Essential Work Sample Exercises for Hiring a Senior Technical Writer

Technical documentation is the bridge between complex products and their users. A Senior Technical Writer plays a crucial role in ensuring this bridge is sturdy, clear, and accessible to all who cross it. When hiring for this position, traditional interviews alone often fail to reveal a candidate's true capabilities in translating technical complexity into user-friendly content.

Work samples provide tangible evidence of a candidate's skills in action. For a Senior Technical Writer, these exercises demonstrate not just writing ability, but also technical comprehension, process improvement thinking, and collaboration skills. The right work samples can reveal how candidates approach documentation challenges, their attention to detail, and their ability to adapt to your organization's specific needs.

The technical writing landscape has evolved significantly with the adoption of docs-as-code approaches, requiring writers to be comfortable with tools like Git and CI/CD pipelines. Work samples that incorporate these modern documentation practices help identify candidates who can seamlessly integrate with your development workflows.

Additionally, Senior Technical Writers must balance multiple stakeholder needs while maintaining documentation quality and consistency. The exercises below are designed to evaluate a candidate's ability to navigate these complexities while producing clear, accurate, and user-focused documentation.

By implementing these carefully crafted work samples in your hiring process, you'll gain deeper insights into each candidate's capabilities than interviews alone could provide. This approach helps ensure you select a Senior Technical Writer who can truly elevate your documentation quality and processes.

Activity #1: Documentation Improvement Exercise

This exercise evaluates a candidate's ability to identify issues in existing documentation and implement improvements. It tests their technical writing skills, attention to detail, and understanding of documentation best practices. This activity reveals how they would approach real documentation challenges in your organization.

Directions for the Company:

• Select a section of your existing documentation (approximately 2-3 pages) that contains deliberate issues such as:
• Technical inaccuracies
• Unclear instructions
• Poor structure or organization
• Inconsistent terminology
• Missing information
• Provide the candidate with this documentation sample, your company style guide (if available), and any relevant product information they would need to understand the content.
• Allow candidates 60-90 minutes to complete this exercise.
• Consider creating a "before and after" example to help your evaluation team understand what good looks like.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Review the provided documentation sample and identify areas for improvement.
• Edit the document to enhance clarity, accuracy, and usability.
• Provide a brief explanation (1-2 paragraphs) of the changes you made and why.
• Consider both content improvements and structural/organizational changes.
• If you notice issues that would require additional information from subject matter experts, note these questions separately.

Feedback Mechanism:

• After reviewing their submission, provide specific feedback on one aspect they handled well (e.g., "Your reorganization of the procedure steps made the process much clearer").
• Offer one constructive suggestion for improvement (e.g., "The technical terminology could be more consistent throughout").
• Ask the candidate to spend 15 minutes implementing your feedback suggestion and resubmit the relevant section.

Activity #2: API Documentation Creation

This exercise assesses a candidate's ability to create clear technical documentation from developer-focused information. It tests their skill in translating complex technical concepts into user-friendly documentation and their familiarity with API documentation standards.

Directions for the Company:

• Prepare a simple API endpoint description including:
• Endpoint name and purpose
• Request parameters
• Response format
• A code sample showing usage
• Any authentication requirements
• Provide this information in a format similar to what your technical team might provide (e.g., technical notes, code comments, or a brief technical specification).
• Allow candidates 60-90 minutes to complete this exercise.
• Consider providing examples of your current API documentation for reference.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Create comprehensive API documentation based on the provided technical information.
• Structure your documentation to include:
• A clear overview of what the API endpoint does
• Request parameters with descriptions, data types, and whether they're required
• Response format with example responses
• Error codes and troubleshooting information
• Step-by-step usage examples
• Format your documentation using Markdown.
• Consider the needs of developers who will be implementing this API.

Feedback Mechanism:

• Provide feedback on one strength of their documentation (e.g., "Your examples clearly illustrate how to use the API in different scenarios").
• Offer one area for improvement (e.g., "The error handling section could provide more guidance on resolving common issues").
• Give the candidate 15 minutes to revise the section you highlighted for improvement.

Activity #3: Documentation Process Improvement Proposal

This exercise evaluates a candidate's strategic thinking about documentation processes and their ability to identify efficiency improvements. It reveals their experience with documentation workflows and tools, as well as their problem-solving approach to systemic documentation challenges.

Directions for the Company:

• Create a scenario description of your current documentation process, including:
• How documentation requests are submitted and prioritized
• Current tools and workflows
• Review and approval processes
• Publishing mechanisms
• Known pain points or inefficiencies
• Include realistic challenges such as tight deadlines, multiple stakeholders with competing priorities, or technical limitations.
• Allow candidates 60 minutes to prepare their proposal.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Review the documentation process scenario provided.
• Prepare a proposal (1-2 pages) outlining:
• 3-5 specific process improvements that would address the described pain points
• Implementation considerations for each improvement
• Expected benefits and potential challenges
• A phased approach for implementing these changes
• Be prepared to discuss your recommendations and answer questions about your proposal.
• Consider both quick wins and longer-term strategic improvements.

Feedback Mechanism:

• Highlight one particularly insightful recommendation from their proposal.
• Introduce a new constraint or consideration they may not have accounted for (e.g., "Our development team is resistant to adopting new tools").
• Give the candidate 15 minutes to adjust one of their recommendations to address this new information.

Activity #4: Technical Collaboration Simulation

This exercise assesses how effectively a candidate can extract technical information from subject matter experts and translate it into clear documentation. It tests their communication skills, technical comprehension, and ability to ask the right questions to fill knowledge gaps.

Directions for the Company:

• Select a technical team member to play the role of a subject matter expert (SME).
• Brief this person on a fictional feature or product component they should be knowledgeable about.
• Provide them with complete technical details but instruct them to initially share information that is:
• Technically accurate but incomplete
• Using internal jargon or acronyms
• Focused on implementation rather than user perspective
• The SME should be responsive to good questions but shouldn't volunteer information that isn't specifically requested.
• Schedule 30 minutes for the initial interview and 45 minutes for documentation creation.

Directions for the Candidate:

• You'll interview a subject matter expert about a new feature that needs documentation.
• Your goal is to gather enough information to create user-focused documentation.
• Ask questions to clarify technical details, use cases, and potential user challenges.
• After the interview, create a documentation outline and draft one complete section.
• Your documentation should be accessible to the target user (which will be specified in the exercise brief).
• Consider what screenshots, diagrams, or examples might enhance your documentation.

Feedback Mechanism:

• Provide feedback on one effective aspect of their information gathering or documentation approach.
• Highlight one area where they could have dug deeper or structured information more effectively.
• Allow the candidate 15 minutes to formulate 3-5 follow-up questions they would ask the SME based on your feedback.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long should we allow candidates to complete these exercises?

Most of these exercises are designed to take 60-90 minutes. For remote hiring processes, you might consider making them take-home assignments with a 24-hour turnaround. For on-site interviews, schedule at least 90 minutes for each exercise, including time for feedback and revision.

Should we use real company documentation for these exercises?

While using real documentation makes the exercise more relevant, consider creating modified versions that remove sensitive information. Alternatively, create fictional documentation that mirrors your actual documentation style and complexity. If using real documentation, ensure it doesn't contain proprietary information you wouldn't want to share externally.

How should we evaluate candidates across different exercises?

Create a scorecard with specific criteria for each exercise. For example, the Documentation Improvement exercise might be evaluated on accuracy, clarity, organization, and attention to detail. Having consistent evaluation criteria helps compare candidates objectively and reduces bias in the hiring process.

What if a candidate has limited experience with our specific documentation tools?

Focus on evaluating the candidate's approach, writing quality, and technical comprehension rather than tool-specific knowledge. Most Senior Technical Writers can quickly adapt to new tools if they have strong fundamental skills. For tool-specific exercises, consider providing brief instructions or allowing candidates to use familiar alternatives.

How can we make these exercises accessible to all candidates?

Offer accommodations for candidates who request them, such as extended time or alternative formats. Ensure that all materials provided are accessible (e.g., screen reader compatible). Be flexible with scheduling to accommodate different time zones and personal circumstances, especially for remote candidates.

Should we compensate candidates for completing these exercises?

For extensive exercises (particularly if combined), consider offering compensation for candidates' time, especially for senior roles. This demonstrates respect for their expertise and can improve the candidate experience. At minimum, be transparent about the time commitment required and limit the scope of exercises to what's reasonable.

The quality of your technical documentation directly impacts user experience, support costs, and product adoption. By implementing these work samples in your hiring process, you'll identify Senior Technical Writers who can truly elevate your documentation quality and processes. These exercises go beyond assessing basic writing skills to evaluate the strategic thinking, collaboration abilities, and technical aptitude that distinguish exceptional technical writers.

Ready to streamline your entire hiring process? Yardstick offers AI-powered tools to help you create comprehensive job descriptions, generate targeted interview questions, and develop complete interview guides. Check out our Senior Technical Writer job description for more insights into this critical role.

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