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Subject:Re: Advice for interviewing new tech writers From:Keith Hood <bus -dot- write -at- gmail -dot- com> To:Kelly Smith <KellyMJSmith -at- gmail -dot- com> Date:Thu, 22 Jan 2015 14:44:37 -0600
What you need, at least as much as input on hiring, is to communicate with
all the people who head the divisions supported by tech writers and get
agreement that there must be one central authority on matters like styles,
version control, document quality criteria, and control of access to
document libraries. Then you need to get them to agree that you are it.
Even if you won't be actually supervising that other writer, you need to
get buy-in to having common standards. A company has to provide one face
to the outside world or customers won't know what to expect.
Look for people who actually seem to enjoy writing. They'll be more likely
to get satisfaction from the work and will be easier to handle.
On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 7:46 PM, Kelly Smith <KellyMJSmith -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I recently took a full-time position as the first tech writer in IT at a
> 40+ year old manufacturing company. As you can imagine, we have a lot of
> work ahead of us sorting out all the documentation.
>
> After seeing what I was able to do for the IT department in the 3 months
> since I was hired, the director of another department is considering hiring
> a tech writer. My boss volunteered me to sit in on the interviews.
>
> I won't be managing this person (as far as I know, since they'll be in a
> different department) but we will be expected to collaborate with each
> other and with the other tech writer who was hired the same day I was (in
> yet another department).
>
> Do any of you have experience hiring other tech writers and could you give
> me any advice?
>
>
> Thanks!
>
>
> --
> Kelly Smith
>http://flavors.me/redheadedquilter
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