First Jobs that Grow into Careers as Technical Writers
John Cabral
Hello,
I'm interested in starting a career as a technical writer, and I'm
looking for some information to refine my research. In particular, I'm
wondering what types of positions (especially entry-level) are effective
starting points for such a career. I've been reading the list and
appreciate the necessary skills, but I'm wondering what type of job
titles I should be considering as opportunities to develop those skills.
A little about me: I'm a recent Ph.D. in philosophy (graduated in July
2002) and have decided against pursuing a career as an academic. I have
lots of experience as an instructor and have designed distance education
courses.
Thank you for your help.
John Cabral
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On Sat, 11 Jan 2003, John Cabral <John.P....@tc.umn.edu> wrote:
| I'm interested in starting a career as a technical writer, and I'm
| looking for some information to refine my research. In particular, I'm
| wondering what types of positions (especially entry-level) are effective
| starting points for such a career.
What an excellent question. I'm not sure how useful my answer will be to
you, though.
| I've been reading the list and appreciate the necessary skills, but
| I'm wondering what type of job titles I should be considering as
| opportunities to develop those skills.
In my experience: any job that affords you the ability to write stuff down.
"Forklift driver": In college, I had a job driving a forklift for an
international air-freight forwarding company. The office manager
insisted "It'll take you forever to figure out the paperwork, because
there's so much of it, it's all arcane, and the rules that govern how
this stuff is filled out, broken down, and who gets what copies are, of
course, not written down anywhere."
So I wrote a manual. Years later, when I needed a piano moved to Hawaii, I
called the old company. They were still using my manual. That's right-
their operations are governed by the rules set down by a $7/hr forklift
driver.
"Infantry soldier": Out of college, out of money, and going nowhere in
Detroit, I joined the army. Carried a machinegun until someone realized I
knew how to work a computer, and then got moved to Intelligence. Enlisted
staff jobs in the army that are backfilled by non-MOS-trained personnel
are 'taught' by the "follow me, write down everything I do" method, which
caused three more manuals to happen.
"Network Administrator": After the army, I moved to the IT industry. I had
a few 'stepping-stone' jobs, but my first real career job was in a
network operations center for a large bandwidth provider. My first week, I
was greatly taken aback by the admonition "Don't try to do too much. You
won't understand how anything works here for a year or so." Why? Because
there's no manual, of course. So I wrote another one. The guy who insisted
I wouldn't understand? Axed in the first round of layoffs, while I
stayed there until it was time to leave. And my documentation? Still in use.
Last year, with an IT-heavy resume slanted heavily at a net admin / NOC
job, I found a small company at a job fair who were looking for someone
prior-service military with a heavy technology background that could write
documentation.
And that's how I got my first "Technical Writer" job, ten years after I
wrote my first manual.
| A little about me: I'm a recent Ph.D. in philosophy (graduated in July
| 2002) and have decided against pursuing a career as an academic. I have
| lots of experience as an instructor and have designed distance education
| courses.
Good! You are qualified to drive a forklift then. Good luck to you, sir!
--
Huey
Jean Hollis Weber
John Cabral wrote,
|I'm interested in starting a career as a technical writer... I'm
|wondering what types of positions (especially entry-level) are effective
|titles I should be considering as opportunities to develop those skills.
|
|2002) and have decided against pursuing a career as an academic. I have
|lots of experience as an instructor and have designed distance education
|courses.
With your background, I'd be looking for any company that provides training
materials and/or instructors, either for its own products or for others'
products. These materials could be online or on-paper, self-paced or
classroom... whatever... even online help not specifically called
"training" or "tutorial." Usability is another area that your skills might
fit into. Just what job titles these might be, I don't know. You might try
some searches on job boards, using terms like "instructor" or "trainer" or
"usability" (along with, perhaps "software," "entry level," "trainee,"
"intern," or "assistant") and see what turns up; from there you might get
some ideas of what recruiters and companies call these positions.
Regards, Jean
Jean Hollis Weber
je...@jeanweber.com
The Technical Editors' Eyrie http://www.jeanweber.com/
Sean Wheller
| -----Original Message-----
| From: bounce-tech...@lists.raycomm.com
| [mailto:bounce-tech...@lists.raycomm.com]On Behalf Of John
| Cabral
| Sent: Saturday, January 11, 2003 5:42 AM
| To: TECHWR-L
| Subject: First Jobs that Grow into Careers as Technical Writers
|
| Hello,
| I'm interested in starting a career as a technical writer, and I'm
| looking for some information to refine my research. In particular, I'm
| wondering what types of positions (especially entry-level) are effective
| starting points for such a career. I've been reading the list and
| appreciate the necessary skills, but I'm wondering what type of job
| titles I should be considering as opportunities to develop those skills.
Hello John,
Assuming you are set on being a Technical Writer and nothing else. Here are
some pointers.
Experience.
The Ph.D is not worth much if you don't have experience. Yes it's the age
old chicken and the egg story. Which comes first? The chicken or the egg?
You may have proven yourself as an academic in philosophy, instructor or
trainer, but have you written a manual? This is your first barrier to entry.
To gain experience I suggest you visit sourceforge (http://www.sf.net).
There are many open source projects in need of contributions by Document
Writers. Writing a manual for one of them will give you some experience. At
least enough to show that you can do this, have done this before. You should
aim to develop a manual that you are proud to show, as a work sample, to
prospective employers.
Job Titles.
There are many non-deplumes to the title Technical Writer. Here are a few:
Technical Author, Technical Communicator, Document Developer, Publications
Architect.
As people progress in the career, the titles change:
Senior Technical Writer, Senior Technical Author, Senior Technical
Communicator, Senior ...
Then there's the managers:
Technical Documentation Manager, Manager Technical Publications, Manager
Customer Information Services etc.
As an entry level, I think you will more than likely obtain the title
"Technical Writer".
Knowledge.
It is vital that you understand more than just the skills needed by a
Technical Writer. You must also understand topics such as:
* Information Life-cycle, document Life-cycle, product life-cycle
* Document design, document development process, document management
* Information design, take a good look at i-map. Seems like common sense,
but many of the principle will help.
* Clear, concise communication techniques, attention to detail, detail,
detail.
* Tools, many of them. NOT just Word Processors, DTP or Graphic packages.
Development, Management and Databases tools are also a must.
* Programming languages, the more you know the better it will be.
* Skills with people, you're sunk if you don't have them.
... and the list goes on. What I am saying is that being a Technical Writer
is, contrary to popular belief, a highly skilled scientific art.
Still not afraid? Then you are welcome. If you need mentoring, then you have
already come to the right place. If you want to communicate with, me
off-list, regarding your manual please do.
Sean Wheller
swhe...@bigpond.net.au
XWriter
craig.c...@att.net
Joh Cabral wrote:
I'm interested in starting a career as a technical writer, and I'm
looking for some information to refine my research. In particular, I'm
wondering what types of positions (especially entry-level) are effective
starting points for such a career. I've been reading the list and
appreciate the necessary skills, but I'm wondering what type of job
titles I should be considering as opportunities to develop those skills.
My reply:
I can say I've received great advice from people on this list. Listen to them.
I am also interested in beginning my career as a technical writer. Right now,
thanks to a friend of my wife's, I'm taking tests to become a freelance
copyeditor and proofreader for a science publisher in downtown Philadelphia. It
would help open the doors to medical writing.
As for my own background, I have a BS in biology, a Technical Writing
Certificate, an MA in English, and experience as a Web and database programmer,
as well as experience as a copyeditor and proofreader for two newspapers.
Craig Cardimon
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Matthew Horn
| > I'm interested in starting a career as a technical writer... I'm
| > wondering what types of positions (especially entry-level)
| > are effective starting points for such a career.
I think becoming a Technical Editor is a good starting point. It's how I got started fresh out of college with nothing more than a state school-sponsored English degree.
The pay sucked, and the work was dull, but it gave me an opportunity to:
- Become familiar with the tools of TW
- Get experience with the processes of TW
- Learn some of the technology
- Decide that I wanted to do TW full time
HTH,
Matthew J. Horn
Sr. Technical Writer
< m a c r o m e d i a >