How would you resond to this interviewer?

[Beth Agnew]

I hear a tiny alarm bell ringing, but if you need/want the job, that may 
be irrelevant. If she really is only interested in the formatting, I 
wonder if the position isn't more about making some content gotten from 
somewhere just look acceptable. And does she really know what the 
position entails? She may appear to know, as the project lead, but we've 
all worked for employers who really didn't have clue one about what we 
can and should be doing for them. Given that it's a small company, it is 
even more likely that you could end up with responsibilities other than 
just content development. Are they going to expect you to format 
marketing collateral as well?

Suppressing your internal groan was probably the best response. The 
question is, how are you going to respond if they offer you the job?
--Beth

Beth Agnew, Professor
Co-ordinator, Technical Communication Program
Seneca College of Applied Arts & Technology
Toronto, ON.



Karen wrote:
> I was in an interview the other day and began to show the interviewer my portfolio. I explained that I had to sanitize some of the documents due to confidentiality agreements and couldn't show some of the "meat" of these programs that were in alpha and beta stages. Her response was that it didn't matter since she wasn't interested in the content, she was only interested in the formatting. To that, I responded that a few of the documents had to conform to corporate standards that we had to follow.
>    
>   I haven't had to interview is so long and I think I suppressed my internal groan. This position really is about developing content where none exists--not just editing and formatting existing documentation. 
>    
>   How would you have responded in this case? This is an extremely small company (less than 10 people) and she is leading the project so she knows what it the position really entails.