Technical Editor Interview Questions And Answers

☛ before the author writes anything
☛ during the first draft
☛ after the first draft
☛ after the second draft
☛ after the author has completed all of the writing he or she can do

I've had many such experiences. I've had one author enthusiastically accept my suggestion for naming a concept he had misnamed; my proposed name will has entered the research literature and may become standard jargon in his field. It's always satisfying when I can identify problems with an author's research, propose a solution, and see that solution adopted in their future writing; that happens fairly often. I always try to teach authors how to do things better, and the ones who learn from my teaching and become better writers are an ongoing source of pleasure. Word of mouth referrals to friends and colleagues are the highest possible compliment.

Good content writers should start by asking questions and doing research. Who is their target audience? What are the goals of this project? Look out for writers who say they “just start writing.”

Give candidates an opportunity to show their passion for their work. It should be fairly easy to get a driven candidate excited about technical communications. This question can also help determine whether the position’s needs line up with the candidate’s areas of expertise and enthusiasm.

My work is almost exclusively with ESL writers these days, most in Japan and China but from pretty much all continents except Antarctica. To cooperate effectively with them, I've worked hard to learn about their culture and language, and always keep that in mind as I work. In addition, I work hard to revise and simplify my explanations, questions, and comments so that they will be easier to understand, explain more about what I've done, and go the extra mile to avoid embarrassing anyone; "face" is far more important in Japan and China than it is in the West, so avoiding direct criticism is very important indeed. I once spent half an hour trying to come up with wording that would tell the author he'd missed something that any reasonably educated undergraduate should have known without communicating the message "you're an idiot". I succeeded well enough in sparing him this embarrassment before his colleagues that he subsequently included my suggestions on this topic in his future research.

_____No, I don’t provide a cover letter/cover memo/cover email.
__X___Yes, I do. It typically contains (select all that apply):
______A reminder of which document I worked on
______One or more compliments
______A prioritized list of what the author needs to do
______My contact information
______Other:____X____________________________

The first time I return a manuscript to an editor (exclusively by e-mail these days), I practice expectations management: I remind them that I edit heavily for all my authors, and that we must work together to produce the final result. I don't remind them what document I worked on, other than in the subject line of an e-mail message; this is obvious when they open the Word file. I don't generally provide direct compliments, since after seeing a page drenched in red ink (or the track changes equivalent), that would seem deceptive at best. My comments are always designed to be helpful rather than critical, and the extent of my engagement with the authors thoughts (as made tangible in the document) makes it clear that I enjoyed reading it and spent time thinking about it. Authors really do appreciate that. My comments embedded in the manuscript explain what the author needs to do; I don't provide any additional advice on priorities unless something truly merits special attention and requires repetition to reinforce that need. Contact information is always there at the bottom of the e-mail as standardized boilerplate.

Let candidates explain some of their projects from the past five years or so. You want to listen for how these projects match up to yours, but also get a feel for how thoroughly the candidates explain the project. Do they demonstrate a thorough understanding of the project’s needs? Do they effectively explain the purpose of the material? What tools and skills did they apply?

Good, very good, excellent, and/or positive _______
Cooperative, collaborative, and/or helpful ______
Respectful and/or professional _______
Good and bad _____
Negative_____
Other:_________X__________________________

All of the above. I aim for respectful and collaborative, and go out of my way to help, but some authors don't like to be edited and the relationship becomes at best professional, and sometimes strained. But on the whole, most of my 300+ clients are very pleased with how hard I work to help them get published, and return time and again for more of my work. Some are enthusiastically friendly after we've worked together for a while; one tries to teach me Spanish, another Italian, several Chinese. Some even keep me posted about life events and how they spent their holidays.

I have a set of standard terms for my clients that describes what I'll do. I start my relationship by providing much more explanation of what I've done and why than I will do for long-term clients, with the goal of helping the new client learn to trust my judgment (i.e., that I have reasons for what I'm doing rather than being arbitrary) and feel that they're in good hands. I explicitly remind them that editing is a cooperative and consensual process, and that the goal is to work together, not to play power games over who gets to make the final decision on whether a change is necessary. I emphasize that as the reader's advocate, anything I failed to understand is likely something other readers will also fail to understand; thus, it's better to work together to find a solution we both like than to leave a problem for readers to solve.

I rarely have time to read fully through a manuscript before beginning my work, even though I work almost exclusively on shorter manuscripts (shorter than 10K words; all are journal articles or scientific and technical monographs). I always perform two passes through a manuscript: In the first pass, I fix all the substantive problems (logic, organization, clarity) and most of the minor copyediting details along the way. During that pass, I also insert many comments and questions asking for clarification. I then set the manuscript aside overnight so I can return to it with a different perspective for a second pass. If I don't have that much time (rush jobs are common), I still try to set it aside for at least an hour to accomplish the same effect. During that second pass, I tidy up my initial work and fix any errors I missed or introduced during the first pass.
This approach (at least two passes) is standard for all experienced editors (of which I know a great many). I sometimes do an additional pass if my initial edits require considerable work by the author; that final pass ensures that the author has responded correctly and adequately to all my queries and gives the results a final polish.

☛ What guidelines or materials are you typically given to begin a project like [this work sample]?
☛ What process did you go through to develop [this work sample?]
☛ Who else did you work with to develop [this work sample]? What did they do?
☛ How much time did it take to complete [this work sample]?
☛ How do you know when a project is complete?
☛ Describe one of your more successful pieces. How do you define success?

☛ Can you tell what interests you about being a Technica Editor?
☛ Was there any situation when your client or project stakeholders gave negative feedback? Can you tell how did you handle this situation?
☛ Explain a recent technical editing project that you have worked on.
☛ Mention the measures that you take to enhance your technical editing expertise.
☛ Name the software tools that you usually use.
☛ Explain your role in developing project timelines.
☛ Can you tell me how quickly you learn to use a new tool?
☛ How many years of experience do you hold with interviewing subject matter experts?
☛ What is your approach in offering constructive criticism?
☛ Can you tell me by what means you find technical writers for your team?
☛ How would you encourage your team to meet tight deadlines?

☛ Challenges faced during information gathering?
☛ List of publication tools you have worked?
☛ Different between Ms Word and Framemaker?
☛ Different between Structured Framemaker and Unstructured Framemaker?
☛ Different between XML and HTML?
☛ Can you explain me the process involved in DDLC?
☛ Can you explain me the process involved in SDLC?
☛ How do DDLC and SDLC work parallel?
☛ How do you estimate time for documentation?
☛ What is topic based authoring?
☛ How do you interview SME’s?
☛ Challenges faced during interviewing SME’s?
☛ Have you worked on UML? or What is UML (Unified Modeling Language)?
☛ Have you worked on Video Editing? (Ex: Camtasia)
☛ Could you show me your sample documents?
☛ Different between active voice and passive voice?
☛ Different between which and that?
☛ Different between its and it’s?
☛ Different between there and their?
☛ Types of clauses? What is restrictive clause and non-restrictive clause?
☛ Types of commas?
☛ What do you mean by callout?
☛ What process do you follow for translation?
☛ Overview on Robohelp and MS Word?
☛ What is text conditioning?
☛ Review process involved in technical writing?
☛ Different between User Manual and User Guide?
☛ Have you worked on API documentation? (Only asked, if the project is related to API Documentation).
☛ Have you published any article?
☛ When do we use Organise and Organize?
☛ Different between your and you’re?

☛ How would you rate your writing skills? (Ask for an example that demonstrates great writing skills.)
☛ Share an experience in which you successfully shared a difficult piece of information. (Make sure that the candidate has open lines of communication.)
☛ Tell me how you organize, plan, and prioritize your work.
☛ Share an experience when you applied new technology or information in your job. How did it help your company?
☛ Give me an example of when you thought outside of the box. How did it help your employer?
☛ In your experience, what is the key to ensuring your company was compliant with all laws, regulations and standards that were applicable to your area of responsibility?
☛ Share an example of a time you had to gather information from multiple sources. How did you determine which information was relevant?
☛ Name a time when you identified strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions to problems. What was the impact?
☛ Please share an experience in which you presented to a group. What was the situation and how did it go?
☛ Provide an example of a time when you were able to demonstrate excellent listening skills. What was the situation and outcome?
☛ Share an experience in which your attention to detail and thoroughness had an impact on your last company.
☛ Provide a time when you worked in a rapidly evolving workplace. How did you deal with the change? (Make sure the candidate is flexible.)
☛ How do you balance cooperation with others and independent thinking? Share an example. (Try to determine if the candidate has a cooperative attitude or is otherwise good-natured.)
☛ Share an experience you had in dealing with a difficult person and how you handled the situation.

☛ What interests you about being a technical editor for our industry?
☛ What measures do you take to improve your technical editing expertise?
☛ In as much detail as possible, describe a recent technical editing project you worked on.
☛ What software tools do you typically use?
☛ How quickly can you learn to use a new tool?
☛ What’s your role in developing project timelines?
☛ How much experience do you have with interviewing subject matter experts?
☛ How do you find talented technical writers for your team?
☛ What’s your approach to providing constructive criticism?
☛ How do you motivate your team to meet tight deadlines?
☛ Describe a time your client/project stakeholders gave you negative feedback. How did you handle it?

☛ How do you start off a new project?
☛ What is the difference between content and copy?
☛ Which operating systems and tools do you work on?
☛ How do you proofread your content?
☛ Which blogs do you follow on a regular basis?
☛ What type of technical writing projects have you previously delivered?

☛ Can you please walk me thru your CV? (The interviewer can interrupt you, and ask you the question based on the information provided on your CV).
☛ Can you tell me about yourself?
☛ Why did you choose technical writing as your career?
☛ Have you done any certification course?
☛ What are the challenges faced by technical writer?
☛ Can you explain me the workflow of your current organization?
☛ What made you to hunt for a new job?
☛ Are you comfortable working extra hours?
☛ What are your achievement as a tech writer in your present organization?
☛ How will you add value to our organization?
☛ Different between CV and Resume?

_____Yes, always.
_____Yes, usually but not always.
_____Sometimes, 50/50.
_____Yes, occasionally.
__X___No, never.

Rarely to never. My philosophy is that I won't make a change unless it's necessary, and that it's the author's job to make those changes; if they disagree, they must decide whether I was simply wrong (that happens) or whether I'm right but they don't like the proposed solution. In the latter case, we work together to find a mutually satisfactory compromise.

You want to make sure the content writer understands how their work aligns with your business strategy. Good answers might include the following: “Good content should inform and engage readers,” or “Good content drives clicks, pageviews, unique visitors, etc.”

This question is designed to give you a sense of how thoughtful a content writer is. Good writers should think both about the audience they’re writing for and also what the goal of the project is.

_____Yes, I always compliment authors.
_____Yes, I usually compliment authors, but not always.
_____Sometimes I compliment authors and sometimes I comment only on what needs to be improved (50/50).
_____Yes, I occasionally compliment authors, but more often I only comment on what needs to be improved.
___X__No, I never compliment authors; I only comment on what needs to be improved.

As noted above, I rarely compliment authors. However, I will often insert suggestions on points of interest that I feel would be worthy of additional exploration, whether in the present manuscript or a future one. It's always a pleasure to see that future manuscript written, though it's not always because of my advice. As an author myself, I appreciate kind words from an editor (Avon Murphy is a master of the art), but given how heavily I edit, I find it hard to write an overt compliment that would not seem deceptive or pro forma. The risk of jeopardizing my relationship with an author by being seen as untrustworthy is too high for me to scatter random compliments just to ease the sting of being edited.

1. Dividing to my time with dead lines.
I like to set a time limit on myself in which I must complete directly at or before that time limit. By putting a time limit on myself, i'm putting pressure on myself and I work well under pressure.
I generally identify and understand the team and the delegate work according to their capabilities.

One of the most frequent issues our staffing clients have experienced before coming to us is invisible technical writers. Strong candidates work closely with teams to develop accurate and effective communication, rather than staying isolated in an office. Get a feel for how well your candidate will work with your team.

Yes. If yes, please describe your company’s procedure:

I work as a freelancer, so my procedure is my own. Even when I was a wage slave, I didn't use any levels of edit approach because I believe (and teach, when I teach editing) that as an editor, it's my responsibility to do whatever is required to produce a manuscript the author can be proud of and that the audience will understand. When time is constrained, I use triage as the basis for my levels of edit: I focus on the crucial problems (the ones that will kill understanding) before working on the merely important ones (the ones that will only impede understanding), and lastly I remove the blemishes (things worth fixing but that won't impede or kill understanding) if time permits. Most "levels of edit" systems I'm familiar with don't understand the importance of triage.

Every great writer has his or her own unique voice, but in the case of content writers, you want to make sure their voice aligns with your brand. Good candidates should familiarize themselves with the existing copy on your site and be able to speak confidently about it.