RE: Value of Certification

[Eric Harkness <eric -dot- harkness -at- Sunquest -dot- com>]

Hi Tom,
I've been a technical writer in one form or another for eight years now,
although my earlier titles leaned more towards training.  My situation might
be uncommon, but during the interview for my current company, the
interviewer (now my manager) mentioned STC.  I had no idea what she was
talking about! As for vendor certification, although my resume listed
FrameMaker and RoboHELP as skills, I'd really never developed in them, only
worked through the tutorials you can get at the bookstore. In my case, my
company was more interested in my attitude and writing ability than in the
tools I could use. 
However, I have noticed that the tools that you can use seem to be more
important in some geographical areas than in others. When I lived in
Chicago, I interviewed several places, but because I only had Word on my
resume, no one would talk to me.  I believer there was a tech writer glut in
the Chicago area, so the more experienced you were, the better your chances.
I now live in Tucson, where technical writers are harder to come by, and the
interest of many companies here seems to lie more in ability; my company is
willing to teach tools like FrameMaker to new writers if they have little
experience with them.
Good luck to you.
Eric Harkness

-----Original Message-----
From: TechWriter [mailto:techwriter -at- tfr-cape -dot- com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2001 9:51 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Value of Certification


Hi all,

I've got lots of industry experience but new to the Tech Writing field -
transitioning to this area as we speak.

I was wondering if people have any thoughts - pro or con - on the value of
getting vendor certifications in some key areas as a means of building
credibility. For example - the various MOUS certifications can be gotten in
the Office Products and, similiarly, Adobe offers ACE certifications in
Acrobat, Pagemaker, etc.

Do these really add value?

Thanks.....
Tom Ryan



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