Re: Advice for interviewing new tech writers

["Elisa R. Sawyer" <elisawyer -at- gmail -dot- com>]

I'm in Gene's camp in that I have voiced my writing differently for
different projects. Sometimes I have documented inventions and I have
voiced the documentation to reflect something about the inventor.

Also, for some projects, I have been the only person with the title of
writer on the project, but there have been numerous contributors. If I run
out of time, I might not be able to get the voice consistent throughout.

Over the years, I think that my habits have changed and the writing voice
to which I habitually turn has changed.

When I interview writers, I look at their samples first and then discuss
their process. People have different needs and will thrive in different
environments. I once realized mid-interview that one excellent writer would
not be a good fit for the position he thought he wanted, and when I
described what was needed, he realized that was true. I have been on the
other end of that kind of equation. It's not always about skills and
abilities, sometimes it's also about fit.

-Elisa



On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 1:40 PM, Gene Kim-Eng <techwr -at- genek -dot- com> wrote:

> I didn't say don't look at the candidate's samples, just to not make them
> the most important aspect of your interview.
>
> A candidate's samples are less important to me than what that candidate
> has to say about them.  That is, whether he or she can describe the
> planning, processes, efforts and issues that played a part of creating a
> given document. The reason for this is that there's a large percentage of
> people in every occupation - not just in technical writing - who are good
> "managed performers."  That is, people who, with the direct guidance and
> support of a good manager can perform well. But if you don't have, or are
> not prepared to provide, that sort of guidance and support, what you need
> is someone who is a bit harder to find, and you won't find out whether the
> person you're interviewing is one of those just by looking at samples, no
> matter how good those samples are.
>
> BTW, my own portfolio contains quite a few documents that most definitely
> do not look as if the same person wrote them.  Because a tear down manual
> for a turbojet engine really should not look a whole lot like a quick start
> card for an all-in-one printer/scanner/fax console, or an insert sheet for
> a pharmaceutical reagent.
>
>
> Gene Kim-Eng
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-- 
Elisa Rood Sawyer
~~~~~^~~~~~
Technical and Creative Writer
"Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today." Mark Twain
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