I pray for anyone that is going to work at this place for a number of reasons. There are just so many things wrong and, to be blunt, shitty, about this ad.
To start, the tools they use are all over the map. The job ad mentions:
- WordPress
- RoboHelp
- Dreamweaver
- Confluence
- Sharepoint
Then the ad lowers the 'boom' on the reader and states "experience with MS Word and other help-authoring tools" is also what they are seeking.
You might think I'm kidding?
No, I'm not.
- Experience with WordPress, RoboHelp, Dreamweaver, Confluence, and Sharepoint
They also want someone who can edit videos, work with HTML, XML, and CSS on top of all of that.
- Experience with image capture and basic video editing software
- Strong computer skills and an understanding of computer principles
- Experience with HTML, XML and CSS
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
- Experience with MS Word and other help-authoring tools.
Editor's Note: the period exists in the job ad but was formatted as bold for clarity
The choice is simple: add a period at the end of each phrase in the bulleted list or remove the period in the last item.
The following screen capture shows the absurd HTML source code for the screen capture below. I pasted it into Notepad - and you might notice when I took the screen capture, I hadn't saved the .txt file. My initial thought was "Why the hell would I want to save this garbage code?" until it occurred to me I can use it as a teaching hour for Alex, who is earning his Management Information Systems degree . . . and may need to troubleshoot this type of code in the future.
To be fair or at least less condescending than I was above, I don't consider this company to be at fault for the formatting issues that I see in the following screen capture. I do fault the company for not giving a shit about how they don't seem to care that their target audience - a professional technical writer - could react to seeing their job ad. The ad was posted a day ago. Is there not anyone in the company that verifies that their job ads look correct? I am not being mean when I say this, but even Alex would know there is something not right about the way the job ad looks. He may not be able to pinpoint the place in the HTML code to fix it, but he would look at it and say, "That's wrong."
On top of all I mentioned above, there are two more things I found insulting The first is their second bullet point:
3 years’ Technical Writing experience in a professional software development environment
Is there such a lack of basic punctuation exist at this company that they allow "years'" to be published?!?
The second is this phrase:
Please note: Assessment testing may be required for this position.
After all of the atrocities and writing errors, you're going to test me if I apply for this position?!? It would be very appropriate to be given the HTML source code for this ad and to say, "Fix this code." Any "assessment testing" that is trying to gauge a candidate's basic writing skills is an insult.
I am happy where I work and have no inclination to move to Denver, CO, to work for this company. Why would anyone want to work in such a disjointed situation?!?
