Re: Technical Writing Interview

Subject: Re: Technical Writing Interview
From: "Susan W. Gallagher" <sgallagher -at- STARBASECORP -dot- COM>
Date: Tue, 7 Feb 1995 12:56:31 -0800


> I have an on site interview comming up for a UNIX technical writing
> position. I'm a little worried about what questions I'll be asked
> pertaining to technical writing. What should I expect? How should I answer?

Well, if you were interviewing here, some of the questions I'd
ask you would be...

What are your grammatical pet peeves?

What's the most difficult part of writing a manual?
...the easiest? The part you like best? ...least?

Then I'd ask to see samples, ask which one was your favorite,
ask what you liked best about it, and ask what you'd change
if you had the project to do over again.

If I were expecting you to create online documentation as
well as paper copy, I'd ask you what changes you'd make
in your writing style to accomodate the new delivery
platform.

While I had your samples in my hand, I'd scan the layout
and scan for frequent use of passive voice.

That would give me a good general overview of your writing
skills and I go on to teamwork, etc.

How should you answer? Honestly. Because if you say you love
to index and I make you do all the indexes and you hate it,
you're gonna hate me and hate your job!

Hope this helps. Good luck at the interview!

Sue Gallagher
StarBase Corp, Irvine CA
sgallagher -at- starbasecorp -dot- com


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