Using Wordpad to assess writing skills of a technical writer candidate

Jobs like journalism and technical writing require employers to assess a candidate's writing skills. While CVs and covering letters can be written by someone else, an on-the-spot test will definitely reveal the real writing skills of a candidate.

So, you go to an interview, and you are asked to write a test. The test will mostly consist of a few stupid grammar questions, followed by a question to write an essay, or rewrite a passage.

The biggest issue with such an approach is my poor handwriting. I do still keep notes, but the amount of writing done is pretty less. After a few minutes into the test, I really struggle to keep the words getting bigger and bigger on the answer sheet. Towards the end of the test, it gets really bad, with the letters getting bigger and fatter, and more sheets of paper required to completing the test.

In IT, innovation is the buzzword (Since I am writing a blog post, I am not expanding the abbreviation as per the guidelines in innumerable style guides). 

In a recent interview, somebody did a real innovation. I was saved from exhibiting my atrocious handwriting, by being asked to do the test "online".  This meant sitting in front of a wide monitor and typing answers. Even more innovative was the "tool" I was supposed to write.

The tool was "Wordpad!"

I really admire the thought pain behind such a decision. Wordpad will decide my writing skills in my 18th year as a poor middle class person interested in a writing career and the identity as a writer. I could not help laughing, but I completed the test happily.

Let me cut to 1996. There were no PCs, but there were DTP operators who were slowly setting shop. Internet cafes were very rare, and the old style typewriters still existed and were a safer bet. I started my writing career at that period, when Infosys was conducting interviews. It took me two more years to start using a computer and to start typing my reports in Microsoft Word. These reports were sent as fax messages to the magazine office in Delhi.

Even in 1998, DTP operators used to give "proofs" for corrections that were marked using a pencil or a pen. These proofs were printouts on the unused side of already used paper. I don't remember using the "Spelling and Grammar" feature of Microsoft Word till 2003, or later. For over seven years, I was using my understanding of grammar to send reports as a journalist. I was not castigated for my poor writing skills in the absence of Microsoft Word. And I did not replace or sell my brain to Microsoft Word to make my writing better. And I still refer to grammar books. And I still buy grammar and usage books.

The innovative use of Wordpad as the tool for the written test speaks volumes about so many things. Someone wanted to know whether Microsoft Word made me, my resume, and my written samples pretty good. The great Wordpad test was intended to find out whether I would still be a good writer without the aid of Microsoft Word. Either the disbelief in my quality of writing, or the pain to see me as a bad writer, prompted the trick to use Wordpad. There was no response from the written test organizer, so I assume they were happy with the test result.

Next time, someone can be more innovative. Invite me for a written test on multiple days, and give me the same questions and a couple of answer sheets. On different days, and on different hours of the day, test my writing skills.

There will be only one result: I will not be worse than the worst writer in your organization.