Job Search

what	where
job title, keywords or company	city, state or zip jobs by

A Career in Technical Writing: Planes, Trainers and Automobiles

Bullet Points

• A panel interview, also known as a board interview, is conducted by a team of three or more interviewers simultaneously. The interviewers are often given scoring sheets so that they can each rate the candidate.
• The look of a portfolio is as important as the content. In many cases there isn’t time to analyze the content in depth, so the look carries a great deal of weight.
• Interviewers often want you to describe your “process”.
• In many cases, client-facing documentation is expected to be more graphically pleasing than internal documentation.

The driver met me at the airport terminal. I had flow into Dallas for an interview at a top computer retailer. They were looking for a writer to work on their customer service and training documentation. The documentation was aimed at small to mid-sized corporations that signed up for long-term service contracts. My technical agency, TDI, had lined up the interview just as my beach time was running out. It was the first time someone had actually paid to fly me somewhere just to interview for a job. The Lincoln Town Car came complete with local and national newspapers, bottled water and a driver who liked to chat. He rattled off a list of all the “hot spots” I should hit in town. Unfortunately, I would be back on a plane in just six hours. The company wasn’t going to pay to put me up for the night.

It was a panel interview. Panel interviews are my least favorite kind of interview. Trying to impress an entire room full of people is a difficult matter. I am much happier talking with one or two people. The technical communications manager, the graphic designer, three trainers, and three writers met me in a conference room. I showed them my samples and they showed me their training manuals. Theirs were better. All of their work was full-color and glossy. Their materials were designed to impress corporate clients. All I had to offer was my report program documentation from PHPS, which was printed in black and white and held together with staples.

The designer was particularly disapproving and asked if I had designed the graphics. The “graphics” consisted of screen shots with occasional arrows and added text. I explained that I had developed every aspect of the documentation at PHPS, including the strategy. They, in turn, asked me if I would be comfortable working in a team environment. I told them that I had created teams at my past job, bringing together programmers and analysts. I added that I was looking forward to working with other writers. I could tell that they were still concerned, but I didn’t have any better answers for them.

The manager asked me to describe my documentation process and I described how I had worked at PHPS: studying the program code, talking to the programmers and analysts, viewing the output and working out a solution that could incorporate the limited information I had. I told them about the programmer’s reference guide, which I had also brought. This didn’t seem to interest them. It was just blocks and blocks of information. The programmers had loved it, but it did nothing for this group.

Lessons Learned

The interview wasn’t all negative. The group was friendly for the most part. I simply wasn’t what they were looking for. I had never written client-facing documentation. My one short stint with training materials had come when I taught computer classes for the university, and that had all been for faculty and staff. This group was all about colorful, glossy materials and my work was heavy on function over form.

The local account manager for TDI gave me a ride back to the airport. She treated me to dinner and tried to sell me on the concept of Dallas. She was pretty and flirtatious, so I played along. I assumed I wasn’t getting the job, but I still allowed myself to think of life in Dallas. I had lived in Tucson all of my life, and the thought of moving had a romantic appeal.

As soon as I returned to Tucson I started working on my portfolio. There wasn’t much that I could do about the content, but I could certainly add a little gloss. The actual screen shots were in color, so I put the files on a floppy disk (They still had those in 1997) and I drove to a local print shop. I ordered a full-color version on high-end cotton rag paper with clear plastic covers and velo binding. I had the printer make up ten copies. It cost me about forty dollars, but now my portfolio looked as nice as it was going to look. I was ready for my next interview…

Further Reading

• The Digital Portfolio of Tom Johnson: Most people post their portfolios on the web these days. Tom has an excellent one.
• How do I build a technical writing portfolio when all of the docs I work on at my current company are proprietary information? Many employers do not want you to show your work for them. This article has advice for altering your work in order to still use it in your portfolio.

Questions (Interview Style)

• What did you do in your last job?
• What did you like the most about working there?
• What did you like the least about working there?
• What is your process for gathering information?
• How do you deal with someone who will not give you the information you need?
• What do you consider to be your best quality?
• What do your consider to be your worst quality?
• What is the most difficult project you have ever had?
• What do you consider to be your most successful project?
• What makes you the most qualified applicant for this job?
• How do you deal with conflict?