Re: Testing

[Howard Gold <howardg -at- SAVVY -dot- COM>]

In response to:
> -> their writing skills.  But I found an another simple way to judge
> -> someone's writing skills, we look VERY Carefully at their
> -> resume.....how is it formatted, does it read easy, is it informative,
> -> is it easy on the eyes, can I pick out the relevant information
> -> easily...etc.


on Mon, 6 Mar 1995, Gwen Barnes wrote:

> All that shows you is that the prospective employee got their money's
> worth from the professional resume writers. I suspect a lot of cover
> letters are ghostwritten as well.

Ok. A show of hands. How many of you have resumes or cover letters that
were ghosted? I thought so (hoping there are not many). The resume and
cover is not our total being as writers, but offers a taste of our
background and style. We've all seen awful resumes from profrssional tech
writers -- and there are a lot of awful tech writers. The argument here
seems to presume that since *we* are all good at our jobs, then all
writers are good at their jobs, too.

The feeling seems to be that a _bad_ writer is a reflection on
all of us. The feeling that a test is intrinsically insulting may be
true, but employers have a big pond from which to fish. If their bait is
an empty hook (accepting our resumes and cover letters and our samples),
that's great. If they want to to test our skills, that may be okay, too,
as long as the test is a fair representation of the environment in which
we'll be working if offered the job _and_ the test has relevance and
integrity.

Besides, in an interview I have been asked how I formnatted my resume and
how I created the docs in my sample book. No one who is using ghjosted
work will pass the oral interview, much less the written test. Even if
their personality is *just fab-u-lous*.

-Howard Gold    howardg -at- savvy -dot- com