Face to Face With Your Users: Running a Nondirected Interview

An interview is a funny situation. It's like a friendly conversation between strangers, but unlike the kind you may have on the bus. When chatting on the bus, people try very hard to agree with each other and to quickly communicate interesting information. Each person wants to be liked and adjusts the way they speak and what they say so as not to offend. This type of exchange is perfectly fine for maintaining civil society -- deeper exchanges can always happen as an acquaintance deepens -- but shallow banter isn't appropriate for an interview. You need to find out what someone is experiencing, what they're thinking, or what their real opinions are.

Kuniavsky, Mike. Adaptive Path (2003). Articles>User Centered Design>Interviewing>Usability

Finding That First Job  

Offers suggestions on finding work in technical communication for recent college graduates, professionals in other fields, and those who want to add documentation duties to their current jobs.

Block, Barbara M. Intercom (2001). Careers>Interviewing>TC

Finding the Right Technical Writer

A no-nonsense approach to finding a great tech writer, even when you don't know what to look for.

Springsteen, JoAnna. CIO Magazine (2008). Careers>Management>Interviewing>Technical Writing

Five Secrets to Successful Interviewing and Hiring

Frequently, technical communicators who have been promoted into management find themselves facing the need to interview candidates for open positions. While successful interviewing is key to finding the right match for open positions in the department, all too often interviewing skills are not a part of any management training programs that the interviewer may have completed - if management training was ever part of the technical communicator's career development program at all. This article unveils the secrets to successful interviewing and hiring.

O'Keefe, Karen. Writing Assistance (2006). Careers>Interviewing>Management

Focus Groups or Individual Interviews? A Comparison of Text Evaluation Approaches    

By providing an empirical comparison of two evaluation approaches, this article aims to make it easier to choose between focus groups and individual interviews as a way of evaluating documents, and thereby to contribute to a methodology of text evaluation. The article first presents the relevant literature and then moves on to present the results of the authors' experiment. The authors find that focus groups tended to identify acceptance problems, while individual interview participants focused on comprehension.

de Jong, Menno D.T. and Peter Jan Schellens. Technical Communication Online (1998). Articles>Interviewing>Methods

General Guidelines for Conducting Interviews

Interviews are particularly useful for getting the story behind a participant's experiences. The interviewer can pursue in-depth information around a topic. Interviews may be useful as follow-up to certain respondents to questionnaires, e.g., to further investigate their responses. Usually open-ended questions are asked during interviews. Before you start to design your interview questions and process, clearly articulate to yourself what problem or need is to be addressed using the information to be gathered by the interviews. This helps you keep clear focus on the intent of each question.

McNamara, Carter. Management Assistance Program for Nonprofits (1999). Careers>Interviewing

Getting a Technical Writing Job, Even If You Have No Experience  

Technical writing jobs can be hard to get if you have little or no experience. But there are things you can do to improve your chances of getting hired.

Docsymmetry. Careers>TC>Interviewing>Technical Writing

Group Interviews as Source for Writing Proposals

Group interviews can be an effective means for collecting information for competitive proposals. Many knowledgeable people who are phobic about writing will talk freely during a group interview. In addition, people who consider themselves too busy to write a section of a proposal may be amenable to committing 2 - 3 hours to a technical or project management interview.

Kendrick, Jim. Competitive Communication Methods (1998). Articles>Interviewing>Proposals

Guide Lines to Become Better than the Rest

The acronym GD stands for Group Discussion and has now become as interview in professional and academic circles. The basic aim of the Group Discussion is to evaluate the effectiveness of the candidate in a group activity. This effectiveness is judged through the leadership qualities and the communication skills displayed.

Kerala Education. Articles>Usability>Interviewing>Focus Groups

Hello?...The Art of the Telephone Interview  

Remember when interviewing meant dressing up, grabbing your best samples, and heading over to meet your potential employer face to face? Today the industry trend is to conduct most first interviews over the telephone. With the emergence of telecommuting and a global workforce, I don't see the trend toward telephone interviews going away any time soon.

Davis, Douglas W. STC (2007). Careers>Interviewing

Hiring a Technical Writer  

Hiring a technical writer can be tricky, even if you happen to be one. Where can you find a technical writer? What characteristics should you look for? How can you tell a good writer from a bad one?

Docsymmetry. Careers>Management>Interviewing

Hiring Contract Technical Writers

When you finally get the approval to hire a contract technical writer you'll want to go about it the right way in order to avoid problems and ensure success. This article provides insight on what you need to do before you start looking for a contract technical writing professional and how to go about finding one suitable for your project.

Hartmann, Scott. Writing Assistance (2006). Careers>Interviewing>TC>Technical Writing

Hiring Right: Road to Success

Running a translation business is not easy. As small as the industry may be, we as business owners face a full set of business challenges: personnel management, sales and marketing, client relations, and the list goes on. Everyday, we go into work hoping to improve the business, to make it more successful. Sometimes we wonder, what is the killer factor? What makes some companies more successful than others?

Iler, Huiping. WTB Language Group (2005). Careers>Management>Interviewing

Hiring Writers: How To Get Results That Make You Look Good

Like many of you, each of us has played on both sides of the fence: We've worked as editors in the position of hiring freelance writers, and as writers on constant prowl for new markets and ways to make editors happy. Even if you've not strayed between camps, we're all communication professionals-so why does mutual disappointment or even frustration characterize the editor/writer relationship so often?

Canavor, Natalie and Claire Meirowitz. Communication World Bulletin (2005). Careers>Interviewing>Writing

How to Control Interviews Even When Outranked

Expect anyone you're interviewing to try to control the interview, says writer/trainer Thomas Hunter. Anticipate special difficulties if that person outranks you. You must make on-the-spot judgments during every interview, but Hunter suggests steps to take beforehand, alternative approaches to consider during interviews and techniques to use after unsatisfactory ones.

Writing that Works (2003). Articles>Writing>Interviewing

How to Get a Job in Academia

The process leading up to your first faculty job is almost guaranteed to be a nerve-racking ordeal. Many applicants don't know how to make a good first impression. It is common--and reasonable--to question whether you have the right set of skills and credentials for a particular faculty job. Whether at a large research-intensive university on the West Coast or a small teaching college in New England, the recruitment process is much the same all across the country.

Fazekas, Andrew. Science (2006). Careers>Interviewing>Academic

How to Interview and Hire People

Before you worry about interviewing, consider this: good interviewing does not make a good candidate out of a bad one. The higher the quality of the people coming in to your interviewing process, the higher the quality of those that will come out of it. Do not rely on HR or some other person to decide who enters the process. The more energy you, as a hiring manager, invest in recruiting, the better your results will be.

Berkun, Scott. ScottBerkun.com (2006). Careers>Interviewing>Management

How to Interview Subject Matter Experts  

While technical writers may interview subject matter experts on a daily basis to gather information for a project, very few training courses address how to conduct these interviews. Singer's article provides suggestions.

Singer, Warren. Intercom (2007). Articles>Interviewing>SMEs

Information Gathering for Policies and Procedures  

Information gathering can be one of the most timeconsuming and potentially frustrating experiences when writing policies and procedures. Policy and procedure writers sometimes start from scratch and must investigate and research policies and procedures before the first word is ever written. Although there are many obstacles to obtaining accurate and timely information, there are also many avenues the policy and procedure writer can take to gather, utilize, and maintain information.

Dodwell, Christine. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Interviewing>Documentation>Policies and Procedures

Informational Interviews

Informational interviewing, a.k.a. networking, is a very effective way to learn and make contacts, in not just technical writing, but any field you are considering as a career option.

Blair, Jennifer. STC West Coast Canada. Careers>Interviewing

Interview Any User About Any Subject

To invite users to provide knowledge that informs your readers, you can try different approaches. In a small company, meeting with users is more informal: you can stop by and casually ask a few questions, rather than hold a more extended interview. When you’re speaking with an expert, tailor your conversation to that person. To establish rapport with a reluctant or skeptical source, try asking a specific question about a certain computer function. Or ask a general question on a broad function. Once the expert is talking, then you can pose more specific questions.

Strickland, Charlene J. TC-FORUM (1997). Articles>Interviewing

Interview Basics

There are four parts to any interview: Opening (small talk), information giving, information taking, and conclusion. Before you go into an interview, know your: job strengths (writing, media contacts); managerial strengths (organized); personal strengths (energetic); weaknesses.

Raperto, Marie. IABC (2006). Careers>Interviewing

Interview Checklist

When you sit down with the hiring manager, that's the point where you see if this is really what you want and they see if you are what they want. If you prepare yourself ahead of time, you'll do well. You can find a wealth of information on the Internet about interviewing. The following is a checklist of items to consider in preparing yourself, during the interview and follow up after the interview.

Young, Rich. IABC (2006). Careers>Interviewing