An Overview of the Recruitment Test
If you are getting ready to see yourself in the roster of a top company in the industry, you will do well to know more about the recruitment tests that you will have to take. The assessment procedure varies from company to company but you can be sure of being put through a written test and one or more rounds of interviews. While the written test will test your writing ability, the interview allows your recruiters to get to know you better and assess your communication skills to an extent. Some companies might also put you through a group discussion to see whether you can think quickly and offer solutions to problems.
For the written test, keep in mind the profile you have applied to. If it is technical writing, make sure you keep simplicity and visual appeal in mind. If it is content writing, make your article clear and concise. Avoid being verbose and be original. As i have shared earlier, long posts can put people off so do not get carried away while writing and keep word limits in mind. Your recruiters may specify a limit. Split your article into two or more paragraphs so that the reader is not faced with a huge wall of text.
The test may also contain an analytical section where you might have to solve some mathematical problems. Though this part of the test will not be looked at with as much importance as the writing section, you need to take it seriously. Your 10th standard mathematical knowledge should be enough in most cases. This section might also contain some puzzles or tricky questions that will test your intelligence and presence of mind. So think before you answer.
Exploring Technical Writing Jobs
Time to look at another prominent and attractive opening in the domain of language and communication, namely, technical writing. A basic research reveals that almost all big and small companies in the industry have requirements for technical writers. So if you happen to be good with the English language and are looking for a job that involves writing and also exposes you to cutting edge technology and latest products launched by different companies then technical writing could be a profile you will enjoy.
Most companies would require you to write about their products, launches and other news related to their research. So you will be writing user manuals, designing brochures and working closely with the development team to form a good understanding of the offerings of your company. As a technical writer, you will be catering to all the users of your company’s products and that can be a big number. You need to remember that your audience will consist of people with and without an understanding of technology so your writing should explain things in a clear and straightforward manner.
People generally get put off by a lot of text so you will have to cultivate a skill for designing. If you take a look at the user manuals of products launched by some big names, you will see almost every page carries pictures, illustrations and the text is arranged in short paragraphs. Often buletted points are used so that the main features get highlighted. If you are trying to explain to your clients how to operate a product, it is important that you show the various processes through pictures in addition to writing the steps down. Using different font colours and formatting will make your work visually appealing. You can consider using different background colours for different sections. Needless to say that a good knowledge of MS Office and a few photo-editing software will be an added advantage.
As for the origin of technical writing, I got a surprising piece of information in the process of finding out more about it. According to Wikipedia, the practice of technical writing can be traced back to ancient Greece and the Renaissance (fourteenth to seventeenth centuries). However, the full fledged utilisation of it came into being during the first world war when a lot of technical documentation was required by the military,manufacturing, electronics and aerospace industries.
Employability in India
I was recently reading an article on rediff.com which discusses the prospects of the BPO industry in India in the coming days. According to the article, the Indian outsourcing industry has entered “a new era of growth” owing to several companies desperately wanting to cut costs and looking to outsource like never before. The article goes on to say that attrition rates have already gone down and are plummeting further.
Though the BPO job market looks promising, we have to wonder whether we have enough quality talent to meet the requirements. Companies ideally want committed candidates possessing all the basic qualifications and skills necessary for the job profile. Unfortunately, finding such talent takes a lot of effort. Infosys, a premier IT firm, hires only 1% of the over 1.5 million applications it receives annually.
Around 2.5 million graduates walk out of the many colleges in India every year- out of which around 400,000 are engineers and 200,000 IT professionals. However, according to NASSCOM, only about half of these graduates are employable. Why does this happen? There are many reasons, one of the most important being that the existing education system is not industry oriented and therefore does not prepare them.