>information in
> previous jobs, how do you prefer to get it?....)
>
>Define this word: (on a piece of paper I have the word "leading")
>(...Those that know the history are likely to know a bit about publishing,
>which
> means I won't have to teach them that part of the job.)
>
>Tell me about the writing task that made you the proudest.
>(I am looking to see how much enthusiasm they pour into this description. If
>they can't get excited
> over their best work, biggest challenge, etc. I see warning flags. When you
>do good work you should
> be proud of it, happy with your accomplishment. A person who has no pride is
>not likely to produce
> good work. I want great....not adequate.)
>
>Why did you choose tech writing?
>(Again, this is an enthusiasm question. Some people choose this career
>because it fits their personality
> so well, others are "just settling", waiting for something better to come
>along. I want people who are
> happy with their career choice.)
>
>When reviewing a writing sample, ALWAYS ask questions like this:
>What was your involvement with this piece?
>Who else contributed to this?
>Who edited it?
>Did you revise an existing document written by someone else, or is this
>entirely original?
>Tell me about.... (pick an obscure or minor topic/feature from the sample)
***
>-Describe the environments in which you've worked (vague --
> I usually look to see if they slam past employers, or to
> see if they'll fit into ours, which is relatively unstructured)
>-How do you keep current (to see if they even bother to keep
> current or know what resources are out there)
>-How do you gather information (to see how creative and practical
> they are)
>-If I tell you that you need to write an admin guide for
> software x, how do you begin? (to see what approach they'd use
> and why--looking, again, for a combo of creativity and practicality.
> Also want to find out if they need a lot of hand-holding.)
>-What types of products have you documented? for what audiences?
> platforms? (our software is very specialized)
>-What are your favorite old/new technologies?
>-Have you worked with editors? Tell me about the review process, etc.
>
>

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