Interview questions (Was re: Tech Writing 101 - How to tie a shoe)

[Penny Staples <pstaples -at- AIRWIRE -dot- COM>]

John R. Sullivan said:

>Things I object to? Well, at the top of my list is "What is your biggest
>weakness?" What an absurd question.
>
>I've determined that I'm never again going to try to answer that question
in
>an interview. How do others handle this
>(and other) ridiculous queries?
>
As an interviewer, I wouldn't be too interested in a candidate who said (or
implied) "Well I have no weaknesses. I'm good at everything."  Even
extremely competant and talented people are better at some things than
others, and by asking this question I'd be looking for a candidate to
demonstrate enough self-knowlege to discuss his or her strengths and
weaknesses intelligently.

As an interviewee, I have found questions like this to be a really good
opportunity. You can mention what you're good at, and what steps you've
taken to compensate for areas where you may have trouble. For example, I
might answer like this:

"Well, I tend to be kind of a big-picture person. I enjoy figuring out how
something works, doing the writing and organizing necessary to produce the
manual. But when it comes to doing final proofreading for the small details,
well I enjoy that a lot less, and I've had to develop a system to use when I
proofread. Otherwise, I tend to miss typos and some of the smaller errors in
formatting and other details."

If your resume is weak in a particular area (no experience doing on-line
help, for example), it's an opportunity for you to bring out in the open, so
that you can explain how interested you are in developing your skills in
that area. And what you plan to do to get up to speed quickly. See what I
mean?

Penny Staples
pstaples -at- airwire -dot- com


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