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Subject:Re: English major as TW prerequisite? From:Kat Nagel <mlists -at- masterworkconsulting -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Sat, 1 Nov 2003 10:43:57 -0500
At 07:37 PM -0800 2003-10-31, David Sullivan wrote:
The current thread about certification and licensing got me wondering
about how much employers regard an English degree as sine qua non for
a tech writer.
In my experience (17 years as a technical writer after 17 years as an
industrial R&D chemist), if the hiring manager has an English degree,
you may need an English degree to get hired. If the hiring manager
has any sort of engineering degree, you are more likely to be hired
if you have some sort of engineering degree (not necessarily the same
flavor as the manager). If the hiring manager has a programming or
sysadmin background, you will be expected to have (or get) similar
credentials.
People tend to hire people who speak the same professional language.
While looking for a familiar degree on a resume is a convenient
shortcut for them, you can sometimes convince hiring managers to hire
you anyway if you can show you know the language through your
previous work experience or your writing samples.
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