Inside Tech Comm with Zohra Mutabanna
Inside Tech Comm explores how technology, content, and the changing workplace are reshaping technical communication—and the people behind it. Through candid conversations with practitioners and thinkers, the show looks beyond tools and trends to examine how the work is evolving, how people are navigating that change, and what it means for the future of the profession.
Inside Tech Comm with Zohra Mutabanna
S2E3 Interview for Success: A Hiring Manager Perspective with David Owens
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Staying with the theme of Job Search and Career Advancement, David Owens dives deep to give us a hiring manager's perspective on what he looks for in a tech comm candidate for his team. If you think tech comm is all about writing manuals in a silo, then this interview may just open your eyes. The field is fast evolving if you have not noticed, and managers are interviewing to fill non-traditional tech comm roles. Are you game? If not, this conversation promises to give you some great tips on how you can and must pivot if you want to interview for success in a content role.
Some questions we touch upon:
- What are you looking for on your first scan of a resume as a hiring manager?
- What are hiring managers expecting to see in a candidate to fill a non-traditional tech comm role?
- Has the interview process changed given the pandemic and remote opportunities?
Guest Bio
David Owens is Director of Strategic Content Development at Blackbaud. This multidisciplinary team creates a wide variety of content to support an array of products and services. David believes in building modern skillsets that both help team members achieve their career goals and ultimately benefit Blackbaud customers.
As an information developer, David has created feature and API user assistance content in numerous formats for products ranging from an enterprise fundraising CRM application to shrink-wrapped, mass-market software and commercial hardware. David has written articles on topics such as single-sourcing and how to become a “technical” technical writer and is the co-author of “Madcap Flare for Programmers” published by XML Press.
Hello listeners. In season two, we get the scope on how you can build your resume, interview for success, and ultimately advance in your career. This is Inside Techcom with Zahra Mutabana. Let's get started. Hi David, how are you doing this afternoon?
SPEAKER_01I'm doing great, Zora. How are you?
ZohraI am doing fantastic. Thank you for so graciously accepting to be on my show. I'm really looking forward to this conversation.
SPEAKER_01Oh, thank you for having me on the show. I'm looking forward to it as well.
ZohraAbsolutely. So, David, please go ahead and introduce yourself.
SPEAKER_01Hello, everyone. I'm David Owens. I'm director of the strategic content development team at Blackbaud. Blackbod is a software company that helps nonprofits achieve their missions. I've been at Blackbod for over 20 years now in various roles, uh most around technical communication and technical content. I've also done many contract jobs over the years and written for magazines and some books. And I'm just very passionate about the topic of TechCom in general.
ZohraAll right. So, David, you have seen both sides and you've had quite a journey, looks like. You have been a writer and now you're on the other side where you are a hiring manager.
SPEAKER_01Yes, that's true. It's funny, when I first came to Blackbaud, even you know, 20 plus years ago, I wasn't, I really was interviewing at another company that was near Blackbod, and I was really intent on getting the job at the other company. Then I kind of went and it was uh not what I expected to be. I'm like, okay, maybe I don't want to work there after all side, so I'll go ahead and go to Blackbaud. And the the actually even then the interviewing process was great. The people I talked to were excited about the work they were doing and just walking through the building and seeing people at work was kind of energizing, and they offer me a job on the spot, and the rest is history.
ZohraAnd may I say that it's a blessing to all of us because we lucked out. We have you as our manager, a manager's manager, in fact.
SPEAKER_01Oh, thank you. Yeah, I appreciate that. And you know, the topic here being kind of the interviewing process for technical communication professionals and by whatever name the role is, whether it's UX writer or SDK writer or API specialist, uh, we we look for kind of a current set of skills and we interview folks. And we've got three great managers that work on our team, as well as some individual contributors that report to me and many others report to the other managers on the team. And I think uh, you know, one thing we strive for is when we're interviewing someone is to get a full picture of where they are, what they're looking for, what their skill set is, but also to give them an accurate picture of what we do, the things our team is interested in, and the kind of things we do and all the people we interact with during a given day.
ZohraUh that's great because this is a great pivot for us because that's right, we are going to talk about job search. That is the theme for the second season that I have launched. And the intention of this conversation, really, David, is for candidates to sort of understand what is going through the mind of the hiring manager, what is the process like on the other side? And that's what we're going to talk about. So I'm I'm really excited. You know, David, you did touch upon what uh sort of a brief insight into what the interview process looks like, but why don't you share with us, you know, when you get the resume first? I mean, what is what is what do you look for on your first scan of a resume?
SPEAKER_01That's a great question. Like a lot of times we'll have a posting for like, say, a senior technical writer. And some of the applications may be more junior, maybe some are like even beyond senior, like more principal writer level. But we we look for sort of of a common set of characteristics, like what has the growth pattern of someone's learning and knowledge been? Especially if somebody's just trying to get into the field. We look at like, okay, what have they done previously? Have they done some kind of content, not necessarily what we might think of as traditional tech content, but have they shown an interest in content and have they shown an interest in learning technical skills, maybe not even related to creating content? You know, we've recently had a couple of folks that come come to us through software boot camps. And in at least one case, prior to that, most of the candidates' experience was in as a teacher in the educational realm. But for somebody to take the time to go to a boot camp and then to come out the other side, having mastered the skills that you get even with a relatively short boot camp, those skills are right in line with what we're looking for from the modern tech writer, you know, scripting, front-end development as well as back end development. So so all those things we look for. So essentially we look for the candidate who shows that curiosity, wants to learn about tech, but also is a communicator, even if it's not necessarily what you consider a classical tech writing realm.
ZohraWow. I think probably you would be an outlier in that sense, or not an outlier, but more of a trail plazer, because that's sort of not the norm, I would say. Uh, and I will say that because I've interviewed with other companies where it's always what traditional skills you've had. So it's it's refreshing to know that you're looking for these emerging skills or something that is not the norm. Uh, that's encouraging actually.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think it's it's interesting that a lot of times, like sometimes if a candidate doesn't get the position we're we're looking for someone for, they'll ask for some follow-up. And some things I'll say that I see a good bit is when somebody has 20 years, say, let's say 20 years of of tech writing experience. And then when you dig in, it's it's really, you know, sometimes I say, yeah, this is 20 years experience, but it's really more like one year 20 times, or you know, two years, 10 times. There's they're not seeing any interest in some of the newer things. Like there's just some terminology that people should be at least aware of, even if haven't had a chance to practice it yet. Like UX writing, for example, you hear a lot about that these days if you're paying any attention in the tech com realm. Some places a role, some places it's a skill. With our team, we're developing it right now more of it as a skill, but I could see it being a role. So it's like we like to ask people about what have you heard about that? What do you know about it? Another big one is docs' code. That's kind of a standard thing that tech writers should know about these days, even if they've had a chance to use a docs' code workflow. People that have a genuine interest in the industry, or especially if they're getting into the industry and they're not into it in it yet, should have at least a passing knowledge of like, oh, I know what that is. It's a, you know, it's essentially it's a tool set that uses developer tools to encourage developers to participate. Plus, you can take advantage of the developer pipelines to publish your content, which is really all that boils down to. But it's always good if somebody says, Oh, yeah, I know what it is. Even if they're like, Well, I haven't had a chance to work with it. It's like, yeah, we understand. But again, it's just looking for that that interest and people are showing the desire to learn more all the time.
ZohraGot it. So, one question that comes to my mind is so, like, you know, going back to when you're scanning the resume for the first time, you know, you said that you have a role in mind. I'm curious, what would happen? Let's say, you know, you find this resume, it's really interesting, but you're trying to recruit for a senior role, but that resume doesn't probably match apart from the soft skills that you're looking for and that awareness about the field. Have you been in a situation where you have considered interviewing somebody who can grow into that role?
SPEAKER_01Oh, absolutely. And again, you know, maybe on the resume, there's not it's not calling out things like docs' code or whatever the case may be. And maybe somebody's like, I've done more marketing writing than tech writing, but we always look for like what are the intersectional points there? Because there are a lot between Marcom and Techcom. Previously, there was thought to be, oh no, one's here and one's on the other side, and never the twain shall meet. But as we seek to be more conversational and just trying to engage people with the content, and and we know like typically it's like people aren't going to go out of their way to read technical content. But on the other hand, if you're if you're structuring your content as as well as you possibly can, like our ideal situation is somebody consumes your content, gets through a process or learns what they needed to learn, and maybe they don't even know they consumed any content. If you were able to get it all in a consumable way in the UI or focusing on embedding content in just the right way. So somebody's kind of getting nudged along without having to stop and read a bunch of stuff. Now, in reality, it's like there are many times some of our software is complicated that somebody's gonna have to pause and read some things, maybe watch a video, or however we determine they're gonna need assistance. So, again, the idea there is like give someone just the amount of information they need to get through a process. If there's deeper information available, make sure it doesn't obscure the information that the 80% of the people want just to get through a process and run that report they need and be done and go home happy. So we look for people who have some sort of drive that, like, okay, they've they've created some kind of content, they've got some things they can show us that they've written, that they've created. Maybe again, maybe it doesn't have anything to do with TechCom. We had we have one person on our team who had a pretty solid work background, but not much of it was in the TechCom realm. But he did a lot of content about video games, video content, written content. Very impressed with that. So that coupled with the work experience, which was in the technical realm, just not the technical content. We're almost like, yeah, this person's gonna be great for the role. So a lot of times to get back to my previous point, if you have somebody who's like learning new things and eager to learn, then we're happy to help them grow into the role. They might be more receptive to learning new things than somebody who's used the same tool for 20 years or done things the same way or insist that TETCOM has to be dry and all that kind of stuff.
ZohraThere are some questions from students that we mentor or professionals that are trying to switch to TechCom. And because I'm the current president of the local STC chapter, I get to meet people who are switching fields. And the very thing that you just shared about, oh, this person has done something that may not be directly related to content, but they're showing this curiosity and the willingness to pivot and learn. And that I think sort of ties into any career changer out there who's, you know, listening to this podcast, can sort of take away from this interview is that how can you tie the two, whatever you've been doing with something that the role is looking for, and sort of bring those two fields together.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I totally agree. And it's interesting. Post-COVID, we're on a fully remote model now. Any any opening we're hiring for, if someone's near one of our offices and wants to go into an office on a regular basis, they can, but it's it's no longer, I think probably for most tech companies, it's we're no longer in that world. You can live anywhere and be on our team. So with that, as well as, you know, during COVID, lots of jobs being eliminated and stuff. We've just seen like every opening we put out there now, we get hundreds and hundreds of applicants. And the one thing that I always look for is like, what is that drive to create content that's that's showing? And so again, it could be somebody who's very junior, but maybe they've got some programm experience that they learn themselves. You know, I started with a Raspberry Pi and then I got interested in in OSs in general. Then that led to interest in scripting and whatever the case may be. And those are people that like we don't automatically say, oh, sorry, we're looking for an experienced tech writer. You don't have any specific tech writing experience. Generally, if we are looking for somebody more senior, we will try to get somebody who's got, you know, they've they've been in the software world, they've been part of agile teams, they understand how the software development process works. But usually we can work out bandwidth issues in such a way that we can bring somebody up to speed. And even if they're not super experienced creating content, help them learn along the way and wind up with somebody who's happy in the role they're in, and then we're ultimately happy with the work they're doing.
ZohraUh thanks, David. Thanks for shedding light on what that process looks like. I want to take a step back. You know, you talked about what the first scan of the resume looks like. Now we move on. Let's say you've, you know, you've liked a candidate and you would like to interview them, or rather, like the resume and you would like to interview them. Now, of course, I would be remiss if I did not mention that I went through that interview process with you and Colleen. And it was one of the most comfortable experiences that I had. You made me so comfortable. And I was so excited. I did not feel like I was being interviewed. From your perspective, can you share what that interview process you would want it to look like? And what are you looking for at that point in time?
SPEAKER_01Well, that's uh first of all, it's great to hear you say that. Of course, I love hearing that. I I think one of the things we strive for is when we're interviewing a candidate, we keep in mind they're also kind of interviewing us. They're they're like, Well, I want to work with this person every day. What am I hearing about the work? You know, what is my day-to-day going to be like, those kind of things. So to go back, kind of the the process, we go through the resumes and generally we could have our recruiters do it, but typically I and the and the other hiring managers like to look through them ourselves and we'll pick the candidates we're interested in. Then we have a process where we have them record some videos. It's through a piece of software called HireView. And there's a few questions we ask them about like what are some projects you've worked on, what are your favorite things you've worked on, maybe some least favorite kind of things like that. And you know, that's where we're also looking for like what kind of things have you done? And you know, we we even it's kind of open into what kind of content have you created, what are the various types? And so, based on that, we're like, oh yeah, we want to interview this person. So the we is generally the hiring manager and I interview. And depending on the time and the the specific role, meaning like which particular team, scrum teams, and which projects is this person gonna work on. We might have a couple of peers interview too, which is it's good for the peers to get a feel for like the skill sets we're bringing in or potentially gonna bring in, as well as the interviewee gets to work, talk to some people. It's like, okay, this person you know isn't gonna be my boss. So maybe I'll be more comfortable asking them questions in the interview process than I might be asking the person who ultimately I'd be working for or something like that. So with that, then we frequently it's challenging we to get down to one candidate because it's not that unusual have a several that are like they're all fantastic, but we settle on one and then talk to them and make an offer, and ideally they accept and come to work with us.
ZohraYes, and I will say this I'm very, very fortunate to be on the uh BlackBot team. Each member that I've worked with, I genuinely see the richness that they bring, especially with the different backgrounds that they have. Because you may not have all the skills that you're looking for, but having a team with a diverse background can complement each other.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I agree. It's like on our team, people have come from all different work backgrounds. Some people from the journalism world, some from the education and teaching world, some from like the software support worlds. You've got people again who have like very strong sort of engineering skills. And another thing I've always said is like being technical is never gonna hurt you as a technical communicator. Even early on when I was getting started, I remember there was a kind of movement that was like, oh, the less technical you are, the better you'll be because you're more closer to the users and you don't let your knowledge creep in and cloud what you should be documenting. I've never really agreed with that. I can see where there maybe people come from when they say that, but to me, the more technical you are, the better you're able to filter what someone needs or doesn't need. And if you're not technical enough to understand, hey, what an engineer is saying, that might go totally over your head and you might miss something that a user might need. And in order to put yourself in the shoes of your user, I think it's just a key technical communicator skill. And no matter how technical you are, you should be able to understand here's what my user needs and create content at that level.
ZohraYeah, I think I would probably agree with you that also it's sort of kind of from my view, having that domain expertise is is required because if you don't understand the domain, then how are you going to explain that? So I think you make a good case for why you should be technical.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I totally agree. And it's interesting, like I remember when you joined our team in particular, the work you did with the STC presenting at conferences, it's like that's a big thing for me. When somebody's done that, it shows because I I know how much work it is to do that. So when somebody's doing that and it's on their own time and more than likely on their own dime, that shows some true dedication there. And I've always felt like on my team, I've also always encouraged people to present at conferences. It's really a win-win-win across the board. It's like generally you get either a discounted or maybe they eliminate the fee for the conference itself. You definitely get the experience of presenting in front of a group of folks other than your own team or other people within your own company. It just helps get your name out there and it's just a positive thing. And also, I love it when people apply for roles at Blackbot and they're like, oh, I saw a presentation by someone at Blackbot and they were talking about, you know, whatever subject, or I read an article, or I remember a book, or whatever the case may be. It's like, I just think it's it's really a good thing across the board.
ZohraThank you, David. I really appreciate that.
SPEAKER_01So moving on, when the candidate has been hired, is there any sort of onboarding or training that you do for we're sort of in the process of making official our onboarding program, which means we're going to add some specific like LinkedIn learning classes and things for it? Right now, it's more we we schedule out the first two weeks for somebody. So here's what we would want you to do every day for the first two weeks. And beyond that, we have a lot of recorded sessions we've had within our team. We have some introductions to our department, which is the RD as well as the ops group that we like some people to watch just to see. Here's all the moving parts within the RDO organization. And we have a process at Black Bob where you have a buddy, quote unquote, assigned to you. And your buddy's raised to help you like navigate company matters, like, where do I go to find this or where who do I ask about that? And then we also have a mentor, which is somebody who's gonna help actively help you with your projects. And our MO has always been that whenever we bring somebody new in, we look to them to tell us when they're ready to run by themselves with the task. So being an agile scrum shop, typically we've got at least one scrum team we want to be part of pretty much immediately. Generally, each writer is going to be embedded and fully embedded in two teams, which means you go to all the ceremonies for each of those teams and perhaps be sort of a on call for some other teams, meaning we don't need to go to all the ceremonies, but if they have some need for some content, which is typically infrequent where we'd be embedded, then we'll help them out. But so we already generally already have somebody on those teams, and our goal is to like bring somebody in, introduce them to the rest of the team, both the entire strategic content development team and the scrum teams, gradually start to have them take some work that comes up in the planning. And then when they're ready to say, you know what, I'm good, I can take this scrum team. Then the person who is on it peels off and goes to whatever we had scheduled them to work on next.
ZohraOkay. And I want to go back to you mentioned that BlackBot has gone remote. Have you had any challenges doing remote interviews?
SPEAKER_01The interview process, I mean, with everyone going remote, it's been a little different. But even before we went to the fully remote model driven by COVID, a lot of times when I interview someone, they weren't going to be working at the same office as me. So I didn't get to meet them in person anyway. So that was kind of already going on. Probably one of the things I've mentioned is that because we have gone again, because we have gone to that remote model set, we get a ton more resumes now. So that there's just extra work up front to make sure we're looking at each one carefully. And then for the ones we've selected to go to the higher view section to look at those carefully. And then it just generally means we have a lot more candidates that are actually interviewing too. So, but you know, the plus side of that is you get to see a lot more skill sets, a lot just kind of broader experience or background in general. So that's been a plus. I'd say, you know, the biggest difference for us is going to be prior to COVID, almost everyone worked in an office. We had a couple of people who were remote who had generally worked in an office and then for family reasons or or what have you had moved to somewhere fully remote. Whereas now we we've done a good bit of hiring so far this year, and everyone was hired is not associated with an office. So it's going to be interesting in terms of just team dynamics and making sure we're solidly building a team. But I think it's certainly challenges we're we're happy to meet and overcome.
ZohraThe one reason why I asked this, David, is you know, apart from just job search and for uh helping candidates out there who are applying, there are companies where I have worked where they do not have a framework to onboard technical writers and to enable their success, to empower them. And with what you've shared with us about how the onboarding process looks like, especially now that Blackboard has gone remote, it is a great model for any company that's out there or even for loan writers. How, if they are setting up their teams or if they're looking on how to look for tips and strategies. I think you've given us some great insight on what that team can look like and what success for a content team can look like.
SPEAKER_01It's interesting you say that because I read recently, I think it was 80% of people that were asked about it said they had started a job, not necessarily the current one, but a job there was no training or onboarding. So clearly the majority of people feel like, at least at some point, they've started a job and felt like, okay, they felt like sink or swim. Good luck, we'll see you later. So we really try to structure as much as we're trying to balance the structure. Structure of like, okay, here's what we, you know, we're trying to introduce things that that you'll need to learn to get up and running with sort of the freedom to explore like all the things that the team and our division have to offer. So another thing we do is that we have when somebody joins a team, we have them set up a meet and greet with everybody else on the team, which can be kind of arduous for the new person. We have about 30 people on the team now. So that's that's a lot of meet and greets to set up. But our goal is like, you know, one thing is you get to get a little feel for the everybody else on the team. It's generally really low-key. It's like someone that's talking about here's what I work on, but a lot's like, oh, here's what I like to do in my own time or whatever the case may be. So, first, kind of just people getting to know each other. But another byproduct of that is like we have a lot of efforts on our team that have working groups behind them. Like some are very interested in instrumentation and how we measure the impact and effectiveness of our content. Some are very interested in creating videos and what's the optimal way to use our software or what software is optimal to use, and things like that. So by the time somebody's done, there they have a feel for everybody on the team as well as all the kind of work streams that are going on within the team. And anything they're interested in, there's always room for more. So we encourage people to participate in those.
ZohraThat is fantastic. I think every team out there should look like that. One, because I have experienced through the meet and greet the diversity within our team, who I can tap into when I need help. So definitely the onboarding process, personally for me, has been one of success. And where I've gotten to know my team members because being remote, I don't have access otherwise for in-person. So this is one way. And even the technology that our team uses, like Slack, I think has set me up personally. And I think this is something for teams to consider out there on what kind of channels do you have? What kind of platforms do you have to build that team camaraderie and team rapport? These are absolutely required. Would you like to add anything more? I can see that you're thinking away.
SPEAKER_01No, I think that's your that that's mostly what I had to say. But yeah, it's funny you mentioned Slack. If there's anything that helped us move to a fully remote model and kind of got us to at least a point where hopefully we're sort of seeing the end of COVID out there, uh, Slack would be it. I think that's that's probably if you talk to any 10 people in our organization, at least nine of them are going to say Slack's at the top of their favorite tools.
ZohraI applied through the Blackboard website and uh a recruiter got in touch with me. But I also have heard from recruiters that you know, recommendation, personal recommendation from an employee would bump up your success. What do you have to say about that?
SPEAKER_01It never hurts. It's all it's usually if somebody who works at Blackbot already is recommending somebody, it's always a good thing. Because maybe if they're if we were on the edge of that of a resume, it's like, oh, we don't know if you want to follow up, if we need to bother to have them do the higher view or follow up in any way. If they've gotten a recommendation from somebody and I talk to them and they say, Oh yeah, here's why this person's great, that's probably going to be enough enough to nudge us in the direction, like, all right, we might as well follow up with this person. So I'd say, yes, if you know somebody at a company, even if you've you've met them at a conference or through some maybe an organization, it does not hurt to reach out to them and be like, hey, I'm thinking of applying. What do you think? And so we've had even recently we've had people who've who've been connected with somebody via LinkedIn and reached out via LinkedIn. And we even had to talk to our recruiters. Is it okay for the person to respond on LinkedIn? And recruiters, like, yeah, that's great. That's great that somebody reached out to them. Definitely have them respond. So to me, I think it's one of those things where it's like, if you have any sort of connection at a place that you're you're looking to go to work for, it never hurts to reach out to that connection. If you just want to ask about something, hey, I see this role is there. What does it mean? Uh, right, right now, it's like a group we haven't really worked with that much previously is our operations group. And they have a very different type of content than our sort of feature or developer-facing writers create. So we just filled a role for that, and that was pretty different. That was a very specific skill set we were looking for because someone to have experience working with an operations center, for example, or some of the things we were looking for there. So occasionally it's I had some people recommend it to me from internal blackblood folks, and I was like, hmm, if if we were looking for a feature writer, maybe somebody who's got some UX background, writing background, that maybe they'd be a great fit for the role. But this was very targeted on kind of the ops world. So, but that I would say for the most part, though, we're just looking for somebody who's got a broad interest in technology. And if they can show us targeted ways they've executed on that interest, again, it could be something that wasn't even work-related. But to me, sometimes when you see those things, it shows, wow, this person really does have the eagerness to learn if they're doing it on their own time, you know, that's worth something to us. Makes a difference.
ZohraThat's good to know. When I've applied to jobs in the past, I've been asked to provide a portfolio. Now, in this conversation, what I have discovered is you may ask for a writing sample. In my situation, I don't believe I provided a writing sample. So, do you have uh reasons when you would ask for a portfolio absolutely or not?
SPEAKER_01Generally, if it's the case of somebody hasn't been a work, and frequently people have been maybe they've been doing some very targeted techcom work for a while, but they can't show anything. It might be internal or for whatever reason, they're not allowed to share the samples. So it kind of depends. If somebody doesn't have like a strong work record or they're changing career or something, we may want to see, like, give us an example of something you've written, whether it's it may be something for a newsletter or whatever the case may be, it might not be, you know, again, sort of what you consider tech classical techcom content. But somebody who's been in the business for a while and has the background and references to show, like, we don't always ask for writing samples. I'd say, like, again, the thing to make sure of is that if you're trying to get into techcom and you don't have, you know, you don't have really much solid experience to put on your resume, then it's not a bad idea to come up with some samples. And there's lots of open source projects out there that welcome contributions from people. That's a great way to get, I think, most places or we are certainly, if somebody says they've got GitHub experience and can point us to their a repo or or the work they've done, that we can see that in GitHub, that's a big thing too. And that's something you get with open source projects. So I'd say it kind of varies to us the when when we ask for samples. Typically, it's like if we're kind of like, hmm, this person, we think this person has a good skill set, but we want to just see can they can they write? That's a key thing.
ZohraRight.
SPEAKER_01And we might ask for samples if they weren't provided already.
ZohraIn your opinion, do you think there have been times when an applicant is coming through an ATS, an applicant tracking system, and good candidates may have lost that opportunity?
SPEAKER_01Our recruiters are fantastic. I'll say that too. It's like they continually impress me. And they always offer do you want us, the recruiters, to be the ones that that go through the resumes and then elevate the subset to you and close out with the other ones. And generally we we just say we'll do it. And even if it's a ton of applicants, we just go through them. So there have been instances where it's like, for whatever reason, it's like, oh, we can't we can't get to them all. Can you do it for us? But we sit down with them and they say, Well, what exactly are you looking for? And we're like, here's some specifics. Some of the things I mentioned to you, it's like, if you know, it's certainly good to say if you know what docs' code is, and it doesn't hurt to work that into your resume. And again, not in a way that makes it seem like you've done something you haven't, but it's just that that level of awareness and it never hurts to put the tools you've worked in with in there. Just make sure you keep it current. It's like if you're telling me a tool you've worked with, and I'm like, yeah, that thing hasn't been made in five years, it's probably not going to be too relevant. So I would say I I can't think of any instances where either through a miscommunication through through recruiting or even within our team looking through the resumes, it we've we've let a great candidate slip through the cracks. I won't say it hasn't happened, though. Again, especially now when you're getting hundreds of resumes for an opening, it's hard to make sure you're you're considering each one and digging in. But I think we we do as as good of a job with that as we can.
ZohraYeah, and thanks, David. The reason I asked was I think I should have, again, let me clarify. What I was looking for is, you know, the very thing that you mentioned, having those keywords, like the tools, the terminology, even if you're not worked using in that framework, but having familiarity with it is something that as you're scanning the resume, those things do stand out. And you want to see that that this candidate brings that to the table.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And I that okay, that, yeah, I totally agree. One thing we try to look for too, and we're sort of finding our way with this as well, is like, I think for years, the creating the content was like seen as like, okay, I'm done. I created the content. But in actuality, that's to us like that's the beginning of the process. Now it's time to be like, is it how did it land? Is it resonating with customers? Is it helping someone get through a process? Is it being consumed? So anyone who's got background in any sort of instrumentation or tools, they've actually done those measures. That's a big plus, as far as we're concerned, at least, too, because that's again something we're sort of building a discipline around. Getting away from that mindset of, okay, I created the content, I'm done. It's on to the next thing. It's like creating the content is more the beginning of the road than the end of the road. Because then it's time to see like, did it work? Oh, great, it did work. Good. We need to do more things like that. No, it didn't work. It didn't get consumed or it didn't help an issue. Let's stop doing that and focus on the things that do work.
ZohraYou mentioned instrumentation. Can you share with us what do you mean by that?
SPEAKER_01So, Google Analytics, I'm sure most of the audience is familiar with. It's a great tool to use if you have your content based on the web. So you can use it to see like where did somebody come from to get to it? How long were they on it? Where did they go after they were on, if it's a topic or a page or whatever the case may be. So that's part of the picture. Then within the software, where we're really trying to put together an end-to-end picture of we're trying to look at like what is somebody doing? Or are they in a process? And the somebody's generic, it's like we don't want to know too much personal information about a particular person or anything. More or less, we're trying to find like when does a user go to help and what happens afterward. So we can look for like, is there a trouble spot here? Because lots of people are looking for assistance at this point in a process. Maybe we need to take a second look at it. And are we able to measure, like, okay, did somebody read a particular piece of content, then click a chat link to talk to support? Or click a link that actually calls a support person on the phone? Or did they they close that and go back to what they were doing now? Again, I would say we're pretty much early in the process of being able to have that end-to-end that we've got like bits and pieces where we can kind of piece it together into my dog's barking, sorry. But we're looking to have that end-to-end process.
ZohraAll right. Thank you for sharing that with me. Because in my world, probably I would think that is improving user experience and studying what user behavioral patterns are like and the metrics that are behind it.
SPEAKER_01Yes, absolutely.
ZohraWhat are the different roles on a team at Blackboard on our team? And what level of years of experience do they represent? Would you be willing to share about that?
SPEAKER_01Sure. The roles we have don't necessarily map to years of experience. It maps to ability to lead. And you know, we could have someone who's like, say, a senior principal writer who may have some supervisory capacity in addition to creating content. It's a matter of can we give a project to someone, no matter what the audience, no matter how they might be the most technical audience or the least technical audience, the deliverable might be a code sample, it might be a white paper that's got a marketing slant, but it's designed for a technical audience and they're going to see right through any sort of fluffs. So it has to get right to the point. It could be anything, really. And so the the more, the higher the level. So we start at staff writer and then senior, then principal, then senior principal. And we're kind of working on what would the level above that mean right now. I don't have anyone at that next level, but it kind of boils down to like what sort of projects can someone run with? How much guidance do they need to be able to run with it? And also like, how visible are they on the team? Are they leading efforts that bring the whole team forward? And then at higher levels, we look for leading efforts that bring the whole RD and operations division forward, and even the company. So it's kind of a matter of like what is the reach and impact that an individual has, that's where we see like the more of those two things someone has, the higher level they're usually going to be.
ZohraAll right. I'm positive that any, you know, especially for loan writers that I have spoken to are always trying to figure out how to create those positions. And your insight will sort of be a guidance there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think just in general, like I always tell people on our team, I want you to have the most awesome resume there is in the business. I just don't want you to use it anywhere. But two of the things we focus on are UX writing again. There's there's just a lot of attention being paid to that, which is great. And it's more than just, you know, it is in placing like every bit of it, every word in the UI should carry some weight and has some importance, but it's also a bigger picture of like, okay, when is it, when should I embed some additional content? And what is our overall strategy? And what is our guidance on wording, all those things is and falls under kind of the UX writing umbrella. And we're we're really strongly adopting that amongst all our writers. And the the other dominant thing that I'm sure you've heard of, Zora, is like the again, the more technical someone is and the more they can create content that's aimed for developers. If someone can document an API and understand, you know, be efficient when they're interacting with engineers because they understand what they're speaking, the engineers' language, that's a good thing too. We right now just have technical writer is our title, and it's various levels of that. So again, we haven't branched beyond having more specific titles, but we do have, you know, some of our writers are more focused on the more technical aspects of the things we're creating, like our developer ecosystem and things like that. Whereas others are more diving in and devoting more attention to UX writing, whether it's through taking classes or attending conferences and things. But we're kind of looking for a general level of we want our folks to be, I always say you should be joined at the hip with your UX person on one hip and joined on the other hip with our customer success person because the people who are plugged into our customers. And again, our customers could be engineers for third parties or nonprofits that want to use our APIs to do their own custom features. It's like if you're you're joined with them, you can find the level of work you need to do, whether it falls more on the technical realm or the UX writing or whatever sort of content you're creating side. But again, those two things are something we're really interested in, having our people learn and be able to contribute to.
ZohraAll right. And I think this gives me a great segue here. From this conversation, I can see that UX writing is where that where our team is trending. But in general, do you see some emerging trends are since our field is constantly evolving? Do you have any thoughts on that?
SPEAKER_01I think it really is largely those things I mentioned. One is yeah, UX writing, it's a dominant trend. Again, some people like get upset if you even link it with technical communication. Where I see it as largely an evolution, it's using content to get somebody through a process. And this is where I get get back to like techcom doesn't have to be dry, and so many people still think, oh, you mean a 200-page PDF or whatever? It's like, no, it's in any most experiences use words and it's that. So exactly that's one piece. I think the other piece is like just learning modern development practices and to be employing some sort of docs' code workflow that goes right hand in hand with that. Because then you're working closely with your engineers. If you're asking them to create some content, then you're more likely to get some buy-in from them because they're they're using tools that are familiar to them. Hopefully, you can offer them the option to use a markdown, which is relatively simple and quick to create content with. Plus, again, if you're creating your content with that same system, you can take advantage of your pipeline, the same pipeline that you're publishing your applications through. So those are the kind of things that kind of with that, those skills can come the advantage of maybe you can learn enough to code enough to just to change a UI label. And again, it's not like we want to go rogue and be like, we don't like that name, we're going to change it to something else because there's there's definitely repercussions in terms of API endpoints and just making sure the organization's on the same page. But if we're working closely with a UX person, we're like, yeah, we think we should change this label or have some additional UI text there. If the writer can go in and make that change, that's a win for everyone.
ZohraOf course.
SPEAKER_01The developers love it because they don't have to worry about it. The UX person and the writer are happy because they got the best possible outcome for our users, or at least what we want to test and see if it resonates. So I think you know, at least some variation of those themes are pretty dominant in the field right now.
ZohraAnd that naturally feeds into my next question. The team. Our team is called strategic content development. I've been on teams elsewhere where there has been this challenge where technical writers are, I guess, not considered an asset. And with the team label that we have, content, strategic content development. I posted this someplace on some forum and people loved it. And I think what this does is puts content front and center. And uh this also ties back into what you mentioned that it's not about completing content. It's you've you've written the content, but now what? And that name is just so forward-looking, forward thinking. And I think teams that are writers that are part of tech documentation teams should start looking at content as an asset and not just think about, oh, like you said, traditional technical writing, it is cut and dry. This is a little moving away from the job search, but again, tying back into the field.
SPEAKER_01That's interesting. We that name I worked on with our former chief technology officer. And for a while we're the documentation team. I was like, this isn't good. When people hear documentation, they think again, the 200-page PDF and maybe the tech writers are on in a corner on the floor over there, and nobody thinks about them. And you know, our our goal is to be out there and fully embedded in agile teams and showing the value we can bring. And if somebody says, you know, if our CEO says, we need a technical white paper that you know, we've got marketing collateral that shows the business decision makers why they should go with their company. If we want anything that shows the technical decision makers, it's like we can do that. And so when we were looking for a name we could have, we're we there have been a few over the years, and for a while we were user education, that didn't seem quite right. We've got an education team that actually makes software for schools within BlackBod. And people are like, well, is it training? Is it the software for and so we we kind of went with strategic content because it's just we create content and we want people to come to us and understand that we need a guided tour for one of our products. How would that work? Let us we'll figure it out. Well, you know, that's that's a marketing thing that was requested of us, and it's it's we we did it for them, it's been very successful. So it's not unusual that like some of the veterans and the the RD group will be like, docs, just go to docs and we don't care. It was more so people like, especially outside of our particular group or other groups in the company would understand it's like, no, we aren't the we don't want to make the giant PDF document. We want to create the content that resonates and we want to measure it and be able to determine, yeah, here's the impact that content made, and that's why we want to do that again. Those kind of things.
ZohraYeah, and I think from a being part of the team, it is motivating to me personally that I'm part of a team that is considered an asset. And it sort of drives me to be everything that you're looking for in a candidate where we are bringing value, where we are creating value. So I think that name change, as much as it might be valuable to departments outside of the content team, but also within the content team personally, I think it is a fantastic, it's an automatic motivator for me. It's sort of built-in.
SPEAKER_01That's I love hearing that too, um, for sure. It's it's an interesting time for tech commerce, you know, especially in in terms of titles. Like content engineering is another big one that sort of I hear it a lot. I look for, I'm always out looking for like what are people calling their openings? You know, how many UX writer ones are there? How many that are that are a hybrid tech writer, UX writer? Are there any is anybody looking for content engineers? And again, I see a bunch of them. And sometimes in our job listings will mention things like we're trying to grow our content engineering practice or something like that, but we'll still call it a tech writer because like you might lose a good candidate by being like, Well, I'm not an engineer, when in some of the newer terminology, it's like you might be considered an engineer given what the role means now.
ZohraAh, that's an interesting perspective that I had not thought of that if you don't have technical writer in the as the job role, then somebody might sort of get be fearful. And I probably be would I would be one of them. So I think we really have to read that job description very closely. It's just a way of thinking and moving forward.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's so definitely I would encourage people to read the description closely. The other thing, if I was just gonna dole that advice, it's like, yes, it's good to keep your resume at a couple of pages, even if you've got a ton of experience. And if you can focus more on to see like 20 references, you know, I worked from this date to this date at this company, and the two bullets are the same, created this kind of content and that kind of content. And that's just repeated a few times. It'd be better if you had some way to say, created this content and here was the result of it. Now, again, I understand, especially not everyone is able to have the tools or even aim toward focusing on how can we tell if this content really resonated. But if anytime you can think of a way, it's like, oh yeah, I remember we we measured it and it wasn't perfect, but here's what we we try to do at least, that's a good thing to put on there.
ZohraSo that brings me to my last question, most likely. The format of the resume. And I think this is more probably, I don't know, would this be for recruiters that I interview? But from your perspective, when you get a resume, does it matter to you if it is a chronological versus a functional resume? And and in what scenarios would you be looking for these different formats or these different types of resumes?
SPEAKER_01I would say generally, the either of those formats is fine with me. Again, if somebody's going to use the chronological format, it's good to see like some skills growth in there. And if if you've got a ton of experience, it's okay to leave out some of the ones where it's like I was entry level and whatever. Um, especially if you're applying for something that's stated to be senior or above, then you want to focus on here's the senior level tasks I did, or here's what I'm doing right now. So, again, to me, it's more whether it's functional or chronological, if there's a way you can work in, like, here is the result of that. Like we successfully added X percentage of customers or onboarded a group. And I I also again it's like our content doesn't exist within a vacuum. Typically, there's there are webinars or maybe other things that are going on, or you know, in any amount of efforts where it's like, yeah, we can't say, oh, yes, it was just us that was that resulted in all these great numbers and things. And we also understand, yes, there's vanity metrics are out there. It's easy to cherry pick and be like, look, we had a million people visit this piece of content and then leave out the part where it's like, yes, but unfortunately, almost all of them left after three seconds and obviously didn't consume it. So, but but I think if again, if people can can focus or at least try to find like, oh, here's a good example of an outcome that came from some content. I haven't thought, I hadn't thought to put it on there before. It at least shows us that like people are thinking in those ways. Like creating the content wasn't the end of the process. I'm done now. It's like, okay, now it's time to see, is it making any difference? So anything somebody can show to see, even if it was you couldn't, it didn't pan out one way or the other, just at least you tried. And I get, you know, yes, there's different tools, and people have availability of different tools, and maybe they're not able to, like I said, we're going through it right now, trying to piece together what an end-to-end process means, and it's it's not easy. So, but anyway, anytime somebody could show, like, here's the effort we made to show that the content made a difference, that's a good thing.
ZohraThere's always been the suggestion that you know you send a thank you note to the hiring managers. In your opinion, does that matter or not?
SPEAKER_01I don't think it ever hurts. I would put it that way. To me, it's again, it comes down to like people on both sides of the table like, do I would I would I want to work with this person that you know day in and day out? Like, that's what I mean when it's a two-way process. I feel like, yeah, they should be kind of interviewing me, thinking about like, is would this the things this did he saying be something I'm interested in? Is it does it sound like a good working environment? All those kind of things. So I would say like a thank you note never hurts. You know, if you have a fantastic candidate and for whatever they don't write one, it's not the end of the world. But to me, it's like one of those things where it shows again, it's like, okay, they they followed up that it I can't see any scenario where that would anybody see that as a bad thing. I'll put it that way.
ZohraAnd thank you so much, David, for your candor and your being so open to all my questions. I really appreciate your time. Would do you have any piece of advice that I may not have asked about?
SPEAKER_01Uh well, thank you too, Zora. And again, it's like uh one of my favorite parts, if not my most favorite part of my job now, is just seeing people grow and seeing them develop their skills. And even if somebody leaves the company, if they're going and they're successful where they where they move to, I'm very happy for them. If we have writers who decide they want to be a product manager, for example, and when if they make that move and they're successful in that and happy, I'm happy too. So in in terms of advice, I would just say the the things we've talked about, look at the trends that are out there, see if you've got any experience in those trends. Maybe you worked at a company that called it something else, but it's like, oh, we were doing something kind of like that, put it in there. And again, I'm not never try to say misrepresent your experience, but if if you've got familiarity enough with something to be like, I can I can say like I at least know about this. You know, maybe I haven't used it, but you know, the other thing is like read up on the things that are out there. And if if you don't know something about some of these dominant trends, then find out something about it because it's probably going to come up. So again, that and just making sure that the experience you are putting in there is very targeted around content, especially if you don't have any techcom background. Then if you have any sort of technical acumen or you worked on some sort of technical projects, again, it could be for your own interest, put it in there. And if you've created content that maybe doesn't have anything to do with, you know, again, traditional techcom type content, but it's something you could point us to. Look at here's the blog I've been doing about whatever subject interests you, that's never a bad thing either. One other thing I would encourage people to do is if you interview for a position, and especially if you feel like the interview went well and you wind up not getting the position, reach out to the interviewers and ask if there's anything you could do to make yourself a stronger candidate next time or if you apply for another role. I know we get a good many of folks reach out and ask for that, and we're always happy to provide information. Sometimes it's just like, you know, you're a fantastic candidate, but there was just a stronger candidate applying for the same role. Other times it might be like, if you just have more experience in this area or that area, and here's how you could get more experience, even if you're not getting that in a true work environment. Again, there are ways to get experience and build up some samples and show some work history, even if it's not your full-time regular gig. So that's just something I would encourage people to do, you know, especially if you're like, oh, that interview went really well, and then you wind up not getting the role. Chances are the person on the other side of the table felt like it went well too, and would be more than happy to pass along any feedback they might have.
ZohraThat's awesome. Thanks, David. All great advice. Thank you so much, David, again, for being on my show and for your time.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. Well, thank you too.
ZohraThank you. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Subscribe to the podcast on your favorite app, including Apple, Google, or Spotify. Follow me on LinkedIn or visit us at www.inside techcom.show for the latest updates. Catch you on another episode.