Re: Are technical writers not eligible for a good pay packet?

["Tim Altom" <taltom -at- simplywritten -dot- com>]

You may be overly sensitive. It's common accepted (though not necessarily
true) that tech writers need only know how to type in Microsoft Word. The
additional skills needed to be GOOD at it are generally undervalued. And,
unhappily, many tech writers are just typists getting overblown salaries.
I've known many who had no discernible skills, yet pulled down good money
because of being in the right place at the right time.

There is also an issue of what level of work the interviewer is talking
about. At its most basic, tech writing is just looking at a screen and
typing about it. Anything more than $25K or so for such a person is a
princely sum. The interviewer may not even know about the higher echelons,
in which interviewing, project management, and technical expertise of all
kinds, are essential for success. In fact, I'd take that ignorance as a bad
sign that further discussion will lead anywhere. More than once I've tried
to charge that hill, explaining to a recruiter what a truly good
communicator must know and do. Roughly thirty seconds into the explanation I
can see the inner curtains drop and the mind start internally humming its
own little tune. They don't know; they don't care.

There are fads and outdated impressions in the interviewer community, too.
Years ago, Visual Basic programmers were the darlings of the industry, and
now they're almost underfoot. Yet many recruiters still sit in awe of a
two-year VB veteran. C programmers are often treated as shamans, despite
having that language take an decreasing role in anything but the most
hard-core programming. So it wouldn't be surprising to find that an
interviewer would remain a year or two behind the "truth curve". If that's
the case, I'd have to suspect that the company in general is there, too, and
that it wasn't a prime spot to show off my expertise.


Tim Altom
Simply Written, Inc.
Featuring FrameMaker and the Clustar(TM) System
"Better communication is a service to mankind."
317.562.9298
Check our Web site for the upcoming Clustar class info
http://www.simplywritten.com

----- Original Message -----
From: PB <pbcommunicator -at- myrealbox -dot- com>
To: TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Sent: Thursday, November 23, 2000 2:19 AM
Subject: Are technical writers not eligible for a good pay packet?


> Hi
>
> Sometimes it makes me furious when an interviewer says
> "For a technical writer, your salary is great".
>
> Why are technical communicators compared to programmers
> most of the time? Isn't technical communication as
> complicated as anything else? How would you handle this?
>
>
> PB
> Unimobile Inc.
>



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