SHORTHAND WRITER : How to Select a.—Every busy business and professional man can appreciate the time-saving qualities of an efficient stenographer, but there are a number of business men who seem to think that any stenographer will save time. This is a delusion. The poor steno grapher wastes time; and, however cheap she may be, she must be dear in the end.
The essentials of every good stenographer are accurate shorthand out lines, fair speed, correct spelling, a certain amount of education, and a definite quantity of intelligence. The prospective employer of a steno grapher is advised to pay a fair wage. No calling in the world is so ridden with what trade unionists call the " blackleg" as the stenographic profession. Insert an advertisement, and you will discover that there are many young persons professing qualifications who will accept from 10s. a week. Most of these girls are looking for a change from the monotony of home, very few are competent, and, in the large majority of cases, they are a nuisance in a busy office.
A salary of from 25s. to 30s. a week should secure a competent girl, although if special qualifications are wanted the rate must be higher. The prospective employer will save himself much time and trouble if, instead of inserting the customary advertisement, he makes application to an employment bureau in connection with a business college or typewriter company. These concerns keep registers of pupils who have passed through their hands, and in most cases they make no charge to the employer. An employer is therefore spared the trouble of wading through a big batch of applications from more or less suitable people, and afterwards spending time in deciding as to the merits of these applicants. The writer does not suggest that every stenographer on the registers of the employment bureaux is satisfactory, for this not the case, but it is a fact that most of these candi dates have passed some sort of qualifyipg test, and there is consequently a smaller proportion of the unemployable among them.
It is not altogether an easy matter to set down for a prospective employer a test which will enable him to discover the fitness or otherwise of an appli cant. The nature of this test must obviously differ in view of the kind of work the stenographer will be called upon to accomplish. Assuming, how ever, that the employer requires his stenographer to deal with a fairly wide correspondence, the following is suggested as a standard which has been adopted with success in several large business concerns.
Dictate a short business letter, such a letter as would come within the ordinary routine of your business, incorporating with this letter a quotation from another letter, a list of specifications, or something which will test the applicant's power of "setting out" such items. Also dictate a short extract from, say, the leading article of the daily newspaper. The first can be dictation; the latter may be read slower or quicker, according to circum stances.
The object of the first test is obvious. From the stenographer's tran scription may be judged her power of rendering a business letter neatly and without errors of consequence. The latter test should enable the employer to discover whether the applicant has a working knowledge of English, and whether, when her shorthand outlines suggest incoherency alone, her inteili gence will enable her to substitute at least a possible word. In fact, the latter test is an excellent method for determining the quality of the appli cant's education and intelligence, and it is strongly recommended to those who want competent stenographic help.
The employer should require the transcriptions of these notes to be made in a reasonable time, of which time he must be the best judge. He should not omit from his calculations the fact that nervousness may play a disturbing part in the stenographer's fulfilment of the tests. A nervous stenographer can never do herself justice, and every reasonable business man will do his best to put an applicant at ease by kindness and consideration.