Re: Tech writer job descriptions & hiring ESL tech writers?

[Keith Hood <bus -dot- write -at- gmail -dot- com>]

There's always problems in trying to categorize tech writing levels by
other means. Tool use varies wildly from place to place, so there's no way
to have a standard touchstone on what software the writer knows as a mark
of relative level. There will be some jobs where the entry level writers
have to know XML or DITA or things like that. Functions can vary, too -
some places a technical editor has to be someone who has a lot of
experience and training specific to editing, while other places the edits
are pretty much round-robin and the "editor" who checks your stuff is
whoever is free at the moment. Education level and seniority are about the
only things that can be seen as near-universal determinants.

You might consider things like amount of experience with working with
company branding in documents or localization; those are often considered
"advanced" subjects. Other possibilities are things like the writer's
involvement in creating process guidelines and/or standards/templates for
the documentation group, or knowledge of commonly accepted style guides
like the Chicago manual.

But even those have problems in being used as yardsticks of writer
"level."  They can be considered simply specialties, rather than indicators
of relative position on a capability pyramid.

I think rather than trying to classify writers in the way you're thinking,
it's more useful to consider them in the light of who has the training and
experience that is more suited to a particular job. Say you need to produce
a series of user guides. You have one writer who has a Master's and has
been editing others' work for 8 years, localizing docs for overseas use,
but has never written a user manual. You have another writer with a BS who
has 8 years in doing user guides but doesn't know jack about XML or DITA,
which are not involved in the current project. Which of them is "higher
level"?


On Thu, Jan 2, 2014 at 4:34 PM, Charlotte Branth Claussen <
charlotteclaussen -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:

> Robert, thanks for the link.
>
> It surprises me that BA level is the most common educational level for all
> 4.
>
> Also, the difference between levels seem to be experience measured in time
> and level in the management hierarchy. The descriptions are sparse
> regarding the expected knowledge and skills at each level. Can anyone add
> to the descriptions?
>
> /Charlotte
>
>
> 2014/1/2 Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com>
>
> >
> >
> http://swz.salary.com/SALARYWIZARD/layoutscripts/swzl_selectjob.aspx?txtKeyword=technical+writer&txtZipCode=
> >
> > On Thu, Jan 2, 2014 at 10:52 AM, Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com>
> > wrote:
> > > salary.com has pretty good job descriptions for technical writer I-IV.
> >
> >
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