Re: Employment Interview

[Karen Kay <karen -at- WORDWRITE -dot- COM>]

Mark Baker said:
> I always ask about conflicts and strategies the candidate uses to win those
> conflicts. I would never hire someone who has never had a conflict. As far
> as I'm concerned, if you're not quarreling with the engineers on a regular
> basis you are probably not doing your job as a technical writer.

I recently had an interview in which I was asked about conflicts and I
really had nothing to say. I've never had a serious conflict w/ an
SME. Not just at my current company, but when I was contracting
before that. In every case, I found the SMEs to be really helpful and
very cooperative. I've had a little bit of difficulty this year
because I'm working with more SMEs who have never worked with writers
before, but we are both respectful of each other's work and with the
exception of one late UI change that made me tear out my hair, we
haven't had any problems. In two years, that's pretty good. (And btw,
there will be no more late UI changes. We worked that out.:) )

So is this chance, or am I doing something right? I'd like to think
the latter of course. But I didn't get the job, for the very reason
you give:  I wasn't experienced enough in conflict w/ SMEs. This makes
no sense to me.

Karen
  karen -at- wordwrite -dot- com