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This seems to be a fairly common practice. I've lost
track of the number of times I've had the same kind of
experience. I answer a message that says the company
is looking for a technical writer, and when I get a
chance to talk or exchange email with someone, they
spend most of the time asking me how much experience I
have working with Java and whether I'd be comfortable
writing small blocks of code.
This is a hypocritical attempt on the part of the
company to get two jobs' worth of work out of one warm
body. They say the want a technical writer, but in an
interview it becomes apparent they actually want a
systems analyst or a programmer who will also write
his own documentation. Whenever I identify this
happening, I say flat out I'm not interested in
working for a company that will try to deceive me, and
cut the connection immediately.
My feelings are, you should NEVER work for a company
that will try this trick. If they'll pull this kind of
nonsense, what you expect from them by way of
personnel management after you start working there?
Better to not get tangled in that web.
-------------------------------------------------------
> I had the experience a couple weeks ago of doing an
> interview where the initial questions were all
> focused on what programming background I had and how
> much I knew about data warehousing and
> video-on-demand.
>
> None of which was mentioned in the job post as a
> job requirement. The job title was "Technical
> Writer". I was very close to asking if they had read
> my resume, after all they had it sitting on the
> desk. Frankly it annoyed me because they had a
> precise summary of past experience, where I worked
> and exactly what I did. I was assuming I was there
> to interview as a Technical Writer, I had my
> portfolio of samples. After that I didn't do well on
> the interview because by the time we got to
> discussing FrameMaker and CSS I really did not want
> to work with those people. It felt like an
> interrogation. Maybe it was one of those tactics to
> see how I handled stress. Stupid. I couldn't wait to
> get out of there, and they have since re-posted the
> position.
> Joanne
>
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