Re: Why don't more job interviews use writing tests?
This generated a number of replies. Some recall varying types of writing tests. But one response said, in part: "administering a writing test would take a lot of time for very little useful return."
It seems to me that if you give someone a subject and ask them to write about it, whether the subject is technical documentation or what they think of the sun rising this morning, it won't take more than a minute or two of reading the result to see a writer's skills.
Companies are demanding ever more with ever less. Wouldn't you want to know if your technical writer candidate can write well, out of the box, or would require a significant amount of editing? If someone could organize their thoughts well, on the fly, and put them coherently, clearly, and well-organized down on paper in a short amount of time, wouldn't you not only value that skill, but grab at it the first chance you got? I'd say yes, but then, I think that skill is a lot rarer than most would want to admit.
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Chuck Martin
User Assistance & Experience Engineer
twriter "at" sonic "dot" net www.writeforyou.com
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This day, we fight!"
- Aragorn
"All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given you."
- Gandalf
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