Re: job interviews with tests

Subject: Re: job interviews with tests
From: "Dick Margulis " <margulis -at- mail -dot- fiam -dot- net>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2002 13:17:48 -0500

Oh, Michael, that's a sad story. You are so lucky you didn't get that job!

I was recruited once for a job some thousands of miles away, and the company wanted the agency to administer a test prior to deciding to fly me down for an interview (seemed fair to me). They gave me a report that had been written by a field engineer and asked me to copyedit it.

Well, I started, and about two sentences in, I just drew a big red X through the whole thing and proceeded to reorganize and rewrite the report, longhand, on a yellow legal pad I found in the room. In other words, I did basically the same thing you did. The fact that I was able to see outside the "fix the spelling and commas" box landed me the plane ticket, the interview, and the job. Of course, as a result, I had to spend 14 months in Houston; so maybe I shouldn't be so proud of that....)

Then again, the very first test I ever took for a job, when I had just dropped out of college, was in a large cafeteria full of applicants for an editing job at a large publishing house (Prentice-Hall, IIRC). The passage was all about the first American dictionary. I finished before anyone else, quite certain I'd caught everything there was to catch, using standard proofreading marks meticulously and correctly; and I handed in my test paper. About two beats later, as I strode across the threshold, I slapped myself on the forehead. _Not Daniel,_ dummy. Noah! I sure didn't get called back for an interview on that one.

Dick

MichaelHuggins -at- aol -dot- com wrote:


>It turned out that every single instance of the word "responsibility" was misspelled, with the third "i" missing. The text was set in a sans serif font, which made it more difficult to spot. *That* had been the whole point of the exercise: to see if the editor would see that "responsibility" was always misspelled!
>

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Collect Royalties, Not Rejection Letters! Tell us your rejection story when you
submit your manuscript to iUniverse Nov. 6 -Dec. 15 and get five free copies of
your book. What are you waiting for? http://www.iuniverse.com/media/techwr

Have you looked at the new content on TECHWR-L lately?
See http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ and check it out.

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.


Previous by Author: Re: job interview with tests
Next by Author: Re: use of apostrophe
Previous by Thread: RE: job interviews with tests
Next by Thread: RE: Hiring Publications Manager


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads