Posts about “Working”
So you work at a big hi-tech company and you have questions. Lots of questions. But your manager is in yet another meeting and your deadline is looming. Who do you turn to? Why, your friendly, neighbourhood technical writer of course. Here’s why:
Your technical writer may have written a 500 page manual on how your product works but you sure don’t have time to read that beast. Why not ask the author directly?
In this rocky economic climate, marketing yourself has never been more crucial if you want to survive the inevitable cutbacks. When it comes to technical writing, it’s a useful exercise to understand and appreciate what companies look for in a writer.
Lyndsey Amott, in an article on her website, stresses that industry knowledge should not be a primary deciding factor when mulling over suitable candidates. Her top three must-haves are:
So, you’ve managed to land an interview. Congratulations! Time to prepare by going through possible interview questions and practicing in front of a mirror. Make sure you’ve done your research on the company and have some intelligent questions to ask them too.
Now what do you say once you’re sitting in the hot seat? Here are my top five tips for acing that tech-writing job interview:
Tell your potential employer that even though you don’t know everything about their widgets right now, you love learning new things.
I mentioned in part one of this series that 80% of jobs can only be found in that elusive place called “the hidden job market.” About 20% of those gigs can be gotten through employment services, cold calling, and other tactics, such as information interviews. But the other 60% are landed through referrals. That makes networking your only way to access a big chunk of the job market.
So how do you rustle up some contacts in Vancouver, a city that has a reputation for being a tad on the chilly side?
Have you ever had a job that bored you into zombie mode faster than Seabiscuit on steroids? According to this BBC article, scientists have developed a headset that measures when our brains are about to switch into autopilot mode. This state of cognitive rest is the brain’s way of saving cogitations for something more mentally taxing like what to make for dinner tonight.
Going brain dead is all very well if you’re gluing hula skirts onto tiki dolls on an assembly line, but what about if you’re, say, an air traffic controller?
I’ve officially uploaded the latest version of my ePortolio - you can check it out here.
This website uses some flash elements and some fancy css coding and is basically geared towards technical writing employers as a way to showcase my work. I may expand it in the future to include other samples too.
For those who are interested, I designed it in Dreamweaver, Illustrator, and Photoshop. I used FlashSpring Pro 2 to convert a Powerpoint to flash.
I’m going to start a series on finding a tech-writing job specifically in the high-tech hub of Vancouver, BC (which is where I happen to live). As I started the job search process myself, I noticed a dearth of information on this topic. I hope I can dig up some useful info for those in a similar position - eventually I’ll port this stuff over to my resources page.
So, without further ado, here is part 1, which will focus on job search engines.
I was trying to figure out how many people are reading my writing/editing and the numbers are pretty huge. First of all, I’ve been writing for the print edition of alive at a readership of about 500,000. Then every Tuesday articles I’ve edited for Metro Canada comes out countrywide at a readership of 700,000. And the tips of the day I write for Living Naturally are published on at least 7000 websites in the US and Canada, according to this Google search.
Peter Legge, CEO of Canada Wide (the behemoth that publishes just about every magazine in Western Canada), recently wrote a little book on how to jump-start your career.
He advises us to model ourselves after Leonardo da Vinci, who believed that seven key elements allowed him to become one of the most incredible innovators of our time. Here they are:
Curiosita: An insatiably curious approach to life and an unrelenting quest for continuous learning.
I’ve heard tales of proofreaders being unappreciated and underpaid, but this takes the cake! Check out this news article on a proofreader who died at work and was only discovered five days later by the janitor.
Okay, okay, this story seems too bizarre to be true, and so it is. This article was later determined to be a fake. I mean think about it - even if the office had it’s air conditioning turned up to the max (unlikely on a cold October day in New York), the corpse would have started emitting an offense odour after three days.
I’m mostly writing this entry to make sure my website doesn’t die a horrible gurgling death as it flushes away down the internet drain of obscurity. I’ve been busy writing and editing full-time at alive, and loving it! I especially enjoy interacting with readers of the magazine and answering their questions and concerns in that nice, friendly manner that sometimes straddles the line between professionalism and condescension. I’d love to write about it in more detail here, but there are confidentiality issues involved, suffice to say, I do get a lot of ‘interesting’ letters from those that perhaps do not have full reign over their mental faculties.
What kind of perks do you get at work? Is it better to have a meaty salary and work like a dog - or have fun all day and get paid less? This dilemma is exemplified in a comparison of arch enemies Microsoft and Google. Microsoft pays really well but I’ve heard from people who work there that it’s a fast-track to slavery and that you can kiss your nights and weekends goodbye.