Getting a Technical Writing Job, Even If You Have No Experience  

Technical writing jobs can be hard to get if you have little or no experience. But there are things you can do to improve your chances of getting hired.

Docsymmetry. Careers>TC>Interviewing>Technical Writing

Going Out On Your Own: It's Not All or Nothing

For some, going freelance seems like an all-or-nothing proposition: you either have to jump in with both feet or not try at all. This blog post argues another way: gradually transition to full-time freelancing.

DMN Communications (2008). Careers>Freelance>TC

Growing Your Job as a Technical Communicator: Guidelines for Getting In, Moving Up, and Staying Put  

Two seasoned technical communicators discuss the elements of 'growing their jobs,' using successes and lessons learned to offer practical suggestions for getting in, moving up, and staying put if the company downsizes.

Liebetrau, Suzanne F. and Sallie J. Ortiz. STC Proceedings (1995). Careers>TC>Planning

Guerilla WriteFare™: Nice Work If You Can Get it -- Here's How

My experience in the corporate environment has been that larger companies don't go out of their way to hire home-based freelancers. That's not to say that they never do -- it simply hasn't been my experience with them. I run into this problem all the time. Finding off-site work is a challenge. I scour the top 20 or so job search engines and other places for work and, while there really are quite a few contract positions out there, nearly all of them require on-site work. That's the bad news. Here's the good news: I have figured this thing out, believe it or not. In fact, I'm working on a book and a seminar about it. To locate good work that allows you to work out of the home office, you must know three things: How to look. Where to look. Hw to build trusting relationships with your customers.

Knowles, Michael. AIPMM (2003). Careers>Freelance>TC>Case Studies

A Guide to Careers in Technical Writing

Contrary to what many assume, working as a technical writer involves much more than sitting alone at your PC. The job requires plenty of contact with technical professionals, from programmers and project managers to machine operators and medical technicians. Solitary? Not quite. Collaborative? Most definitely.

Hoffman, Allan. Monster.com (2007). Careers>TC>Writing>Technical Writing

Happiness is A Good Fit: Personality Typing Tools for Career Management  

Members of our profession have tended to manage their careers by choosing either technical or management paths, then following them. Increasingly, technical communicators are factoring their personality types into the equation. This paper examines how standardized personality typing tools used by career planners are applied to help team members to find a good job fit, build a highfunctioning team, salvage interpersonal conflicts in the workplace, and make a suitable career change.

Bailie, Rahel Anne, Liz Babcock, Conni E. Evans and Emma C. Hamer. STC Proceedings (2002). Careers>Management>TC

The Hidden Costs of Offshore Outsourcing

The current stampede toward offshore outsourcing should come as no surprise. For months now, the business press has been regurgitating claims from offshore vendors that IT work costing $100 an hour in the United States can be done for $20 an hour in Bangalore or Beijing. If those figures sound too good to be true, that's because they are.

Overby, Stephanie. CIO Magazine (2003). Careers>TC>Outsourcing>Offshoring

Hiring Contract Technical Writers

When you finally get the approval to hire a contract technical writer you'll want to go about it the right way in order to avoid problems and ensure success. This article provides insight on what you need to do before you start looking for a contract technical writing professional and how to go about finding one suitable for your project.

Hartmann, Scott. Writing Assistance (2006). Careers>Interviewing>TC>Technical Writing

How Have You Advanced Your Career?  

Three technical communication gurus answer the question, 'What single action or decision did more to advance your career than any other?'

Barker, Thomas, Janice Gelb and Donald E. Zimmerman. Intercom (2002). Careers>Advice>TC

How I Leaped Almost Overnight from Traditional Tech Writer to Marcom Guy to Hybrid - in a Tad More Than Four Decades  

I began as a traditional technical writer and editor in January 1961. Then a gradual evolution changed my worklife: I became a multiple-threat hybrid. My experience zig-zagged from writing proposals to professional acting to building technical resentations to educating myself in marketing communications and marketing to counseling others in strategically thinking how to better market their ideas. Today, I am the hybrid of the future: technical writer and editor/marcom specialist/strategic thinker/marketing counselor.

Gottlieb, Larry. STC Proceedings (2002). Careers>TC>History

How To Break into Technical Writing

Whether you're attempting to become a technical writer at 21 or 41, the steps are the same. Statistics show that the best way to find a job is network, network, network. Go to association meetings, like STC, and talk to as many people as you can. Introduce yourself and tell them honestly what you want. Ask them a lot of questions about how they did it. Everyone started somewhere.

MicroSearch. Careers>Writing>TC

How to Create a Portfolio

So, you decide that you would like to create a portfolio. What do you do? Where do you start?

Burnett, Rebecca E. Thomson. Careers>Portfolios>TC

How to Get a Good Job  

Suggests ways to get a good job by cutting production time and cost on user manuals while increasing access and usability.

Bush, Donald W. Intercom (2000). Careers>Documentation>TC

How to Promote Technical Communication Services in Your Organization  

Successfully promoting technical communication services in organizations requires more than just the right brochure, the right slogan, or the right Web page. A technical communication team must first make strategic decisions about how it can most effectively contribute to the success of the overall enterprise. In this paper, I describe how our team successfully improved the perception of our value to the rest of our organization by adopting an attitude of service toward our internal customers.

Pollak, Bill. STC Proceedings (1999). Careers>TC>Workplace

How to Work as an Off-Site Technical Writer

Not all technical writers get in their car and drive to work every day. Some only work in the office a couple of days a week. Others don’t ever go into the company they work for. These technical writers work entirely from a home office, or in other words, 'off-site.' I’m one of those writers. However, I wasn’t always an off-site writer. For the most part, companies are still reluctant to let employees telecommute. Nevertheless, as more positions are outsourced, consulting is becoming the 'in' position.

Taylor, Vicki M. Suite101. Careers>TC

I Need to Know What?  

Every technical communicator must develop a set of management skills appropriate to the task in order to excel as the leader of the communication team. This calls for multiple skills including being part diplomat, part technical expert, part salesman, and part turtle.

Bailey, Elizabeth. STC Proceedings (2005). Careers>TC>Project Management

Imagination->Innovation->Communication  

As we face an uncertain tomorrow full of challenges for our profession and our world, we should consider what ways to identify opportunities, what emerging trends will affect global businesses, and what new skills must be learned to make us more effective in a brave new world set spiraling in response to technological breakthroughs. Our theme, 'Imagination, Innovation, Communication,' captures the essence of what we do: transform ideas and innovations into a myriad of communication possibilities from technical manuals to virtual Web sites. The theme suggests a successful process with you at the center as an information juggernaut who must make critical choices as you approach a new millennium.

Hawkes, Lory. STC Proceedings (1998). Careers>TC>Planning

Increase Your Impact on Proposal Preparation  

To succeed in the 1990s, technical communicators must become more financially precise and increase their impact on procedures. These capabilities are especially critical during preparation of new business proposals. This workshop focuses on techniques and tasks that can increase the technical communicator’s ability to contribute while they reduce preparation time and cost. The techniques presented in this workshop have been successful in producing both commercial and government proposals.

Allen, Lori A. and William C. Wiese. STC Proceedings (1994). Careers>TC>Proposals

Independent Consulting in Technical Communication

The number of technical communicators working as independent consultants has increased remarkably over the past decade - may you call this a trend?

TC-FORUM (1998). Careers>Consulting>TC

Independents' Success Depends on Business Skills  

I went independent in 1990 as a technical writer/instructional designer, and I now teach technical writing in corporations. My business has grown steadily, albeit slowly, in these thirteen years. I learned quickly that independents are businesses first and technical communicators second. Our work may feed our souls and pay the bills today, but if we ignore business matters, our practices will ultimately fail. It is not enough to be 'technically' smart— independents must be savvy in business to succeed in any economy.

Frick, Elizabeth G. 'Bette'. Intercom (2003). Careers>Consulting>TC

Industrial-Strength Technical Communication  

In the nineties, if an employer took one glance at your résumé and started to fall in love with you, it probably had a lot to do with your long list of software tool skills. Nowadays, most employers couldn't care less about tools. It's all about industry experience.

Davis, Douglas W. STC (2007). Careers>Resumes>TC

Information Design and Becoming a Business Partner  

The information age provides great opportunity--and threat--to technical communicators. By understanding more about the general domain--specifically the relationship between communication and information design--we have the opportunity to become valued business partners to our employers and clients.

Knemeyer, Dirk. STC Proceedings (2004). Careers>Information Design>TC

Information Development at Rockwell Software – Part 1: Organizational Issues and Work Process  

Establishing and maintaining good relationships with internal customers is essential for technical writers. In our case, engineers are our internal customers and managing professional relationships with them can be challenging. At Rockwell Software, writers are matrixed into engineering organizations. This diffuses technical writing’s presence, but it gives us access to information we might not have if we were in a separate department. Given this organization, we have found that establishing personal relationships with engineers before focusing on work helps ensure our success. Finally, usability testing serves as a place where engineers and writers can focus on the success of their product as a whole.

Butler, Scott A., Eric J. Grabowski and Myron M. Shawala III. STC Proceedings (1998). Careers>TC>Collaboration