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While I appreciate your experience (and had plenty of similar nightmares as
a hiring manager), I have to tell you that neither writing courses nor STC
membership are any guarantee of quality candidates. I'm sure you'll get an
earful of pro/con STC membership to your post (or if you care to read what's
been said in the past, scan through the archives).
I had one "technical writing" class on my college transcript (taken to fill
the English credits required for my major), and only joined STC a year or so
ago when I took a job with an employer who was willing to cover the
membership fees. By your current interview criteria, I would have been
ineligible for most of my TW career (15 yrs.), and only marginally qualified
now.
Bottom line: In this market, anyone/everyone who thinks they're a tech
writer will respond to your ad. Unfortuantely, that means you have to sift
through the dregs to find the quality candidates.
I may have become biased, or just smarter, but I decided I will only
interview people with writing courses and who are members of STC or a
writing association. I interviewed two people that just graduated from a
professional writing degree program, and I could see a huge positive
difference in their writing samples. They were great writing samples.