RE: Green TW searching for software advice

Subject: RE: Green TW searching for software advice
From: "Kevin Christy" <kevinchristy -at- socal -dot- rr -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2002 17:11:39 -0800

Lois said:

>>I'd be curious to hear of the experiences of other writers. Have you more
often lost contracts and full-time opportunities due to lack of knowledge of
a specific tool, or due to lack of technical knowledge?<<

It's that very issue that's forcing me to buy a copy of Frame and learn it.
There's just too many places that use it. In fact, I just had a recruiter
tell me that if I wanted to "break into" technical writing (I've been doing
technical writing for over 5 years, and various forms of business writing
for another 10), I needed to learn Frame. Granted, I should have done it
years ago just because so many of my peers use it, but as I see it, writing
talent and word processing/layout skills are relatively easy to transfer
from one platform to another. Frankly, I haven't yet been willing to shell
out the bucks (even harder to sell the wife on it these frugal-living days),
and none of my clients/employers used it. However, in this tough market, I
can't afford *not* to know it.

>>I think I've more often lost opportunities due to lack of a tool
(sometimes
a very arcane one) than to lack of technical knowledge. Perhaps it's
possible to "overstate" tool knowledge, as Andrew suggests, but I'm not good
at falsifying.What Andrew says makes sense, but does it really work out that
way?<<

One of the most valuable talents, IMHO, is being able to quickly find the
answer to what you don't know. At one of my jobs, I was known as the come-to
guy when somebody needed a question answered. Sometimes, they were flat
stunned that I was able to find it; our corporate librarian said she'd never
seen anybody better. I say that not to pat myself on the back, but to
explain why I wouldn't hesitate to "overstate" tool knowledge on the front
end (especially to get past a checkbox-checking HR resume screener) because
I'm confident that I can get up to speed quickly on the back end.

Peace!

Kevin


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Follow-Ups:

References:
Re: Green TW searching for software advice: From: Lois Patterson

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