I really liked the thoughts posted by Nicolas Burlakoff on this. I don't think that you can use just one critera to evaluate potential hires - and I disagree with the viewpoint that the one with the "least mistakes" wins. One applicant may look very stong on their resume or C.V. and be totally lacking in the interpersonal skills necessary for many positions in the musuem or cultural heritage fields. Another applicant may appear very strong in a personal interview but have abysml writing and communication skills. And still another candidate may be very strong on their C.V. and writing samples and have a great interview but they may have poor motor skills and tend to drop or bump into things.... One thing I have done in the past, as an applicant, has been to submit writing samples from real life - either a memo, a report, or even a published article (no, not 400 some pages!) if I felt that it illustrated my approach to a project, addressing a problem or a situation, or encapsulated several skills such as research, interpretation, and education. There have been times that I have submitted such samples when requested, and, times when I have provided them unsolicited if I felt that the risk of sending the sample made my abilities to contribute to the potential employer ever more apparent. So it all really depends on the nature of the position and how much writing, thinking, verbal, manual, or visual skills are necessary and primary to the job. And I think that this thread also intersects with the recent one on interships in this regard. When I have had interns, both undergraduate and post-graduate, I always stressed that they have projects that were just their own beyond the daily flow of tasks, and that researching and developing effective writing skills was very important. I often used a writing task (such as an object condition survey) as a teaching tool to really refine an intern's way of "seeing" an object or artifact. I found that their ability to describe an artifact was often directly proporation to their perceptions and impressions of it. So that the development of one skill (writing) reinforced another (seeing). Cheers! Dave David Harvey Artifacts 2930 South Birch St. Denver, CO 80222 303-300-5257 [log in to unmask] ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).