Microsoft Word is a wonderful product, and I’m not joking at all. It’s easy to forget that not so long ago, back in the days of BW (“before Word”), creating documents for any purpose was a long and tiresome process. Microsoft Word has made things a lot easier for many people who produce many kinds of documents, from school homework to business letters. Microsoft Word is great many kinds of documents, but it isn’t suitable for everything.
If you do find yourself using Microsoft Word there are a few things you do well to look out for. Two of those things are called “Normal”, and my advice is to stay away from both of them. Read more
The other day, I was making final revisions to a group of Microsoft Word documents that were needed for an imminent product release. I placed an updated version of a document on our document management system and sent a link to my manager for him to review it. In the copy he opened every single cross reference, including the Table of Contents, had been replaced by Word’s “Error! Bookmark not defined” message. Embarrassing for me? Yes. Time consuming to fix? Yes. Completely unexpected? Definitely not. Read more
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
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
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
