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> Mary, I think you make some great points, and one question occurs to
me:
>
> if you're being interviewed for a TW job and have NOT been taken on
any
> sort of a tour, you've only basically gone a short path from, say,
HR to
> the person in the dept. where the job is located and you don't have a
> strong sense of the work environment, has anyone out there had the
chudspah
> to a-s-k for a tour? If so, what kind of a response did you get to
the
> request?
As an aside (sort of), I interviewed at a local startup company doing
... well, some interesting things with XML. I got a tour from the
HR-rep: saw the soda machine, the bagels, where the tech writers
worked, where the developers worked, etc.
Asked a lot of questions the HR rep couldn't answer about the
software. She recommended I talk to their senior TW, who was my
next interviewer.
Here, I screwed up a bit, by forgetting to have the tech writer show
me what their finished XML product (the editor, etc.) looked like.
Long story short -- and probably a no-brainer -- on the tech tour, ask
to see the product, NDA permitting. This shows interest.
Since I didn't ask to see the product, that probably killed my chances
at this position.
