One of the writers at work left recently, and today we’re interviewing for his replacement. This brings back memories of last year about this time when we were interviewing to grow out team by one writer.

That outcome… Let’s put it politely and say the person we hired proved incompatible with the team and the work. The approximately sixty days she spent with us remain indelibly etched in my memory.

Needless to say, we want to — have to — do better this time. I found in the last interview that I’m really terrible at judging people. I assume the best and just cannot tell when they’re a bad fit. I hope this time I’ll learn from the mistakes of last time and judge more accurately.

This time I’m also excited to get a little more time on my own with the candidate. I plan to do a little role playing, giving the candidate a chance to interview me as a SME about how to use a feature of an unfamiliar software product. Then I’ll give the candidate some time to write sample documentation. I want to see if the candidate interviews me well and documents the “why,” as well as how they organize the information. Should be fun… For me.

Bwahaha.