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G. Abenhaim wonders: <<Some of you had mentioned in the past that the STC
Salary Survey is not accurate.>>
In my experience, it's neither more nor less accurate than any other
uncontrolled survey in which the respondents are self-selected, belong to a
specific group that is a subset of the population, and may have a political
agenda (i.e., promoting higher salaries). That is to say, I think it
portrays a slightly optimistic portrait of STC members, rather than of the
industry as a whole.
<<Is there another survey to let us know what tech writers make?>>
Most countries and some states or provinces have a government Commerce or
Statistics department that collects these or similar statistics. (Sometimes
you can find them via a Web search under "standard industrial
classification" plus other keywords such as "salaries", the name of your
region, etc.) These numbers are certainly broader-based and arguably more
objective, but finding them may be difficult and extracting them from the
mass of additional data these people collect may be difficult.
<<I am actually in interviews and have found that most companies offer
really low salaries for the jobs posted. It seems they all want technical
senior responsibilities for junior salaries. How is that possible?>>
It seems to be a buyer's market for companies that survived the dotcom
meltdown: there are lots of writers out there, many of whom are willing to
work for far less than the old pros. If you can't convince an employer of
your worth, there's not much you can do about this other than to wait for
the economy to pick up and for writers to become hot properties again. Given
the recent discussion about outsourcing overseas, I'm not horribly
optimistic that this will happen anytime soon.
--Geoff Hart, ghart -at- [delete]videotron -dot- ca
Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Que., H9R 3J9 Canada
"Wisdom is one of the few things that look bigger the further away it
is."--Terry Pratchett
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