RE: Evaluating Candidates Using Tests, Logic Questions, and Similar

["Sharon Burton" <sharon -at- anthrobytes -dot- com>]

In the writing test instructions, I suggest maybe headings might help
organize the info, how perhaps bullets or numbered steps might be useful as
a way to organize the text. The text is pretty simple and lends itself
easily to these devices. I just want to see if the ideas of logical
organization occur to you.

In our environment, I'm looking for super stars that automatically think
about these devices if they have 4 days to help a "fix" manual for a product
they have never seen before. It may be all the time we have. Our products
are also very complex and I can't spend the time teaching you to think - I
need to see that you can logically think before I hire you. I see way too
many "senior" writers who can't logically think and are also slow writers.
In my particular group at this moment in time, I need fast writers who grasp
technology fast and develop logically organized docs.

Will I always need these kinds of writers? Maybe not. But I have the
workload for 2x what I have right now and we don't have time to hold your
hand much. I wish it were different but it's not. Not everyone can work in
our current environment and I know that.

sharon

Sharon Burton
CEO, Anthrobytes Consulting
951-369-8590
www.anthrobytes.com
Immediate Past President of IESTC

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+sharon=anthrobytes -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+sharon=anthrobytes -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com]On
Behalf Of Gene Kim-Eng
Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2006 3:46 PM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Evaluating Candidates Using Tests, Logic Questions, and
Similar


This doesn't surprise me.  Without time to become familiar with the
subject of the text or its intended readers, unless your "first draft"
consists of the instructions for making a peanut butter and jelly
sandwich, programming a VCR or other similarly everyday process,
it's not really possible to determine how randomly entered facts
should be "structured."  In my last two companies, if you didn't
already have a technical background in their particular fields, you
wouldn't have been able to make any sense at all of a typical user
manual's TOC.  In the absence of background information, the
writing candidate will instinctively address the one area of default
familiarity.  This is why I said that just about every "writing test"
I've ever seen or heard described in one of these forum threads
inevitably ends up sounding like an editing or tools test.

Gene Kim-Eng


----- Original Message -----
From: "Sharon Burton" <sharon -at- anthrobytes -dot- com>
> (what I get is people editing the text they are supposed to be
> rewriting for
> grammar and spelling. Despite the fact that I tell them this is not
> important
> and the instructions asy it is not important. That's what most writers
> do.
> sigh)


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