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Subject:Re: Brief introduction and request for advice From:Michael Oboryshko <obie1121 -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 16 Jan 2002 06:07:47 -0800 (PST)
Just about everybody was doing well for the last three years.
But in this market nobody will recruit you for your pure writing
ability. Here are a few things I have forced myself to do in the
past, in the face of my own complacency and inertia:
- Instead of spending 5 hours each day browsing monster.com for
technical writing jobs, spend 5 hours each day on the phone or
doing lunch with people in the IT business.
- Get off Compuserve/AOL (I was an early compuserve adopter but
now it reeks of newbie). Get a separate hosting provider, and
set up a website on laurencestarn.com, even if it's just your
resume. You'll learn something about webhosting and FTP.
- Handcode your resume in valid XHTML and CSS. There, now you
have two new skills.
- Set up a home network with your main computer and any old
computers you have lying around. Now you have some networking
skills.
- Start meeting with local IT consultants. There are a lot of
one-man shops who need doc support. Maybe offer to do their docs
for free, if you will learn something new. Plus you will get
valuable exposure and job leads, and maybe some cool stuff in
your portfolio.
- You can do all this and still there's no guarantee of work --
it's a recession. Get ready to vote.
Good luck,
Mike O.
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