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When I write my job descriptions, unless I believe that knowledge of a
particular tool is essential and learning that tool OTJ is impractical (very
rare occurrence), I always say "or equivalent" to indicate that comparable
knowledge should be acceptable. However, I find that HR and third party
recruiting screeners are often not sufficiently familiar with tools to know what
is "equivalent," and I must concentrate on briefing them about what
*capabilities and experience* I need rather than giving them a keyword list of
tools.
If you can somehow break through the HR/recruiter wall to the hiring manager,
either of the choices you are considering should do the job. If not, I would
probably just say "three years experience in online help authoring" and let it
go at that, because if the screener hasn't been properly briefed by a hiring
manager who's considering equivalent experience, saying anything more probably
isn't going to help no matter how you do it.
Gene Kim-Eng
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tech Writer" <tech-writer -at- live -dot- com>
> Sometimes I come across job openings which require a specific skill, such as
> RoboHelp experience, and I have a comparable skill, such as EC Help & Manual.
> I'm guessing others have had this experience with applications such as
> Captivate vs Camtasia and others.
>
> I want to comment on this in my cover letter; however, I'm not sure how to do
> this without calling too much attention to it.
>
> Should I simply state "I have three years experience in online help authoring
> using EC Software Help & Manual--an application which is very similar to
> RoboHelp." Or should I continue to discuss how quickly I pickup new software
> applications, self-study, and/or webinars?
Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help
2009 tips, tricks, and best practices. http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/
Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/
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