Shanghai Tech Writer

The next part of the interview process was a telephone interview with the Texas headquarters. This was around middle of June, the first “real” interview (with a person) since I applied for the job in April. The interviewer was the group manager who manages the entire Shanghai technical writer team. Because of the 13 hours time difference between Texas and Shanghai, it was scheduled my evening, her morning. I was looking forward to it but quite nervous at the same time. I had done a lot of research beforehand to find out everything I can about the company, the industry, the job, and the interview.

Here are some resources that were very helpful in my preparation:

• NI Homepage - Obviously, got to learn about the company/industry before interviewing with them
• A Week in the Life - This website was put together by several technical writers at NI, designed to give prospective candidates insights on what it’s like being a technical writer at NI. There are detailed accounts of what they do on a daily basis, the work they do, the people they work with, company culture, etc… This was probably the most useful information in terms of learning about the company and the job itself. (The exact reason why I setup this website… but more personalized and updated)
• Technically Speaking - This is a blog put together by several technical writers at NI. They all contribute entries about things and issues they’ve come across working as technical writer. This one was less informative since most of the entries were specifically job-related so it was hard to understand what they were writing about unless the reader was a technical writer him/herself. Nonetheless, the site gives insight on the lives of technical writers, another reason why I decided to add my own contribution with this blog!
• Recruiting Video - This video consists of interviews with several managers and technical writers at the company. There are great tips about interviewing for the technical writer job and that’s where I found out the most important thing about interviewing with NI — they do behavioral interviews!
• A Week in the Life - This website was probably the older version before they updated it with the one above.
• Career Path - This is the career path chart for technical writers at NI. It shows the different opportunities of career development as a technical writer (at NI). It gave me an idea of what options I have in terms of my own career development and interest. This chart was extremely helpful, especially when I had my second on-site interview which I’ll write about in another post.

I visited many career websites to learn more about behavioral interviews. This was a new concept to me since I had very few interviewing experiences and never heard of behavioral interviews before. There are many websites with sample interview questions and I pretty much downloaded everything I could gather on behavioral interviews. I spent a lot of time going through these questions and coming up with examples from my past experiences. The key to doing well on behavioral interviews is coming up with good examples that highlight your strength, regardless of the situation. The outcome could be a negative one but it’s about how you dealt with the situation and made the best of it. I probably went through about a hundred sample questions before I felt ready.

So with all that research and knowledge about the company/job/interview, I went into my telephone interview with full confidence. Well, almost. I was still quite nervous. I was also worried about the phone call. I happened to have an U.S. based VoIP phone (U.S. telephone number that rings in China) and it normally works very well except when internet is down or the cordless phone battery runs out of juice. And they happen quite frequently, at random! The other option would be to call my China cell phone (I didn’t have a China land line), however the reception at home was horrible and I’d have to go outside on the balcony to get clear reception. This would be bad considering I lived in company housing (my previous employer) and I’d be broadcasting my interview for the whole world to hear. Eek. I ended up just borrowing a corded phone from a friend and the call connection was fine.

The first thing the interviewer asked was about my transcript (I knew they were going to ask about that). My Berkeley transcript showed that I graduated from Berkeley in two years (I must be a genius) but it also showed that I got credits from a bunch of other schools. I had to explain that initially, I studied music (piano performance — my other passion) and took a bunch of general ed courses at community colleges before transferring to Berkeley as a full-time student. Then she proceeded to asked some questions regarding my resume and past experiences. After that, it was behavioral interview questions all the way. Most of the questions/answers I had prepared ahead of time but there were some that I had to think/answer on the spot. The interview lasted about an hour and I thought it went pretty well. The preparation really paid off, otherwise, I would have done quite miserably if I hadn’t known it was going to be a behavioral interview.

The next thing was to wait… and it was about a week later when they contacted me again for the next round of interviews — another on-site interview.

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