Comments on: Technical Writing Interview and Negotiation

By: Raghuram

Raghuram — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 12:55:48 +0000

In Technical Interview rounds, questions were mainly on Technical Writing tools & life-cycle, work estimation, future ambitions or career path, etc. If companies are looking for certain domain knowledge(telecom, networking, healthcare,…..), they ask basic questions related to domain. Technical Writing tools questions is mostly on single sourcing(use of Conditional Text), information stored in various pages of Framemaker templates(Body, Master, Reference).

By: Raghuram

Raghuram — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 12:46:32 +0000

I have 8+ years in Technical Writing. When I was looking for job change, I attended several written tests and interviews. In written tests, they used to ask questions in grammar such as conversion of active to passive and vice versa, simplify the sentences, punctuate, etc. In technical-side, write procedure to withdraw amount from ATM, provide overview for a given architecture diagram(depends on domain of company). Also, many companies look for creative writing and ask to writer essay(in 500 words) on:
* Explain an incident which changed your life and how it affected your life
* Describe your career as Technical Writer
* Technology as boon and course
.-= Raghuram´s last blog ..Threadless Tshirt Giveaway at jaypeeonline.net =-.

By: John Hewitt

John Hewitt — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 13:44:31 +0000

@ vidya

One thing to understand is that no single answer is going to satisfy every interviewer. Sometimes the company you are working for is looking for something specific, and if you meet it you get the job or are at least the top candidate. Sometimes you have to be able to gauge a company’s needs and tailor your answer to what they seem to need or want.

By: vidya

vidya — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 07:06:42 +0000

HI
I attended the interview. I cleared 2 written rounds. But could not clear the technical round. they asked me how do you go about the project . although i told them the process of ddlc, i think they were not convinced. can you please mail me or tell me how to tackle tricky questions like this?
Vidya

By: Vinish

Vinish — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 05:16:40 +0000

Going by my experience as technical writer, I think that the interview process of technical writing is quite interesting. I have been on either side of interview board and it needs some homework for candidate who is looking for a tech writer position. Apart from te most basic questions such as:

What you want to quit present job, what are your strengths and weeknesses, why and how you got into technical writing, there are many smart questions that are generaly asked to technical writers. For example:

Why do you feel that you can be a good technical writer?
What challenges you most in a documentation project and why?
How far can DDLC can be flexible, can you give an example?
What role is more challenging – documentation team member, or documentation team lead; and why?

Besides, there can be questions on Guidelines, ISO Standards and conventions.
Technically, there can be questions like shortcut to create an index file in MS Word, or how to convert FrameMaker document to Word document.

The most important point to take care during technical writing interview is the clarity and precisness of answers because communication is most critically noted for aspiring cadidates.

Thanks
Vinish

Vinishs last blog post..Facts to make Indians feel PROUD

By: John Hewitt

John Hewitt — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 01:49:32 +0000

@ Ramneek,

I’ll put that in a future posting.

By: ramneek

ramneek — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 18:58:39 +0000

well i have been looking into various sites but none has described the initial rounds the technical writer have to face.. ??what kind of questions are asked if(wriiten test) is there and how tough is english test..that is little complaint though i would like to mention this is nice…!!

and if you could put light into what i asked thEN that would b great