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Herman Holtz writes: "What say you about the requirement to be already an
expert in the software an employer
wishes you to use?"
It drives me nuts. It took me several months to break into tech
writing--with various other writing experience on my resume--in part
because employers wanted someone who already "had Frame," "knew RoboHelp,"
etc. (Learning RoboHelp on the job, once I finally got a break, took an
afternoon.) To add insult to injury, I've often been told that having been
trained in the tool is insufficient--they want to see that you've used it
on the job. Catch-22...
My theory is that a lot of these employers don't know how to assess your
skills as a writer, so they turn to the concrete, quantifiable, trivial
things: "How many years experience do you have with tool X?"
Christine Anameier
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Develop HTML-based Help with Macromedia Dreamweaver! (STC Discount.)
**NEW DATE/LOCATION!** January 16-17, 2001, New York, NY. http://www.weisner.com/training/dreamweaver_help.htm or 800-646-9989.
Sponsored by DigiPub Solutions Corp, producers of PDF 2001
Conference East, June 4-5, Baltimore/Washington D.C. area. http://www.pdfconference.com or toll-free 877/278-2131.
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