Re: Big Interview, advice sought

[Candace Bamber <cbamber -at- CASTEK -dot- COM>]

Hi Beth,
You asked about what different members of the interviewing "committee" might
ask.  I hope this gets to you in time to do you some good (assuming you
think I
have anything intelligent to say).

I wouldn't worry so much about what they are going to ask you. Assuming
you've
done your homework (ie, at minimum read everything on their web page and
taken
good notes), and you've paid attention to your own life and career, you will
be
able to answer their questions (if someone asks you about a technology
you've
never heard of, a couple hours prep won't do you any good, anyway).

What will separate you from other candidates is the questions YOU ask them.
The
quality and content of your questions allows you to put across a lot about
yourself while appearing to focus on the company's needs. And good questions
demonstrate that you can do an important part of your job: gather important
information.

Ask the CTO about technology direction in the company, how it is
disseminated to
the staff, what training is available to keep everyone current, whether
there
are any activities in her team that could use your talents and would provide
a
growth experience for you (perhaps developing some training materials or
writing
articles on the companies strategic technologies for the company newsletter,
helping the CTO's office put together a intranet site, etc).

For the VP Development, ask about how the development teams are structured,
how
doc fits in, where there are opportunities for you to fit in or grow into
(and
try to think of some examples of value-add beyond doc: GUI design,
facilitation
of JADs, technology training, team building, etc), where she expects the
company
to be in five years, what she sees as the career path for doc people, what
she
sees as holes within systems delivery that people with writerly backgrounds
can
fill besides simply writing manuals (perhaps suggest some), what developer
doc
is available, what training is available to developers and whether you
should be
in it as well, etc

For the Quality Manager, you could ask about the QA program, what metrics
they
look at, what metrics they publish, the process of getting test cases
written,
how doc and QA help each other now and suggest some ways they could (test
cases
are a great resource for doc writers - and user doc is a great resource for
test
case writers), what the process is for QA of user doc, what the biggest
problem
for QA is, what there successes have been, what their goals are, etc.

Ask the product manager about the product - how did they come up with it in
the
first place, what were some of the early problems with it, how did they
overcome
them, what is the products' direction, what state do they expect to be in
this
time next year, in three years, where they are marketed, what their best
market
is, what is she most proud of, how the product management team interacts
with
systems delivery, what are the current problems in the doc, what is her
vision
for the doc, what are the current customer service issues around the product
(and suggest how even better doc might be able to solve some of them).

Ask the doc manager anything you asked anyone else to test what they said
against the doc manager's perceptions. If something seems out of whack,
follow
it up. Remember that you are screening them as well - if they hire you, it
is a
business transaction between equals - they are NOT doing you a big favour.
They
have to impress you, too.

Anyway, I hope this was useful.

Go be brilliant! and have a great time. I'd like to hear how it turns out.

Candace
**********************************************
Candace Bamber
cbamber -at- castek -dot- com

Castek
Putting the Future Together
**********************************************

 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=