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To find great remote employees, prioritize candidates with strong writing skills

youteam.io

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Re: To find great remote employees, prioritize candidates with strong writing skills

#71

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

BeetleB wrote: post #63
hodgesrm wrote: post #11

I've been working on remote teams for almost 20 years. The key to success is overcommunicating. In other words--don't assume people have full context or share assumptions. Write emails that lay out assumptions explicitly and detail problems completely. As a manager I sometimes feel like a Habsburg bureaucrat buried in the Chancery offices sending painstaking messages to a far flung empire. Come to think of it, remote…

As a manager, you can probably get away with this. As an IC, people rarely read my emails if it doesn't fit in their screen (so 3 paragraphs is the max). The only thing I've found that works is to send details, and then probe the recipient on each important item in there to make sure they understood what I wrote. If I'm too detailed, they will get lost. If I'm very concise (but still complete ), they'll misinterpret.…

Put your ask at the top, don't be afraid to use bullet points, keep things short and sweet. Most things can be effectively communicated in 2 or 3 paragraphs - if you need to communicate more than this, send it in a follow-up email after they respond. If you need to communicate more than this, you should really set up a quick call to communicate the thing and ensure they understand, then send the long email afterward.

Re: To find great remote employees, prioritize candidates with strong writing skills

#72

Post by irrational »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #64
irrational wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But, when it's that long, do people read it? It seems like a great CYB tactic, but maybe a poor communication tactic. I'm a voracious reader, but when it comes to most corporate communication I won't really read anything over a paragraph long. I might skim it if it is from my manager. Maybe.

If everyone in a corporation is unwilling to read more than a paragraph of a colleague's thoughts, it's amazing anything of any remote complexity is able to be produced by collaborative software organizations. Unless it's one guy in a corner, talking to nobody.

> it's amazing anything of any remote complexity is able to be produced by collaborative software organizations. Unless it's one guy in a corner, talking to nobody.

Honestly, I have seen this happen so many times that I rather suspect it is fairly common.

Re: To find great remote employees, prioritize candidates with strong writing skills

#73

Post by adamnemecek »

spirobel wrote: post #70
adamnemecek wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The part where he says that writing matters for remote work. Like these types of articles tend to pop up in different contexts but it's always vague. I'm drawing on the experience that people in Germany don't talk about the importance of writing as much.

Can you speak German? I mean seriously, talk to any German boomer and he will tell you about correct orthography. Its his favorite topic.

Yeah I can. Orthography is different from writing.

Re: To find great remote employees, prioritize candidates with strong writing skills

#74

Post by sjy »

sandGorgon wrote: post #25

How do you interview for developers with strong writing skills? Do you give a writing assignment, etc

I’ve submitted job applications that asked me to include a writing sample, and have also asked job applicants to edit a page of bad writing riddled with errors, for positions where writing or editing skills were important.

Re: To find great remote employees, prioritize candidates with strong writing skills

#75

Post by sjy »

adamnemecek wrote: post #40
daenz wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a strange comment. >this fetishization What part of Mr Tien's post implies that he fetishizes writing? I read it twice, the logic behind prioritizing writing skills in a remote-first world is reasonable. Why is it suddenly a fetish? >I don't think that people say this for example in Germany. What experience are you drawing this statement from? Are you saying people in Germany don't prioritize good writing ski…

The part where he says that writing matters for remote work. Like these types of articles tend to pop up in different contexts but it's always vague. I'm drawing on the experience that people in Germany don't talk about the importance of writing as much.

That’s interesting. Have you had similar professional experience in both English and German-speaking workplaces? I would have expected a greater emphasis on good writing in European countries with more multilingualism.

Re: To find great remote employees, prioritize candidates with strong writing skills

#76

Post by 3pt14159 »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #71
BeetleB wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a manager, you can probably get away with this. As an IC, people rarely read my emails if it doesn't fit in their screen (so 3 paragraphs is the max). The only thing I've found that works is to send details, and then probe the recipient on each important item in there to make sure they understood what I wrote. If I'm too detailed, they will get lost. If I'm very concise (but still complete ), they'll misinterpret.…

Put your ask at the top, don't be afraid to use bullet points, keep things short and sweet. Most things can be effectively communicated in 2 or 3 paragraphs - if you need to communicate more than this, send it in a follow-up email after they respond. If you need to communicate more than this, you should really set up a quick call to communicate the thing and ensure they understand, then send the long email afterward.

Using checkboxes in GitHub issues is my secret weapon. There is no way to mark an issue as done or glaze over the details that way. Checklists in general are a great thing. I wish there was a startup that made community sourced checklists for common tasks like opening up a PR or writing an email asking for a raise.

Re: To find great remote employees, prioritize candidates with strong writing skills

#77

Post by JoshuaDavid »

BeetleB wrote: post #63
hodgesrm wrote: post #11

I've been working on remote teams for almost 20 years. The key to success is overcommunicating. In other words--don't assume people have full context or share assumptions. Write emails that lay out assumptions explicitly and detail problems completely. As a manager I sometimes feel like a Habsburg bureaucrat buried in the Chancery offices sending painstaking messages to a far flung empire. Come to think of it, remote…

As a manager, you can probably get away with this. As an IC, people rarely read my emails if it doesn't fit in their screen (so 3 paragraphs is the max). The only thing I've found that works is to send details, and then probe the recipient on each important item in there to make sure they understood what I wrote. If I'm too detailed, they will get lost. If I'm very concise (but still complete ), they'll misinterpret.…

I've found it useful to distinguish between the times I'm asking for something, and the times I'm documenting something.

When asking a question, lead with the question, and put only the bits you need to clarify your question underneath. For these communications, the shorter you can make it, the better.

When writing documentation, you're writing for the future, and should aim for completeness rather than full comprehension immediately -- you want something people can look back at later when they're not clear on something, rather than something that your reader will read in one sitting and remember flawlessly. Your reader isn't going to be able to retain that much stuff.

If you absolutely need your reader to understand some points, I recommend keeping the points as short as possible, and also to your point, asking a question that requires them to have understood what you wrote (e.g. "people who signed up before this date will be grandfathered in, so may see different rates than new customers. Are you aware of any marketing material which might give conflicting information? " -- the answer is probably "no", but in the course of answering that question, they had to understand what you were saying, and as a bonus if the answer is "yes" you've avoided a problem before it happened).

Re: To find great remote employees, prioritize candidates with strong writing skills

#78

Post by adamnemecek »

sjy wrote: post #75
adamnemecek wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The part where he says that writing matters for remote work. Like these types of articles tend to pop up in different contexts but it's always vague. I'm drawing on the experience that people in Germany don't talk about the importance of writing as much.

That’s interesting. Have you had similar professional experience in both English and German-speaking workplaces? I would have expected a greater emphasis on good writing in European countries with more multilingualism.

I have comparable experience consuming media's interacting with people and such. Or maybe there could be less emphasis on writing since you can't reach as many people.

Re: To find great remote employees, prioritize candidates with strong writing skills

#80

Post by soneca »

I believe I am a good writer. On my first job as a developer I kept getting very positive feedback on my writing. I ended up even starting a newsletter with writing advice for software developers[0].

So 4 months ago I started looking for a remote job. I applied to 250+ positions. All very suited to my skills (e.g. I wouldn’t apply to any job asking for “senior” or “fullstack”). I got about only ~15 interviews, 1 offer.

The message is that I believe strong writing skills won’t help you get a job. It will help you a lot once you start the job, but I don’t believe it helps at all at being hired.

Things that I do believe help you get hired: a well-written CV, a CS degree, a top-branded college, a top-branded former employer, a good public sample of your code (open source, side-project, etc), interview skills (be calm, articulate, charming, clear explanations and thought process), practice at technical interviews of the specific type of the positions you are applying to.

My advice is to practice your writing skills after you get a job, not before.

[0] https://writingfordevelopers.substack.com

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