April/May 2007

Volume 47, Number 5

From the Insider:  Advice to an Emerging Professional

Dear Insider:

After six long, hard years of study I am finally graduating with my degree in Technical Communications. I’m starting to think about updating my resume and putting out feelers for jobs. I’ll pursue a standard entry-level job in technical writing and want to know what skills to emphasize on my resume and in a job interview. Because I’ve never been employed as a technical writer, I’m not sure what an employer will be looking for. Help!

—Soon to Graduate

Dear Soon to Graduate:

You are wise to think about what employers want before you apply for work as a technical communicator. I assume that your degree program has given you a good foundation in the documentation process, development life cycles, and writing tools. But there are additional skills that are important, skills you may have acquired in the workplace or through participation in organizations. These could make a difference between landing the job and leaving the interview empty-handed.

They are business, interviewing, and research skills. If you have experience in any of these areas, you will want to find a way to weave them into your resume.

Business skills

Today’s businesses are value conscious: everything that happens in the workplace is measured by what it adds to the success of the enterprise. Businesses are looking for candidates who understand this fundamental precept. If you have held jobs in retail or banking, or have run your own business, you may understand how a business is run and Return on Investment (ROI). If so, do not hesitate to include this in your resume.

Interviewing skills

Some think that as a technical writer you simply sit in a cube and document a product by manipulating its features. This notion could not be further from the truth. There are days as a technical communicator that I feel more like an investigative reporter than a senior technical writer.

Today many technical communicators, particularly in large organizations, work on teams that span global time zones, and are organizationally or physically separate from product engineers and testers they work with. This puts the responsibility of acquiring information squarely on the shoulders of the technical communicator.

In this case you must identify who owns the content and then learn the content through often-unconventional communication channels.

For example, if you are working with someone several time zones away, you may want to begin by reviewing the engineering specifications and drafting a set of direct questions that you can submit to your source. It is easier for engineers to respond to well-formulated questions then to compose an answer from scratch describing how product features work.

On the other hand, if the person with the information you need works in the same location, you might ask to see an informal demo or a diagram on a white board, so that you can take notes and ask pertinent questions. This frees the engineer or tester from having to write up notes for you, simplifies the process, and distributes the workload between you both. I have used this technique many times, and it lets me generate a first draft of the information quickly when time is at a premium.

Research skills

Finally, did you develop good library and Internet research skills in your courses? By this I mean much more than simply “googling” a term.

Can you identify complete names for acronyms? Can you research industry terminology to ensure that you are using correct terms rather than jargon? Can you find important company documents (marketing documents, engineering specifications and designs, and testing plans)? And can you use these documents to learn about company products and services, and as a source for the documentation you will write?

If you have at least some of these skills, then you are on your way to becoming a junior professional writer. If you lack some or all of these skills, try to find ways to develop them, for example through other jobs and through participating in organizations in which you have an interest.

If you are new to the profession, transitioning from another profession, or finishing up coursework in the field of technical communications, feel free to submit your questions to The Insider at news@stcrmc.org. We'll do our best to give you will insights and information that will help you get a start.