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Sophia Goan wrote:
>
> ...if you have a degree in technical communication, why should you
> have to take the test. Someone has, more or less, already given you a
> certification.
Speaking as an employer, I would far, far rather hire a college graduate
with a degree in something OTHER than technical writing - but that
degree represented the person's desire to pursue a particular kind of
learning with a passion - than hire a person with a freshly minted BA in
Technical Writing. I am constantly looking for people who not only know
how to learn, but also know how to turn around and use what they just
learned to teach someone else. And THAT, to my mind, is what technical
writing is all about, not just skill at using various popular tools.
> Now, if there existed a certification system which could account for
> degree of experience, it would be more worthwhile. Someone who is new to
> the field would be at entry level...or a junior writer...while someone
> with more experience would be at an upper level.
Oh, the humiliation inherent in that approach. Case in point: 20 years
ago, most tech writers were hardware writers. The few of us who were
software writers were considered very specialized and out of the
mainstream - until the market for DOD hardware manuals began to dry up
and the market for software writers got hotter. I hired one refugee
from the hardware marketplace and, because she didn't know how to use
the software tools, had to start her as a junior writer despite the fact
that she had been in the business for 15 years and in many ways was
really senior to me. By the "certification" argument, would she have
been a junior writer or something else?
Elna Tymes
Los Trancos Systems
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