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As for me, for many years I had monitored the going hourly rate for
techwriters in whichever region I happened to find myself at a given time.
Then I factored in my experience and such.
For example, I no longer live in the so-called Tech Valley around Albany,
NY, but when I moved there four years ago most contracts were being let at
$45/hour. A TEKsystems recruiter was hounding me to accept a position with
Xerox State Healthcare. Not knowing XSH had a hiring quota to meet if they
wanted to avoid being fined by the state under their contract terms, I held
out for $50/hour and got it.
(In part that was because I had hung out my freelancer shingle several
months earlier and didn't really want to take another onsite contract gig.
As it turns out,in hindsight I probably could have held out for $60/hour.)
In recent times I don't think I've seen an agency posted hourly rate for
less than $42. But last week I saw one out of Hew Hampshire posted by Kelly
Services for $25/hour.
That smacks of the proverbial "race to the bottom." What about the
techwriter's cost of living? I'm referring to housing, insurance, taxes,
groceries, transportation, medical, andâgaspâretirement savings.
I know what's behind that gig, in that I'd responded to a LinkedIn
ProFinder ad posted by the company itselfâit's a nanotech manufacturing
operation with military contracts. The response I got from their young HR
person was, "What's your rate?" Obviously they didn't care about anything
else.
When looking for a brain surgeon, however, would one hold out for a
physician offering the lowest rate? Heck no.
Having seen it all before, the nanotech outfit has likely never had or used
a tech writer. Likely their engineers wrote up all of their docs, and no
one knows any different. Anyone can use M$ Word, right?
On Wed, Sep 4, 2019 at 8:08 AM Sion Lane <sion -dot- lane -at- unit4 -dot- com> wrote:
> How does one go about figuring out your hourly or daily rate? Obviously
> one can be derived from the other, but how do you come up with a figure to
> start from?
>
>
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