RE: FWD: Good Company Fit

["Giordano, Connie" <Connie -dot- Giordano -at- FMR -dot- COM>]

George has hit on a solution that has always worked well for me.  It also
raises the visibility of the profession, by demonstrating the many ways we
as communicators can add to the overall success of the company.  There is
still a widely held misconception in many companies that a TW's primary
responsibility is to "make it look pretty".  And while that's important, it
hardly encompasses the range of what we do.

I'd also suggest that you ask some more open-ended questions during the
interviews, some that may seem unrelated, but in fact should give you a
broad picture.

1) What is the company policy towards staff training, including budget?  Do
staff members contribute to internal training?
2) What kind of projects are on the horizon for the next 12-18 months? If
they can't tell you in at least a general way, they have a totally
inadequate business plan, and you'll be sitting around twiddling your thumbs
when you're not up to your ears fixing mistakes and trying to make a
slipping deadline.
3) How much interaction is there between engineers/developers/project
managers and TWs? If you can offer assistance to them in developing
specifications, standards, RFP responses, and/or UI, for example, you'll
quickly see the new opportunities that can come up.  And you will gain their
respect for assisting them.
4) What's the traditional role of the TW on a project?  I've seen places
where it ends up being minutes taker and copy editor, and other (more
preferable) places where it is to contribute to product development and
usability with ideas, suggestions, QA support and whatever else is
necessary.

I'm sure other members of the list can come up with some additional
questions. 

I've yet to have a job that turned out exactly like I was led to believe,
but that's because I make every effort to expand the role I've been given,
and then do the job better than they expected.

 Good luck

Connie Giordano

-----Original Message-----
From: George Hinman [mailto:techwriter -at- my-deja -dot- com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2000 8:14 AM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Re: FWD: Good Company Fit


 
--

On Tue, 4 Apr 2000 20:31:17    anonfwd wrote:
I have since discovered that there isn't enough work to
>keep me busy.  In addition, my role here is nothing like what I was led to
>believe it would be - I was hired as a writer, but that role has dwindled
>to little more than proofreader.   
>
>I appreciate your ideas!
>
>
>
>
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Welcome to the club! I have been working as a techwriter doing software
documentation now for over five years. It is true that there is often not a
"lot of writing to do", but that doesn't mean you can't find ways to
productively use your time. There are constantly new tools and versions of
software to learn and practice with. In software documentation, there are
always updates and new releases to study and learn. I also have made it my
job to become the house expert on tools like MS Word, and have conducted
training sessions for the software engineers. I helped develop and implement
the company intranet and internet websites.
In short, if you are not "given" enough to do, you can seize the initiative
and give yourself tasks. This does not go unnoticed at management levels
either.
I'm not trying to preach, but rather explain my solution to "slow periods"
with few actual writing tasks.