Re: Interview Questions

["Nina L. Panzica" <panin -at- MINDSPRING -dot- COM>]

At 05:52 PM 7/23/97 -0400, Melissa wrote a lot of questions:

>I have been reading all of the email responses to the odd interview.  I will
>be interviewing next spring and I would love to hear some stories on
>interviews, weird questions, head games, etc.  What are some some good
>answers to some tricky questions?  What are some danger signs?

I can't think of any odd ones off the top of my head but a legitimate and
up-front question that is often asked that you still might not be prepared
for  is "Why do you think you can do this job?" If you have experience in
technical writing, your best response to this question is to describe that.
If you don't have experience, you need to present an interviewer with a
combination of schooling, non-paid experience, or paid experience that
involved skills important to writers,  that proves you can write
documentation.  Work samples or writing samples are essential for this. It
used to surprise me when interviewers asked me to describe my past writing
experience. I'd think, "Now wait a minute! Isn't that what my resume does?"
The best way I've found to field this question is to pretend that the
interviewer sitting in front of you has never seen a single word on your
resume. Start from scratch, and describe everything. It's perfectly OK to
repeat information that's on your resume, even if that feels a little funny
at first; interviewers seem to expect it. But since you know that your
interviewer probably has read your resume, try also to add some extra
details about what you did or projects you worked on, stuff that there
wasn't room to fit on the resume. If something I've done in the past seems
to relate directly to work I'd be doing if I got the current job, I play up
that aspect of my experience a lot and try to show the interviewer how that
experience will help me to handle the current job better.  When I was new
to interviewing, I assumed all interviewers were so interested in me that
they would already see these connections between my experience and the
present work and that mentioning it would be both redundant and boastful.
Now I know that most interviewers are, by the time they see me, bleary-eyed
from looking at resumes, and all applicants are starting to mix together in
their minds, so anything I say to explain or clarify the work I've done and
point out its relevancy helps them.

>What type of
>technology/tools should a technical communicator expect (within reason)?

It's best to ask that question of a few local agencies or consulting firms
that work a lot with technical writers. Ask them which software tools they
get the most demand for from clients. If they can't think of any (and they
might not be able to if they haven't filled a tech-writer position
recently), have a long list ready of the ones you know about, and ask them
to tell you if they frequently, occasionally, or seldom get requests for
each tool.  I always do this when I've been off contract for a while or
when I'm re-entering the job market after staying with one client for a
long time. I lose touch with the current state of the field and need to
find out what skills people are looking for.  That's only the first step,
however. Once you know what the most requested tools are, find some way to
learn how to use them, if you don't already know them, and then list them
in the software-tools area of your resume. This will make you more employable.

> How
>should a technical communciator prepare for the interview?

I've discovered through happenstance that one of the best ways to get
comfortable with actual interviews is to list yourself with a lot of
consulting agencies that deal with technical writers. Many of these
agencies will insist on having a screening interview with you before they
send you out to their clients. These low-key screening interviews, which
are not for any particular position (they're just to see how well you'd
present in an interview) and which often involve a very friendly
salesperson who is not a writing expert, take the pressure off you and
allow you to relax and get used to the types of questions liable to pop up
in the real thing.  Even if you don't plan on being a contractor, doing as
many of these practice interivews with the agencies in your area as you can
will give you good experience and also help you to become relaxed and
comfortable in actual interviews.

>What are some
>creative ideas for writing a cover letter, designing a resume or developing
>a portfolio?

Hmm. That's a tough one. I don't know if creativity is the goal you should
be aiming for with these things. As far as your portfolio is concerned, try
for variety, as that will make you more employable. Try to have as many
types of sample tech-writing documents in it as possible: some training
materials, some procedures, a user-guide chapter, maybe an index or a
glossary, and using as many software tools as you know: a document done in
Micosoft Word, one done in FrameMaker, a flowchart, etc. If you are good
with graphics and have some neat things you've created, put those in, too,
as tech-writing jobs often involve your being able to create graphics.  If
you've done some Web pages you are proud of, be sure to include the URLs
and perhaps even a printout or two of those pages.

>I am also interested in how employers react to creativity.  Is it important
>to make your resume, cover letter, or portfolio stand out or is it important
>to have a neat, conservative, and functional package?

Very early in my career I used to get  pretty creative with my resumes. It
got me little or no response.  Try if you can to make your resume show off
your desktop publishing or page desgin abilities: try for a conservative,
clean, but very visually appealing or sophisticated design. Stay away from
anything that smacks of gimmicks or "cuteness." One key, I think, is
readability. The easier your resume and other writing samples are to read
and to understand, the more favorably you will be looked at as a candidate.
And, as many people here have said, when you apply for a writing job,  your
resume and samples should be as free from English errors as you can make them.

>I would also like to hear some stories about interviewing in different
>geographic regions.  Are there different expectations?

Most of my writing experience is with the Southeast part of the U.S. It's
rather slow here. :) What I mean is that you might apply for a position or
have an agency submit your resume to a client and despair because you
haven't heard back from them in several weeks or even several months. Then
out of the blue when you've almost forgotten the company, they'll call you
wanting an interview. After the interview you may again wait and wait and
wait to hear from them. Sometimes you have to push a little: make reminder
calls, that sort of thing, but don't get too aggressive with this. Native
Southeasterners may not agree with this analysis, but I moved to Georgia
from the Pacific NW, where everything was much quicker, and even after
eight years the slow pace here still catches me by surprise.

Nina P.

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