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>Agreed. When all else is equal, hire the guy with more tool knowledge. But,
>most often, all else isn't equal. And most often, a good tech writer doesn't
>get her foot in the door unless she has lots of experience with FrameMaker and
>RoboHelp. And, to most employers, it seems, that experience is a no.1
>requirement and matters more than writing ability. And I wish we could,
>somehow, straighten their priorities. But I think, as Eric says, it ain't
>gonna happen.
Yeah, it ain't gonna happen. Well, not often. But here's the flip side of
that fact.
A friend of mine has recently been interviewing at quite a few places for a
TW job. He's a first-rate tech writer, knows what counts, can pick up new
tools easily, etc. Someone you'd probably want to work for your company.
*One* of the companies he interviewed with made it clear that they figured
he could pick up tools (of course), and mainly looked at his writing and
asked about how he approaches the job. They also said that they give the
TW a 21" monitor and a super-fast computer. The manager knew that these
things are actually of more benefit to a TW than a programmer, and they'd
pretty much give him whatever tools he wanted. Mostly they just wanted to
be sure that he could learn the subject matter and write about it.
