RE: About proprietary writing samples

["Ed Manley" <edmanley -at- bellsouth -dot- net>]

Funny you should mention this, as I am even at this moment playing on
techwr-l when I have just such an assignment due.
This is a prospective employer's request to write a document as the deciding
competition between myself and another candidate. I got the email yesterday
at 4pm, it is due this morning at 10am, and I have only 90% done, so I
better go do it!

Here's the assignment:
-------------------------------------
Interviewer One (Names Withheld, ed.) and I completed the interviews on your
two candidates.
We would appreciate it if both Ed Manley and Candidate Two could submit a
short procedural document for our review on the following.  (We are asking
this of our candidates in helping us to make the final decision.)

Scenario:  The document is for the user who has no computer experience,
however, has used a typewriter. The workstation is a MS 98 workstation.

Goal:  Instruct the reader how to write a document, print a document
and edit the document later.  The procedure should include start to
finish (from powering up and starting the workstation to shutting it down
also).
The product used is MS Word.

(If they have already completed such a document from a previous project,

they can submit this.)

Thanks.
Interviewer Two
United Parcel Service
-------------------------------------------------------------

So, yes, this will become another piece for the portfolio.

Ed



>> Not mine. Unless you're interviewing for a position with a company who
makes
competing products, I can't see any reason they'd want to anyway.

>> I've also been mulling over a response Ed Manley's last post, so I'll
address that here. Ed remarked:

>> "I simply cannot understand so many writers wanting to reuse proprietary
documents. You are WRITERS - WRITE SOMETHING!"

>> For me, the answer is that something I wrote while on an actual job seems
like a more "real" sample to present than something I whipped up just for
interviewing with. While I understand that the latter is no less an
illustration of my abilities than a sample I created for an employer, it
does *feel* that way to me.

>> YMMV, of course.

>> I might add though, that I have been asked, as part of an interview
process,
to create new documentation for a made-up product. It was fun (the made-up
product was quite amusing) and side-stepped the samples issue very nicely.
(Thought about chiming in with that during the recent 'have you ever been
asked to take a test' thread, but didn't have time. Seems to fit here
anyway.)

>> Gwen Fremonti
(rather newbie poster who currently has a little more slack time than usual
for this lone writer...)



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