Re: Advice for interviewing new tech writers

["Peter Neilson" <neilson -at- windstream -dot- net>]

Indeed, a short test such as Lynne suggests is a good idea if you are  
permitted to use one. Once in a while there is a policy forbidding such  
tests as "discriminatory." If you are not allowed to use a written exam,  
you can still revert to "tenth-grade English class," methods and ask for  
corrections to a three-sentence paragraph you've written out on a  
whiteboard beforehand. There is then no written record of a "test" but  
only your recollections of the candidate's reaction to the problem.

A similar approach is to prepare a written sample, but to ask for oral  
comments rather than for a mark-up.

To evaluate a writing sample before the interview, take choice technical  
phrases and shove them into Google. You would be surprised, or rather you  
probably wouldn't, at the number of hits that reveal copying. I edited a  
PhD thesis for a candidate who did not have native English a few years  
ago. Some of was "just too good" and Google showed me why. Large parts  
came straight from Wikipedia!

On Thu, 22 Jan 2015 09:33:00 -0500, Lynne Wright  
<Lynne -dot- Wright -at- tiburoninc -dot- com> wrote: