RE: Employment Resources (lack of qualified candidates)

["Backer, Corinne" <CBacker -at- glhec -dot- org>]

I'm finding the same thing, as I'm trying to fill a TW position right now.
Lots of resumes that could barely be considered relevant. One cause, I
think, is the greater exposure that our profession is receiving--6 years
ago, I had to explain to 90% of people what a tech writer did; now it's more
like 50%. People are becoming more tech savvy, and lots of people are
looking to cash in on the computer boom. Therefore, English and Journalism
majors (not to mention Art History and Zoology :D) see TW as their ticket to
Silicon Valley.

Here's the bigger problem, though - I have trouble convincing our HR
department that there ARE specific requirements to do this job, because it's
more difficult to define than other jobs. For example, I don't eliminate
people if they don't have a TW degree (who does?) but if they haven't had
any formal training that involves creating instructions of some kind, I
don't want to interview them. On the same token, I won't necessarily throw
away a resume that doesn't list a previous position as "Technical Writer" -
but I DO want to see some specific job responsibilities from the past that
are applicable. I don't care if their title was "Sales Manager" or
"Babysitter" or whatever - I do care that they have
created/maintained/edited technical instructions of some kind.

Maybe I'm advertising wrong. How do you phrase the requirements in your ads?
**Agh! Don't send a real example or we'll all get kicked off the list! :)**
Then, how do you justify your candidate selection to HR?

CB

-----Original Message-----
From: Murrell, Thomas [mailto:TMurrell -at- alldata -dot- net]
> 
..maybe  one in six or so (purely subjective estimate) is really
targeted at the job advertised...