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I can't speak for the entire country, but any time I hired a writer
during the past 10 years in Silicon Valley the salary/rate that had to
be paid to secure the desired candidate lined up pretty well with what
the STC survey was saying about the area, and was consistently 10-15%
higher than what government and commercially provided salary data said
should be "prevailing." Perhaps writers in the valley were just digging
in their heels and not settling for less than their STC survey told them
was the going rate, making it a self-fulfilling prophecy, but even
during the worst of the dot-bomb the rate for a top-notch candidate
didn't appreciably dip; the number of less-than-optimum applicants for
every opening just skyrocketed.
> We kept hearing that the survey figures were suspect -- that members
> were
> understood to be inflating their numbers. Comments?
>
> Meanwhile, is there yet any attempt by HQ to gather demographic info
> about
> what industries members work in/with, so that we can see WHERE the
> various
> kinds of TecComm jobs are?
>
> --Guy K. Haas
> Software Exegete in Silicon Valley
>
> On Mon, November 12, 2007 2:29 pm, Gene Kim-Eng wrote:
>> STC has abandoned its traditional method of collecting data directly
>> from members and has switched to reports derived from BLS figures,
>> which
>> come from employers. So instead of finding out what rates
>> mid-to-high
>> level professionals with specialized technical communications skills
>> are
>> reporting, we'll be receiving the same useless data I can already
>> access
>> through various other services that derive reports from the same
>> source
>> and lump the experienced professionals I need to negotiate rates with
>> in
>> with various nontechnical, clerical and secretarial people who have
>> managed to score the title of "technical writer" by taking $15/hour
>> temp
>> assignments from places like Apple One. However, I was not
>> previously
>> aware that STC was going to expect us to pay extra for it.
>>
>> Gene Kim-Eng
>
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True single source, conditional content, PDF export, modular help.
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