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

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

#211

Post by throwaway2245 »

capableweb wrote: post #143
thesz wrote: post #122

And I think it supports Dijkstra's argument [1]: "Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally good mastery of one's native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer." https://twitter.com/CodeWisdom/status/1318597850411008006

Not sure why it's "one's native tongue" and not "same language as the people you work with", as many of us hardly use our native language once we move away from the country we were born in, especially when talking about programming.

Considering that Dijkstra didn't consistently work in his native tongue (this is quoted from EWD498 which was written in English), this seems to be very much intentional.

I guess he meant: If you know how to formulate some concept efficiently in your native tongue, you can work out how to translate it into another [programming or human] language.

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

#212

Post by [deleted] »

alxlaz wrote: post #117
fn1 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried putting each important sentence on it's own paragraph? Just the important ones. That makes a difference in focus/readability. Try it.

After enough years in a corporate setting I can guarantee that this has the opposite effect, because it makes it even less likely for your email to fit on a screen so it just gets skipped.

[deleted]

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

#213

Post by JumpCrisscross »

user5994461 wrote: post #206
capableweb wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I applied to 250+ positions That sounds wrong. It's common, but it still sounds wrong to me. When I look for new jobs, I find a couple of companies (3-4) that match with what I'm looking for exactly, read up on the companies, tell them explicitly how I fit into what they need and write them personally. I have a 100% success rate when it comes to interviews, and most of the time I get a offer, but drop out when my c…

What is high quality applications supposed to mean? Most tech jobs are simply sending a resume and maybe filling a short form. There's no difference between applications.

> What is high quality applications supposed to mean? Most tech jobs are simply sending a resume and maybe filling a short form

A resume for the job. Sending the same resume every time skips an opportunity to sell yourself. It commoditises you.

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

#215

Post by JumpCrisscross »

benhurmarcel wrote: post #171
abdusco wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are detrimental to understanding. I hate them with a passion. I see people using acronyms without explaining them in context, which makes it even more difficult to understand what's written. Some terms are jargon and are probably ubiquitous in the field, but unless I'm reading a text written for the professionals working in that field, I'd much rather see it explained.

> unless I'm reading a text written for the professionals working in that field Most internal communication is made for professionals working in that field.

Acronyms have a habit of mutating. Groups using industry-standard acronyms tend to, in my experience, create their own acronyms faster than groups using jargon. It’s too easy to add another letter.

Spelling out acronyms in written communication while dropping them when spoken is a good middle ground. If an acronym-compatible phrase is used more than twice, it can be defined at use and then compressed. Though I keep track of how many acronyms I’m forcing the reader to juggle at a time.

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

#216

Post by capableweb »

throwaway2245 wrote: post #211
capableweb wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why it's "one's native tongue" and not "same language as the people you work with", as many of us hardly use our native language once we move away from the country we were born in, especially when talking about programming.

Considering that Dijkstra didn't consistently work in his native tongue (this is quoted from EWD498 which was written in English), this seems to be very much intentional. I guess he meant: If you know how to formulate some concept efficiently in your native tongue, you can work out how to translate it into another [programming or human] language.

> If you know how to formulate some concept efficiently in your native tongue, you can work out how to translate it into another [programming or human] language

Even with that it seems strange, as I don't think I'm alone with having a easier time formulating some concepts (especially programming) in my now main language, while sometimes I can barely make myself understood when speaking my mother tongue.

The view yowlingcat offers in another sibling comment makes more sense to me, to not parse Dijkstras comment as literally as I did.

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

#217

Post by grayclhn »

yodelshady wrote: post #173
Nevaeh wrote: post #81

How do you feel about acronyms? Do they improve or hurt communication? From time to time, Musk will send out an e-mail to the entire company to enforce a new policy or let them know about something that's bothering him. One of the more famous e-mails arrived in May 2010 with the subject line: Acronyms Seriously Suck: There is a creeping tendency to use made up acronyms at SpaceX. Excessive use of made up acronyms is…

Judging by that, Elon Musk is a seriously smart man. I've worked at places with that tendency, and he's described the issue well. Used too generously, acronyms make it impossible to gauge the complexity of the thing they're describing. Say that my system compromises a CCP, a SBS, and a RCS. That could mean "an afternoon and $1000" to "we need to build an entire supply chain". How do I begin to budget that, financiall…

If your budgeting process relies critically on the number of characters being a good proxy for the value of a service, I don’t think acronyms are the problem. :)

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

#218

Post by ghaff »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #213
user5994461 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is high quality applications supposed to mean? Most tech jobs are simply sending a resume and maybe filling a short form. There's no difference between applications.

> What is high quality applications supposed to mean? Most tech jobs are simply sending a resume and maybe filling a short form A resume for the job. Sending the same resume every time skips an opportunity to sell yourself. It commoditises you.

Not that I've applied to all that many jobs since school (a long time ago), I'm not sure I agree unless you're applying for materially different roles. I certainly agree that a cover letter should usually be customized. However, the downside of customizing a resume for each application is that it introduces the possibility of mistakes or at least less polishing. At the least it's a tradeoff.

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

#219

Post by VectorLock »

dehrmann wrote: post #101
VectorLock wrote: post #45

I'm really interested in finding resources to help my team members develop their writings skills. Tech skills are comparatively easy to find materials for, I think. At this point I think writing skills are so important it's the biggest priority for further their careers, given the level of technology experience they have.

> Tech skills are comparatively easy to find materials for, I think. Sorta, but most of the tech skills that are easy to find information on are closer to grammar and punctuation than to writing. Just like software development, the way you train people to write is have people write and, importantly, have people review and edit it.

While I agree that while application is a great way to learn most of the time when you go to school they don't just tell you "just keep doing a thing over and over" without any other kind of guidance or material.

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

#220

Post by seer »

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.…

You're totally right that you have to know your audience and cater to it. Technical writing still requires it.

What changed my perspective though is the book "Comedy Writing Secrets". It's a very different topic, but the general aspects of writing fun an engaging texts translate quite well.

One example I've seen it done brilliantly is the re-frame docs https://day8.github.io/re-frame/re-frame/ - I often point it to people as an example of technical writing so good, that its fun to read just for the sheer pleasure of it, regardless of whether one writes Clojure or not.

_why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby is also a famous example of this.

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