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I am asking for advice and perspectives based on your experience when you
entered the tech comms field. I am working in an Internet start-up, and we
will be adding many new developers over the summer. Management accepted my
proposal that we hire a new technical writer now and spend some up-front
time getting this person up to speed. After a comprehensive search, we made
an offer and received an acceptance from an entry-level person.
I have identified some tasks that our new writer can perform immediately to
start being productive. As I work on developing a schedule for getting the
writer fully functional as quickly as possible, I find myself wondering what
types of activities, projects, and assignments are most useful.
My question to those of you who are relatively new to the field is, what was
most helpful in the first weeks and months of your professional life? I do
not want (or need) to take a "sink or swim" approach, so I want to make sure
that we use our limited ramp-up time wisely.
