Starting from Scratch: Finding and Hiring Junior Writers
summary
Pivotal launches an internship program inside a 15-person docs team across six locations to turn backlog into deliverables, recruits broadly (no CS or English degree required), pays interns and sometimes converts them to full-time, and uses a rubric plus a common writing exercise (the peanut butter and jelly task) to compare candidates. Onboarding relies on pair programming with shared Google Docs and Git/GitHub/Markdown training, surveys show 90% team approval and 80% want more mentoring, so the program ships useful docs while teaching basics fast.
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chapters (17)
- 0:00Intro
- 0:55OVERVIEW
- 4:05BUSINESS CAT SAYS
- 5:44THE PITCH
- 6:24WHAT'S OPTIONAL?
- 7:54WHAT WE'LL DO FOR YOU
- 8:52WAITING FOR HANDS-ON EXPERIENCE
- 9:19PROMOTION
- 11:23RESUMES AND INTERVIEWS
- 11:50PASSION OR PRACTICE
- 13:25WRITING SAMPLES
- 16:43INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
- 20:00TAKEAWAYS
- 20:36ONBOARDING
- 26:07THE FUTURE
- 26:55THE MORE YOU KNOW
- 28:01RECAP
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