Here are the details of Akron trip yesterday:
I left the house around 8:45 and found the area easily, about five traffic lights between here and there. Ran into Burger King to get a cup of tea, then arrived at the Virtual Hold Technology office at 9:55.
The HR person with whom I had spoken previosly came out to greet me, then the marketing and PR manager came to escort me to the conference room. On the conference table was an open laptop. He said he had a task for me before we began talking.
I sat at the laptop and the manager walked in with a "thumb drive". Fortunately, I have a highly technical son who keeps me up-to-date on the latest technology. I got my first thumb/flash/USB drive about a year ago, so knew exactly what to do. I suggested to the manager that that was the first part of the test, whether a person knew what a thumb drive was and where to plug it in.
On the drive were a photo and a Word doc. The Word doc instructed the reader to write a marketing document for external and internal use describing a red Swingline stapler. (Did you see "Office Space?") The manager then brought in a red Swingline stapler that matched the photo on the drive and told me I had 30 minutes to complete this task.
This task was akin to many tasks I've had before, even back to my very first programming class, where one has to describe in detail how to do something and doesn't know the education level or knowledge base of the reader.
My very first similar programming exercise—in 1981, I think—was to tell someone how to get in a car parked at the curb. How does the person get out of the house? Is there a sidewalk out to the curb? Does he know what a door is? Does he know what a key is? Is the car locked? The questions are innumerable. In some of these exercises, you just have to say, "for the purposes of this exercise, we will assume . . . ."
I discussed the number of papers one might reasonably staple with the model 747, and said there were other stapler sizes for other tasks.
I struggled for about three minutes, then started in with an introduction, then how to check and make sure the stapler was loaded with staples, then how to pick up and straighten the papers to be stapled, then how to position the papers under the top, then push down and staple. Then I covered two possible errors, one were the staple didn't bend correctly and needed to be removed, and one where the stapler had run out of staples.
Finished with a short paragraph promoting Swingline staplers and inviting the reader to visit www.swingline.com to view the entire product line.
Proofread a couple of times, changed the margins so it would fit on the required one page, and saved to the drive. Then the manager walked in. Whew.
He took the drive and the laptop and the red stapler out to his cubicle and said he'd be right back. A couple of minutes later he walked in with the marketing administrator. I handed him my latest copy of my resume, telling him it was newly-stapled with the red stapler. He looked at the staple and said, "That doesn't look like a Swingline staple. That looks like the Xerox machine stapled it. Are you sure?" I laughed and said I had used my resume to test my description of how to staple.
He looked at my sample and said he couldn't have produced that many words in 30 minutes. He also asked me if it was market-ready. I replied, "As much as it can be in 30 minutes." He asked why I hadn't put a photo on it, that people like to see photos in marketing materials. I slapped my forehead and said, "Oh, that's why that photo was on the drive!"
The three of us talked for about half an hour. How would I go about gathering information from the programmers? What jobs in my background had been strictly technical writing? How had I gathered the information in those jobs? Programmers can be eccentric; how would I gather information from someone who didn't want to or didn't know how to share his thoughts? And on and on.
When they had exhausted their questions, they went out and a few minutes later the director of marketing came in. More similar questions. After 20 minutes with him, he departed and the development director (boss of all the programmers) came in. He wanted to know if I understood why he would have an interest in determining who would be hired for the tech writer position. More questions about how to gather information from programmers. Then we were finished and he departed to get the HR person to come in and sell me on the company. Fabulous benefits. Ten days vacation plus the week between Christmas and New Year's. Personal time. Sick time. No limit on sick time, just stay home and don't make the people in the cubicles around you sick. Five bucks a pay period gets you a full membership to the gym around the corner. Good bonuses at the end of each year. And on and on.
When she was finished, the manager walked me out and said they expected to make a decision by the middle of next week.
I'm very impressed with this company. I have always loved the prestige of saying I worked for IBM. I believe this is a company that I could brag about similarly. It has been voted one of the best companies to work for in Ohio.
I would prefer not to have that drive, but I want to be up here and if they offer me a decent salary (in my mind, at least 10% above what I'm making now), I'll grab the job. However, if Turning Technologies offers me a position in Youngstown, probably at the same salary I'm at now, but hopefully higher, I would give that position preference.
Now I'm in the wait-and-see phase, hoping the two companies reach their decision simultaneously so I don't have to make Virtual Hold hold (little play on words - get it?) while I wait for Turning to make their decision.
Stay tuned. Now I gotta go make breakfast for a sweet little four-year-old girl.
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