Re: Examining proficiency of job applicants in FrameMaker

["Andrea Brundt" <andrea_w_brundt -at- hotmail -dot- com>]

Andrew wrote:
"You can always teach people how to write or how to use FrameMaker. That's
easy.
You cannot teach somebody how to be responsible, motivated, or creative."

With regard to teaching a person how to use FrameMaker, I agree. Testing for
today's tool could hurt you tomorrow, because tools quickly become obsolete.
A year ago, my company used FrameMaker to produce 90% of the content. There
wasn't any particular business reason for that -- it was just because we
were staffed with writers who had used nothing but Frame for a zillion
years, and who had a demonstrated inability or unwillingness to learn new
tools.

In the past year, we've completely phased out FrameMaker. Fortunately, all
the Frame folks have moved on. They took a lot of technical knowledge with
them, but that technical knowledge was less and less valuable because they
could only express it with one tool.

(Now, as far as writing skills go, hiring tech writers who don't know how to
write is the fastest way I can think of to burn a bag of money. But that's
another conversation, and I ain't going there.)

So, when I hire, I look for someone with a demonstrated ability to learn
tools and technologies quickly, write well, and make good business
decisions. That way, they'll be useful today, and (more importantly) for
years to come.

Best Regards,
Andrea