I enjoy attending conferences, whether I am making a presentation or not. You get to meet interesting people, hear interesting talks, and see how other people give their presentations. From the point of view of watching and learning from other people, the TCUK09 Conference was enlightening. I was grateful for some positive feedback from my own session, but I was aware that I was doing my presentation in a pretty conventional way. Mainly text, with bullet lists, numbers and percentages, some graphs – you get the idea. I took great care not to put too many words on each slide, and not to read the slides but to use them for the main points or for key quotes and to talk around them. But still, I reckon it was a pretty routine presentation, and quite a few of the other presenters I saw were not much different. Good content, well presented, but lacking in … something. Read more
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A little more advice for job seekers
The topic of finding work as a technical writer came up on a mailing list I subscribe to recently, and I want to share some advice here. I have been a job seeker in this market many times, and I was also involved in recruitment for a while some years ago, so I have literally been on both sides of the desk in the recruitment process.
As a result, I have seen dozens of CVs (resumés) from technical writers and my first piece of advice is to make sure that your CV is as near to flawless as you can make it. Not only does it need to be relevant to the job you are applying for, it needs to look good as well. I know some recruiters and agencies use keyword searches to screen candidate CVs and don’t actually read most of them, but if you are lucky enough to get your CV in front of a hiring manager you want your piece of paper to stand out. Don’t be scared to use white space to create a clean, uncluttered layout. It can make a difference. If nothing else, it shows you’re a professional. Read more
What not to say to a technical writer
Last week a blog post by fellow technical writer Colum McAndrew (who I was delighted to meet in person at the London Tech Writers Social) raised a lot of responses on Twitter. Colum’s topic was Top 10 technical writer annoyances. Some of the items on Colum’s list resonated with me and with other professional technical writers, as many of us think that what we can contribute, particularly to a software development team, is not fully appreciated. Australian technical writer Rhonda Bracey pointed out that she published a similar list on her blog quite some time ago. Read more
London Tech Writers Social
I have been running informal social meetings of tech writers in London for the last two years. These are now independent gatherings but they are supported by both the ISTC and the UK Chapter of the STC. The next London Tech Writers Social takes place on 19th November at a new venue. Here are the details:
Date: 19th November 2009
Time: 6:30pm
Venue: Garrick Arms, 8 – 10 Charing Cross Road, London WC2H 0HG Read more
Getting started advice for would-be technical writers
The following question appeared on a mailing list for technical writers that I subscribe to:
Would a technical writing or technical communication graduate *certificate* (rather than a master’s) be useful in trying to find a technical writing job for a university graduate with a B.A. in anthropology from UCLA and no further higher education beyond that?
I replied to the poster and explained that entry-level tech writer jobs are not easy to find at the best of times, and that at the moment they are very few and far between, irrespective of where you are located. Read more
