Re: thoughts on the current job market

Subject: Re: thoughts on the current job market
From: Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com>
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:43:36 -0700

Yeah, the non-technical writers who got into the business during the
dot-com era and didn't develop technical chops are gradually being
weeded out.

I've had a couple of jobs where the first order of business was
cleaning up their messes, and as likely as not in my next job I'll
have to do it again.

On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 9:30 AM, Gene Kim-Eng<techwr -at- genek -dot- com> wrote:
> I think this varies with our view of what constitutes "tech writing as
> we know it," and "suitable job listings." At the height of the dotcom,
> tech writing didn't look anything like the profession as I knew it, but
> the trend since the dotbomb (high-dollar listings for writers with
> technical and/or project management expertise and lowball "make it
> pretty" listings for those without) looks pretty much like what I
> remember from "the olden days when I had to walk five miles in the snow
> to get to work."
>
> Gene Kim-Eng
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Robert Lauriston" <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com>
>> On an off-list discussion, some people have been pronouncing the death
>> of tech writing as we know it. Jobs are being off-shored, companies
>> are laying off staff writers and contracting the work out at $20 an
>> hour, and so on.
>>
>> I don't see that. I've been seeing more suitable job listings and
>> getting more interviews in my current job search than the last time I
>> was looking (end of 2003 & beginning of 2004). Most of the openings
>> are for full-time staff positions. In cases where we discussed salary,
>> they didn't expect to have any problem paying me in the range
>> estimated by salary.com.
>>
>> I don't see off-shoring as much of a threat. Development and QA seem
>> to be exportable, but the docs I've seen from Bangalore were unusable.
>
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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/

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References:
thoughts on the current job market: From: Robert Lauriston
Re: thoughts on the current job market: From: Gene Kim-Eng

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