Some Possible Interview Questions

•  How long have you worked at your current job?  How long have you worked in                   this profession overall?
•  What types of writing do you produce? When do you produce them?  In what                     situations? Where are they produced?  In school or workplace? 
•  Who are the typical readers? 
•  How much time do you spend writing different types of writings?
•  How important are the various types of writing? Why do you produce them?
•  Did the writing you did in school prepare you for the writing demands of your job?  Why or why not?  What writing assignments were most useful in preparing you for your job?
• What is the number one thing you know about writing now that you wish you had known when you started this career?
• Think back to the most difficult document or email you ever had to write.  What made it difficult?  Why was it important?  How long did it take you to write it?
• What is the most common writing activity you perform?  Who reads this?  What do you have to consider as you write this genre?  Can you name a particularly good or bad example of this type of writing?  What made it good or bad?
• How much time do you approximately spend writing per day (including email)? 
• How much revision do you do? Do you revise all types of writing you do? If not, what type of writing you revise most? Can you tell me more about the process of revision? 
• Do you collaborate with others when you produce certain types of writing? How do you divide work? Is it normal in your discipline to have more than two authors for scholarly publications? 
• Do you also revise some other types of writings? What is the purpose of revision?
• We talked about different types of writing, their conventions, and the processes of writing them. Now, can you tell me what role writing plays in your profession in general? Some researchers claim that writing shapes the culture of an institution as much as the culture of the institution shapes writing produced in that institution. Do you see any such relationships between the culture of your workplace and the writings produced/used here?