Re: Qualifications for an off shore writer?

Subject: Re: Qualifications for an off shore writer?
From: John Garison <john -at- garisons -dot- com>
To: Julie Stickler <jstickler -at- gmail -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 13:46:38 -0500

My experience generally matches yours: overseas writers have poor
English skills and may not have up-to-date tools experience. In general,
offshoring requires a long-term investment of time and money (and
patience) before it pays off. It's also best if the hiring process
matches as closely as possible the hiring process you have at HQ. At
minimum, that means someone from HQ interviews each potential hire
rather than taking on a slate of people at someone else's recommendation.

That said, hire the best possible writer you can. Talk to them on the
phone (Skype cuts expenses!) and ascertain their oral English ability.
Make them create a writing sample for you that sort of matches a real
world topic. Give them your edits and have them incorporate those edits
into a final piece. If that is not successful, then nothing else really
matters. It's easier to teach someone tools and processes (like Agile)
than it is to teach them the basic job skills.

My 2¢,

John Garison


Julie Stickler said the following on 2/17/2009 1:35 PM:
> ... we're looking to start using Agile with our overseas developers,
> and we're probably going to be hiring an overseas technical writer to
> be part of that Scrum team.
>
> ...
>
> Some things that I've considered include:
> - Must be fluent in English.
> - Must have experience writing technical documentation in English.
>
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References:
Qualifications for an off shore writer?: From: Julie Stickler

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