Re: Contract Agencies

["Nina L. Panzica" <panin -at- MINDSPRING -dot- COM>]

At 01:09 PM 1/10/98 +0000, you wrote:
>Hello Everyone:
>
>I am a tech writer with 14 years experience in this business, and
>recently added graphic design and DTP knowledge to my professional
>portfolio. I've read Peter Kent's marvelous book "Making Money in
>Technical Writing," and I think it's about time I took the plunge into
>fulltime contract work.

I know I sent this to you privately, Keith, but that was a mistake. I want
this info. to get into the archives. I've also tagged on a couple more
leads at the end of this public post which you haven't seen.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Well, since DC is home for the national headquarters for the Society for
Technical Communication (STC), so I'd be very surprised if someone
somewhere in that town didn't have such a list.  The local Atlanta chapter
of the STC has a contractors and consultants special interest group (SIG)
and that SIG publishes such a list and distributes it to members. Maybe the
chapter up in DC has something similar? Even if it doesn't, it's worth
attending a consultants sig meeting and asking the group if anyone has such
a list that he or she would be willing to share with you. Many of us
old-time contractors maintain personal contact lists of agencies and
companies that hire writers. My list for Atlanta, for instance, while not
in a distributable form (it's composed right now of barely legible
scribbles on a tablet--so don't anyone get any ideas ;) is about three
times as long as the one our local sig distributes.  Were it typed up, I'd
certainly pass it on to a new contractor who asked nicely.

A good place on the Web to look for employment opportunities (including
contracts) in DC is on the Washington, DC STC chapter's jobs page. Although
I haven't visited this page in about six months, I remember one thing about
it: it's huge.  Here's the URL:

http://stc.org/region2/wdc/www/employ.html

Regards,
Nina P.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

PS:

I just thought of a couple more Web places where you might get the
beginnings of an agency list. There are international organizations of
recruiters and temporary agencies who list their entire membership on the
Web.  I found a couple of these one day in a Web search for things like
"employment asssociations" and "recruiter organizations."

The first is called RON: Recruiters Online. You can search this list of
agencies using city names as your keywords. A search I did for "Atlanta"
turned up 50 firms, many of which I clearly recognized as companies that
place contract technical writers.

http://www.recruitersonline.com/members/smartsearch.html

A second organization is called NTES Recruiters Online Register. The
following URL takes you to their recruiters-by-state listing. Click on a
state to see the agencies listed there.

http://www.ntes.com/recstate.html

These sorts of resources can get you started, but in my experience, nothing
beats creating your  own agency list.  The way I did mine was by combing
the Sunday help wanted ads in the computer jobs section. The agencies are
often the ones that post a long list of different programming jobs, often
with salaries next to each. I collected hundreds of agency names and
contact numbers  just by checking the Atlanta Sunday paper for five or six
weeks. The great majority of these firms work with technical writers even
if they aren't actively advertising for one that week.  If you want to
continue to add to your list, check your Sunday paper ads every six months
thereafter: while this hi-tech boom holds, there will be plenty of new
firms to add.

While you are browsing the Sunday papers, you might also want to note
companies (not agencies) that are advertising for programmers. Many of
these companies use or will use contract technical writers, particularly
when they get in a time bind or are overloaded with projects. I send out
blind copies of my cover letter and resume to such firms, not to the
personnel department, but to the "Documentation Department," and I address
my letter to the documentation manager. (Even if they don't have a doc
dept., which they often won't if they're small, your resume and letter will
go to the next best thing--an engineering manager who has to get a manual
written.)  Like any sort of blind mailing, I have had mixed success with
this, but I got a lot more responses from addressing my letter to
documentation departments then I ever did writing the personnel departments.


____________________________________________________________________________
____

Nina Panzica
Masterpiece Media
(404) 237-7889
Can't reach me at the above number? Try my pager: 404-596-7889
mailto:panin -at- mindspring -dot- com
http://www.mindspring.com/~panin/

Links to other Technical Writers:
http://www.mindspring.com/~panin/writers.htm