Job Hunting After Thirty-Five  

Identifies several ways older technical communicators can protect themselves from age discrimination when searching for a new job.

Carliner, Saul. Intercom (2002). Careers>Interviewing>Discrimination>Elderly

Job Hunting in a Global Market  

An international demand for native English-speaking technical communicators has provided many opportunities for North Americans to seek employment overseas. At the same time, there are many who have dreamed about working abroad. Those interested in pursuing international employment should learn various job-search techniques, and should be aware of differing re'sume' requirements. Know what you will do if and when a job offer is made, and prepare yourself for the move. Living and working overseas can be exciting, but it is also challenging. You must be willing to accommodate yourself to the local culture. The Internet is an essential tool for international job seekers.

Van Laan, Krista, Carol Chubiz and Donald J. Plummer. STC Proceedings (1998). Careers>Unemployment>International

Job Hunting in an Economic Downturn  

Offers tips for technical writers looking for work in a lean economy.

Thomstatter, John H. Intercom (2002). Careers>Interviewing

Job Postings

A collection of job postings to answer the needs of information-development managers around the world.

Center for Information-Development Management. Careers>Job Listings>TC

Jobs in Technical Communication: A Research Database  

This paper reports on the development of a long-term research database about qualifications listed in job announcements for positions in technical communication.

Broadhead, Glenn J., Malcolm Culbertson and G. Scott Gehrs. STC Proceedings (2002). Careers>TC

Jobs@OK/Cancel

This site is a consolidation of publicly available and privately submitted job postings in HCI, Usability, User Experience, Interaction Design, Information Architecture and Ergonomics.

OK-Cancel. Careers>Job Listings>Information Design>Usability

The Juggling Act: A Manager's Artform

Handling multiple priorities, coordinating the efforts of various teams, and ensuring that different projects remain under control are essential to survival in a climate of resource limitation and fast-paced change. I could talk about tips on staying organized, how to deal with uncooperative or under-producing staff, fixing problem situations, handling irate clients, re-working schedules while maintaining key deliverables in the middle of a project, ensuring a team functions as it should—but these are really textbook concepts. There are a hundred courses that teach the latest techniques for handling these situations. Anyone can learn to be a good manager to some degree; the key is wanting to be one and putting yourself in the right frame of mind.

Holland, Anton. Writer's Block (1996). Careers>Management>Writing

Juggling Projects: Managing Multiple Technical Communication Projects  

Managing multiple projects can seem like juggling eggs in front of a crowd of people—sometimes you wonder if you’re going to catch everything! Many managers have difficulty maintaining the progress of multiple projects without focusing on one project while the others fall by the wayside. In this workshop, we’ll discuss the most common mistakes managers make and suggest techniques for staying on top of multiple technical communication projects. Before you know it, you’ll be juggling like a professional… juggler, that is.

Wise, Mary and Molly Hammar. STC Proceedings (1998). Careers>Management>TC

Just Tech Writer Jobs

JustTechWriterJobs.com is a gateway to a collection of technology niched jobsites.

JustTechWriterJobs.com. Careers>Job Listings>TC

Keep Pesky Business Types at Bay by Focusing on the Strategic Goal  

If you have ever been forced to deal with business types who have no technical know-how, then you know how these types can work against IT's progress. Here's how to improve your business/IT communication by concentrating on the strategic goals.

Hardin, Ken. TechRepublic (2003). Careers>Business Communication>Project Management>Collaboration

Keeping Our Sanity: Managing Change in an Ever-Changing World  

Change is an integral part of our lives. Businesses change, careers change, lives change. But what is the nature of change? And how can we effectively navigate change? Change is a dynamic process that in many ways is similar to the grief process. Strategies for navigating through change include humor, establishing and maintaining a vision, communication, other interests, adjustment time, and realizing that you have choices and options.

Eschen, Mary L. STC Proceedings (1995). Careers>TC>History

Keeping Recruiters Accountable

Sooner or later, most of us work with a recruiter or two (or three or four) to look for a job or to respond to the ever-increasing abundance of employment opportunities for technical communicators in the Triangle area. In fact, due to the tendency companies have for hiring technical writers on a contract basis, recruiters often play a necessary part in our career development. This site offers some tips on dealing with recruiters and avoiding poor recruiting practices.

Shuman, Ceil. Carolina Communique (1997). Careers>Advice

Keeping Up with New Technologies: Professional Development for the Freelancer  

Online documentation... usability testing... multimedia—new tools and processes to support these and other technologies flood the technical communications field. All technical communicators face the challenge of keeping up with these developments. Freelancers, however, face a special challenge: they must be prepared to use any technology and must provide their own training. In this panel, four experienced freelancers discuss proven solutions to the professional development challenge.

Hayhoe, George F., Barbara J. Philbrick, Lynnette R. Porter, and David M. Taylor. STC Proceedings (1995). Careers>TC>Technology

Key Content: Developing a Personal Tagline

It is a helpful exercise to develop a tagline for yourself, in the same way that professionals in a previous generation were encouraged to develop a mission statement. With shortening attention spans, today's professional needs only a few-word tagline to fit in the sound bite of management's smaller time slots.

Albing, Bill. Carolina Communique (2007). Careers>Portfolios>Workplace>Collaboration

Know Before You Go  

The author discusses considerations in deciding whether to work abroad or not. Outlines possible goals and objectives as well as contract and visa issues.

Sala, David P. Intercom (2006). Careers>TC>International

Know Thy Recruiter

Techies often work with recruiters, but do they understand the recruiting business? Not usually, and that's too bad. To work effectively with recruiters, it helps to have more than passing knowledge of the recruiting business. Stan Dlugozima, managing partner of InPlace Technical Resources in New York, says technology professionals should know from the start how the business functions. To put it bluntly, companies pay Dlugozima to find individuals they want to hire. 'The company is my boss,' says Dlugozima. 'My job is to find a person who my client wants to hire.' Like techies, recruiting and staffing firms come in different flavors, typically divided into firms seeking workers for contract jobs or those trying to fill permanent positions.

Hoffman, Allan. Monster.com (2002). Careers>TC

Knowing When to Bail Out  

Lathrop identifies the red flags that might indicate an uncooperative client.

Lathrop, Lori M. Intercom (2000). Careers>Freelance

The Last Ditch Sales Pitch

I recently encountered a young web entrepreneur who understands that in business, 'no' doesn't necessarily mean 'never,' and that a last ditch sales pitch can pay off - maybe not today or tomorrow, but some day. It's a wise investment because one sales letter can be adapted and personalized for many different uses over time. And it can help you retrieve prospects you thought you had lost!

Reimer, Heather. Write Thinking (2002). Careers>Consulting>Marketing>Business Communication

Leadership - Communication

Many of the problems that occur in a organization are the direct result of people failing to communicate. Faulty communication causes the most problems. It leads to confusion and can cause a good plan to fail. Communication is the exchange and flow of information and ideas from one person to another. It involves a sender transmitting an idea to a receiver. Effective communication occurs only if the receiver understands the exact information or idea that the sender intended to transmit. Studying the communication process is important because you coach, coordinate, counsel, evaluate, and supervise through this process. It is the chain of understanding that integrates the members of an organization from top to bottom, bottom to top, and side to side.

Clark, Donald. NWlink.com (1997). Careers>Management>Communication

Leadership in Collaboration: Filmmaking and Interaction Design

For projects of importance, you need divergent skills to succeed. It is not possible to find an individual with all of the skill sets needed, nor would you want to. To create a first rate website or software product, you need many tasks to be done in parallel, which means that more than one person has to be working at them. As soon as two or more people are involved, the dynamic for how decisions are made, and how work gets done, becomes important. Any group of people can do work together, but it takes the right approach and team philosophy for that group to produce good work. Collaboration is critical in any creative pursuit involving groups of people, from filmmaking, to urban architecture or even web and software development.

Berkun, Scott. ScottBerkun.com (2002). Careers>Management>Collaboration>Interaction Design

Leadership Styles Between Technical and Non-Technical Superiors: Guess Who Will Give Subordinates More Freedom on the Job?    

Is there a difference in the dominant leadership style between technical and non-technical superiors? Which leadership style of superiors will give their subordinates more freedom on the job? By using House's Path-Goal Model [1] in a study involving a survey of subordinates of 100 technical and 100 non-technical companies in Singapore, I found that technical superiors tend to adopt a supportive leadership style, while non-technical superiors adopt a more achievement-oriented one. This manifests in significant differences between the two kinds of superiors in the extent of the leader's position power (formal authority), the degree of autonomy subordinates want, and the extent subordinates control their goal achievements.

Poon Teng Fatt, James. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2004). Careers>Management>Technology

Learn to Write a Resume that Will Get You Noticed  

Your resume could be hurting your chances of landing a new job. Columnist Jeff Davis shares some advice for making sure your resume is one that hiring managers will read.

Davis, Jeff. TechRepublic (2003). Careers>Resumes

Learning by Teaching  

Bist argues that the best way for technical communicators to deepen their knowledge of their companyís product information is to teach it. Using examples from his own experience, he suggests how to prepare and teach a course on any professional subject.

Bist, Gary. Intercom (2000). Careers>Education

Learning from Our Students: Insights from Internships  

Wise teachers know how to learn from their students. This paper draws on the work-experience journals of graduate students in Northeastern University’s Masters in Technical and Professional Writing (MTPW) program. Written from 1993 through 1996, the journals provide insights from these internships so that we, the teachers, can better prepare future students for the world of technical communication.

Krupp, Marguerite. STC Proceedings (1997). Careers>Internships>Education