RE: Pay rate for contractor with no experience

[Kay Robart <kay -dot- robart -at- integratedconcepts -dot- com>]

The rate would probably depend upon where you live and what background
the person has. Is he or she a rank beginner, or is it someone who has some
education in tech writing or experience with the programs? If you are going
to have to spend a lot of time tutoring the person and they are going to
take
a lot of time getting up to speed, the rate should be lower.

The only figure I have a reference for is that I hired a beginning tech
writer for a summer internship a couple years ago and she was paid $12/hr.
However, she was very competent, was writing documentation from scratch,
and had most of her tech writing degree already. She was very happy with
the pay. Times have changed since then in some areas of the country,
though. I'm still thinking no more than $15/hr.

Kay Robart

> I am looking at hiring a part-time contractor to help me with such tasks
> as
> compiling online help systems, compiling manuals in HyperHelp, updating
> manuals, updating release notes, and various other small, nitpicky things.
> I
> have interviewed one person already that seems ideal for the job, and we
> have reached the level of negotiating her pay.
> 
> What hourly rate do you think is reasonable for someone doing the
> aforementioned tasks that has no technical writing experience?
> 
> Thanks for your help,
> Alyssa Fox
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Alyssa Fox
> Technical Writer
> Zeh Graphic Systems, Inc.
> http://www.zeh.com
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
>