Re: Employers' Mistaken Job Requirements

[Andrew Plato <intrepid_es -at- YAHOO -dot- COM>]

Oh, Elizabeth.  There are so many times I have fretted about this same
issue to the list.  The sad fact is too many writers out there are
still obsessed with their tools and not their ability to learn and
write about complex technologies.  Thus, the companies that hire
writers think the measure of a good writer is his/her experience with
Tool A or Tool B.  It never occurs to them to ask "Do you know this
operating system?"  or "How does inheritance work? or "What does a
router do?"

How do we change this?  Well, some of us are changing it, little by
little.  Some of us are rejecting the traditional party lines and
demanding that writers produce good content.  Some of us are selling
our experience with technologies over our experience with tools. It is
not easy.  In some circles there is outright hatred and anger toward
writers who believe these ideas. Watch the responses to this message.
At least one or two people will argue with vehement passion that
technique is more important than content.

(Technique in this case means skill with tools, grammar, fonts,
styles, etc. Content means the subject matter and concepts that a
document contains.)

My company is a prime example of this change.  We simply do not hire
writers who tow the traditional tech writing lines.  My clients are
also beginning to change their hiring practices as well.  One of our
clients laid off six writers recently and replaced them with two
"content-oriented" writers.  Those two writers are now doing the work
of six incompetent ones and doing a much better job. Why?  Those two
writers focused on the content of their work and not the tools they
used. Therefore, they could produce material quicker and with less
technical inaccuracy.

The change is slow.  There is still a lot of deadwood out there
obsessing over fonts and tools. All I can say is hang in there. The
playing field is changing. You are 100% right about tools these days.
I learned Frame in a week as well.  It just is not that %$*&@!#$%
complicated.  Nevertheless, the deadwood out there keeps convincing
their bosses and the HR people that experience with certain tools and
having a some certification or degree is more important than
understanding the technologies that need documenting.

Andrew Plato
Anitian Consulting, Inc.
www.anitian.com

---Elizabeth Vollbach <bethvollbach -at- EARTHLINK -dot- NET> wrote:
>
> Hi. I used to read TECHWR-L regularly, then stopped for a few years.
So
> I'm sure during the time I was gone you must have discussed this. It's
> such a big concern of mine, though.
>
> How can we convince employers who are looking to hire a tech writer
that
> their primary concern should not be with the software programs a tech
> writer has experience using? that a technical writer is not,
primarily,
> a typist?
>
> I got a copy of FrameMaker and taught it to myself in less than a
week.
> I got a copy of FrontPage 98 and taught it to myself in a week. I
> learned Visio by myself in less than a day. I haven't done the same
with
> RoboHelp because it's so darned expensive, but I know this would be a
> similar case.
>
> How can we convince employers that today's software is easy and can be
> learned quickly, and a good technical writer can't be defined by her
> software experience? A good writer is a good writer, right?
>
> But take a look at the want ads. Every tech writer ad specifies right
> away which software the tech writer should have experience with and
> which degree they should have. Somehow employers see value in a
college
> degree, but why when their other concern is just software experience?
>




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