TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Sometimes it is due to PR maneuvers by the hiring company. Posting job listings makes it look like the company is expanding or has new work starting, so it seems the company is more active and in better condition than it really is. It may help shore up the stock value.
A division of the company may start advertising a job before it gets budget approval to actually hire. That can come from a manager's overconfidence or empire building. In the latter case, someone tries to use the information that they've already started staffing efforts as a rationalization for going forward with the new structure.
Multiple listings can happen just because of bad money management, so they have on-again off-again budget projections. They advertise in June, then someone says that if they lose as much as they think, that will kill the hiring budget, so they stop and wait to see what happens. When July comes along and the loss wasn't as bad as they feared, they crank up the hiring again.
In rare cases, maybe they had to close out the original job posting because a different division took over the project, and the people now in charge restarted it because they didn't like any of the original candidates.
What really freaked me out was a case about a month ago, on the opposite end of the spectrum. A startup company here in Austin advertised for a technical writer. The interviewer told me they got more than 70 resumes, and only 3 of them were from real technical writers. All the rest were from office managers, secretaries, admin assistants, and even a couple of lawyers - people who had no technical background but tried to sell themselves on having a lot of experience writing other types of documents. I wonder what happened to all the tech writers in the Austin area. They can't have all moved out, can they? (I didn't get the job, by the way. No experience with COBIT, whatever the heck that is.)
--- On Fri, 7/3/09, Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com> wrote:
> From: Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com>
> Subject: job-hunt weirdness
> To: "TECHWR-L Writing" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
> Date: Friday, July 3, 2009, 1:15 PM
> I've been noticing an odd phenomenon
> lately.
>
> I'll apply for a job that's a very close match to my skill
> set and
> experience. Given the bad economy in general, the slump in
> the
> software industry in particular, and California's
> unemployment rate of
> 11.5% and rising, I figure they're getting hundreds of
> responses, so
> I'm not surprised not to hear back. What does surprise me
> is that a
> month or so later I'll see them relist the job.
>
> This has happened half a dozen times now. I really can't
> imagine
> what's going on at these places. Is anyone here on the
> other side of
> this and able to offer some insight?
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers
> developing Table of
> Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as
> Doc-To-Help
> 2009 tips, tricks, and best practices.
>http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/
>
> Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for
> individual
> authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface.
> Write
> once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and
> version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/
>
> ---
> You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as klhra -at- yahoo -dot- com -dot-
>
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to
> techwr-l-unsubscribe -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> or visit http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/klhra%40yahoo.com
>
>
> To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
>
> Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-
> Visit
>http://www.techwr-l.com/ for more resources and info.
>
> Please move off-topic discussions to the Chat list, at:
>http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/listinfo/techwr-l-chat
>
>
Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help
2009 tips, tricks, and best practices. http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/
Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/
---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-
