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.
Subject:Re: First days and weeks on the tech writing job From:Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com> To:TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 27 Jun 2018 11:22:00 -0700
Salesforce has a nice job listing format where they say what to expect
after X months / Y months / Z months. Might be useful to look at a few
of those.
On Tue, Jun 26, 2018 at 6:21 PM, Nina Rogers <janina -dot- rogers -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
> Thanks for all of the feedback, everyone! I've purposely pushed to hire a
> self-starter that I can turn loose, and we are interviewing people who are
> seasoned tech writers with 10-20 years of experience behind them. We need
> someone who can learn the software quickly and start writing. The current
> plan has the tech writer starting on their first article during Week 2, to
> be be completed and submitted for feedback by Week 4. The people who
> designed the plan are not tech writers, and their experience has been solely
> bringing on people who are just out of college for customer service roles,
> so the result is a plan that is all wrong. I'm going to present an alternate
> plan to them on Friday and will point out the reasons that the current one
> is a bad idea.
>
> The public and private feedback I'm receiving here is helping me to realize
> that my instincts are good and that I'm not crazy.
>
> Nina
>
> On Tue, Jun 26, 2018 at 8:40 PM, Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com>
> wrote:
>>
>> This is a junior person? I'd have to interview them before I would
>> have a clue how fast they could get up to speed.
>>
>> I've always hired self-starters and turned them loose, but by
>> definition that's a senior person.
>>
>> On Tue, Jun 26, 2018 at 9:55 AM, Nina Rogers <janina -dot- rogers -at- gmail -dot- com>
>> wrote:
>> > Hello! We are hiring a technical writer, and my company is working on
>> > their
>> > "onboarding" schedule. (This is the first time they have hired someone
>> > in a
>> > tech-writing capacity. I was hired for another position and morphed my
>> > way
>> > to tech writer.)
>> >
>> > I was not included in the planning sessions for onboarding (yes, I'm
>> > kind
>> > of bitter about that) and have been asked to review the onboarding
>> > schedule, now that it's been written. I have some suggestions to change
>> > it
>> > (oh, do I have suggestions), but I'd like to ask the folks here first:
>> > If
>> > you are a tech writer with a company (i.e., not an independent
>> > contractor),
>> > what were your first few days and weeks on the job like? Did you spend a
>> > few weeks gaining knowledge of the software (or whatever you were
>> > writing
>> > about) before you were let loose to start writing articles, or did you
>> > pretty much dive in and learn as you go? How much oversight did you get
>> > from a manager/supervisor before you stopped needing close oversight?
>> >
>> > I'm particularly hearing from people who have hired/onboarded junior
>> > technical writers. Like I said, I have lots of opinions about how the
>> > onboarding process should be changed, but I also don't want to offer
>> > "just
>> > my opinion." If any of you (particularly documentation managers) can
>> > offer
>> > some insights to help me see if I'm on (or off) track, I would
>> > appreciate
>> > it.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Visit TechWhirl for the latest on content technology, content strategy and content development | http://techwhirl.com
