RE: Word to PowerPoint Conversion/Job advice (long)

[bryan -dot- westbrook -at- amd -dot- com]

If defense writing is not what you want to make a career of, start looking
for something else right away (just don't quit your current job until you
have a written offer in hand).  Like you, I took a defense job right out of
college because it was the first offer I got.

I was there for a little over 2 1/2 years and was making about 72.8
cents/hour more than when I had started, and as a lifetime civilian there
was absolutely no way I was going to be promoted because all the bosses were
ex-officers and the Army contacts seem to like it that way.

Well, I was there for the experience and toughed it out for 2 years before
starting to look for a better job because a lot of the ads I had seen when I
was still in school treated that like it was some sort of magic number
(though by the time I got 2 they were asking for 3 <g>).  I quickly learned
that a lot of the people who are making hiring decisions only see experience
in their field as relevant.  It didn't matter to most of them that I had
been writing professionally for over two years if I hadn't been writing
about the exactly the same types of things they wanted documented.

I had cutting edge skills in military hardware writing, but it took me over
seven months to finally land a job doing software documentation (ironically
at a computer hardware manufacturer <g>) and that was during the Clinton
economy before the dot bomb implosion started.  On a side note, I do feel
like I got the last laugh, however, every time I hear of one of the other
companies were I applied having massive lay-offs while I'm still here.


-----Original Message-----
From: M Rassmussen [mailto:mrassmussen -at- hotmail -dot- com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2001 10:40 AM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Re: Word to PowerPoint Conversion/Job advice (long)

My friends and family keep asking why I'm still there, and the only answer I

can give is that I need the experience, which is a really strong reason to 
stay.  But I wonder if it's worth it?  Is this just how today's workplace 
is?


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