Technical Writer Jobs and Career Alternatives

Technical Writer Jobs and Web Content Strategy

Filed under: Technical Writer Jobs — admin @ 2:48 pm, Announcement.

I write a lot about content strategy and writing for the Web and I noticed a funny thing the other day. I was talking with a friend about an article he wanted me to guest write for his blog about helping out-of-work web content strategists find a job. We talked around the subject for a while trying to find a good angle and it occurred to me that it was no wonder we were having trouble – I don’t know any out-of-work content strategists!


That was kind of a revelation really. Even with the bad economy and double-digit unemployment, all the Web writers and content strategists I know are hard at work. The contractors are doing particularly well. But I DO know a few technical writers who have been recently laid off who are finding technical writer jobs hard to come by.


But the technical writers I know have great job skills. They can handle almost any kind of writing and are used to living under deadline pressure. It seemed odd that web content development and content strategy job skills would be in demand, but the closely related technical writer jobs would be drying up.


So we starting thinking – if technical writer jobs are going to be so hard come by, then maybe it’s time for my friends to take those technical writer job skills and put them to work elsewhere. This conversation got interesting fast. Before I started working in the Web content world, I had been a technical writer for ten years. So I have a deep understanding of the technical writer world, technical writer job skills, and how to take those skills and stop looking for technical writer jobs and move to growing areas of technical writing and on to other job areas such as the Web. I’m living proof that it can happen and that the change can be very profitable.


We came up with so many interesting article ideas that I decided to write about something else on his blog entirely and keep the technical writer jobs idea for myself as the subject of a blog. I think that technical writers have great job skills and I look forward to writing about how to best put them to use in a job that pays well and that they feel good about!

I’ll be covering:

  • New and developing technical writer jobs
  • Featured technical writer job listings
  • Taking technical writer job skills to the Web
  • Going freelance as a technical writer
  • The technical writer jobs market


Plus anything else that pops into my head!

Learn more about how I used my technical writer jobs skills get a much higher paying job as a Content Strategist working on Web site development projects.

Technical Writer Jobs Board

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Avoid Uncompensated Job Expansion

Filed under: Freelance Technical Writer, Technical Writer Careers, Technical Writer Jobs — admin @ 9:43 am, September 14, 2009.

OK, that’s a just a fancy way to say, when a client is asking you to do something new, or something a little outside your normal job description, don’t miss the chance to bump up your salary or hourly rate.

 

I see this all the time, especially with freelancers. A good client comes to them with a new project that involves writing a lot of new content for their Website. This is a great chance to quote a slightly higher rate. If asked about it I just say something like this:

“That’s my rate for Web Content Development. Writing for the Web requires a somewhat different skill set, is aimed at an audience who is usually less technical in nature, and I find the review cycles to be much longer and more in depth, so I charge a slightly higher rate.”

 
It’s usually a quick negotiation, either that accpet the rate or not. It’s not worth losing a good client over it, but it never hurts to ask.
 
Something else I’ve done with great success is to use an old marketing trick of showing them a discounted price. In the quote I send, I’d show them a much higher hourly rate for “Web Content Development,” and then I’d apply a “Best Client Discount” that brings the price way down to just a little bit more than I was already making. This way they think they are getting a deal!
 
Whether you are a freelancer or on salary, you need to constantly be on the lookout for ways to increase your rate. There are only so many hours in the day, if you want to make more money, you need to find a way to increase your hourly rate.
 

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Technical Writer Jobs Market Data from STC

Filed under: Technical Writer Careers, Technical Writer Jobs — admin @ 6:34 pm, September 1, 2009.

The Society for Technical Communication just updated their Salary Database with data from 2008. Though a member ship is required for a deep dive into the data, here are a few highlights:

  • The Technical Writer Jobs market increased by only 1.5 percent in 2008. That’s just 740 new jobs for the whole country.
  • New Jersey and Michigan gained the most new jobs
  • Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, andPhoenix lost the most technical writer jobs
  • The median salary got a small bump up to 61,620 USD

Once again, not a very encouraging report. Much of the growth was not in the traditional software development base, but in industrial equipment and goods. New jobs in Web writing and Content Strategy were up a lot more with a much higher median salary.

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Technical Writer Jobs Market – More Competitive

Filed under: Technical Writer Careers — admin @ 2:53 pm, August 7, 2009.

When I was a well-paid senior technical writer back in the 1990s, we went through a recession and I found myself without a job. Laid off. Very confident of my skills, I expected to find something right away and I was very surprised when this didn’t happen. Companies would be impressed by my resume, call me in for a great interview, call me back for another interview, and then I’d never hear from them again.

It took a while, but I finally got a clue as to what was going on from a friend who was a manager in a company where I was being considered. The hard truth was that I had priced myself out of the current market. Times were tight and there were plenty of people with OK skills who were eager to take the jobs for much less that what I was used to getting.

I think that this is happening now in the technical writer jobs market. Plus, the problem is being compounded by the collapse of the print media. Journalists of all kinds are fining themselves out on the street and looking for a new place to sell their skills. Technical writing is the first place to try for many with any kind of technical background. Especially those who started out as technical writers and then moved into other areas. They all head back to technical writing and cause the jobs market to get very competitive. This drives full-time salaries down.

Competing in a Tough Technical Writer Jobs Market

There are three ways to compete and win in this kind of market:

1- Beef up your resume, really call attention to skills that you have that may be in short supply, and duke it out for the best jobs.

2 - Lower your compensation expectations and compete on price in the short term until things get better.

3 – Go compete in a different league where things are not as competitive or where the overall pay level is higher.

If you decide to go with door number 3, I think that both the writing for the Web and Content Strategy markets are good choices, as is taking your technical writer jobs skills over into the freelance and contract market. The overall pay and competition are better in the Web writing and content strategy areas and working on contract let’s you apply for jobs all over the world, not just in your backyard.

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