This article offers tips for project and development managers hiring a technical writer to document a software development project. What do technical writers, doctors, lawyers, auto mechanics, and irs agents have in common? you've probably had a bad experience with a member of this group. Unfortunately, this bad joke is based on the harsh reality that many it managers have had difficulty hiring and working with technical writers, making many it pros hesitant to repeat the experience.

At the opposite pole are experienced and skilled technical writers growing frustrated because they have to fight this type of bias by justifying their value in interviews as they seek new employment opportunities. This article offers tips on hiring strategy, including how to determine your business need and find a technical writer to meet it. Technical writer is a subjective job title one company's technical writer is another company's technical editor or desktop publisher. In some companies, technical writers have never written a single original document. Other companies require technical writers to write original technical documentation based upon work with the product they are documenting, analysis, and interviews with subject matter experts.

Ask these questions: do your developers, engineers, and other technical staff author their own documentation? if the answer is yes, and it is working, you could get your documentation needs met by hiring a technical editor or even a desktop publisher. If it isn't working, you need a technical writer with the appropriate skills to come up to speed on your technologies without sapping your technical resources. Are you in a documentation black hole where you need somebody to come in and develop documentation from the ground up? this scenario is also going to require a more senior technical writer but with the technical resource and stakeholder cooperation. In this situation, you want a writer who can work independently and not rely too much on internal resources. While it is impossible to escape the documentation technical review process, the more work a technical writer can do upfront means a better focus for development staff during documentation technical reviews. Ask about past documentation projects you may think you don't have the right background to question a technical writer candidate about their writing samples because you took only the college english classes required to graduate.

If you are not confident of flying solo in the interview, bring in the product manager or somebody involved in marketing the product to talk about the product and its client base. Some questions to ask when presented with a writing sample include: did you write this document? grill the candidate on her level of participation in the writing project and how that level of participation fits into your requirements for hiring a technical writer. How do you immerse yourself in new technology? what are your technical requirements to begin a new project? what do you need to be successful? what is the role of the technical writer in your view? look at industry experience, not awards some writers proudly trot out their writing awards on their resume, but these awards shouldn't carry much weight in the hiring process. Often the technical accuracy of winning technical documentation is never taken into account. Verifiable industry experience should weigh in more than writing awards because industry experience is most important when your project enters a critical phase.

Ignorance as an asset is a myth there is an industry myth that says a technical writer needs to be technologically ignorant to be effective, but that is never the case. Hiring managers contribute to this by underestimating the importance of technical aptitude and accepting technical ignorance as the status quo. Technical writers have to be technical, but not in the same sense as programmers, developers, and other staff members. Technical writers who handle the job correctly must not only worry about documentation format and style, they must also immerse themselves in the technology, business, and applications of the projects they are tasked to document. From our 30 years in high tech, we know a technical writer who can make things easier, not harder. Since the 1980s we have supplied the silicon valley, san francisco bay area, and companies nationwide with technical writers and copy editors who understand networking, chips, it, software, engineering and equipment.

It takes a special kind of technical writer to explain high tech products and to make them easier to use, and this is our specialty. A technical writer is responsible for creating clear, understandable documentation that translates complicated technical processes to a target audience. Technical writers often work with computer software, translating lines of code into understandable, step by step explanations. Technical writers are in high demand often in both the journalistic and computer science fields.

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A minimum of a bachelor's degree journalism, professional writing or creative writing is required. Having a minor focus in computer science or a related field can also be beneficial. Technical writers must display proficiency in writing and understanding complicated concepts, and they are often given on the job training for a specific company's documentation processes. While sometimes hired initially, most technical writers have worked in the same industry before and have a clear understanding of how the different pieces fit together. The job market for technical writers is expected to grow by 15 percent by 2022, which is about average for most careers.

This means that an estimated 2,260 jobs will open annually due to both upward movement and replacement. Technical writers often work for software firms and large companies, documenting various items for commercial and legal reasons however, a large number of technical writers are self employed on a freelance basis. The average annual salary of a technical writer at medium to large sized corporations is around $51,0, with the largest companies like microsoft and google paying as much as $165,0 for the most skilled writers. Previous experience and knowledge of the industry can be vital for earning a larger wage than a beginner. The marketplace for technical writers has often been challenging. In difficult economic times when companies seek to slash their budgets, it is often difficult for corporations to understand the need for a technical writer.

Let alone to understand the need to increase staffing in the documentation department. This article looks at the benefits of hiring technical writers, since their often diverse skill sets can be used across various departments in the organization. With our economy still on the down slope, it is difficult for technical managers to justify keeping an excessive amount of technical writers on their staffs, let alone hiring new ones. In many cases, managers feel they dont even need writers, arguing that everyone has writing ability.

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Of course, todays technical writers not only write, they also perform many other tasks: programming, web development, training. Add to that the fact that many are also highly trained and certified in other areas besides writing. In todays working environment, budgets are smaller and there is more pressure to succeed than ever before.

To prevent an economic downfall within your company, you must look at future employees as investments – those that have the potential to grow and benefit your company in a variety of ways. During the dot com craze, filling technical writing positions was quite challenging. Although there were numerous jobs available, there werent enough qualified people to go around. Since filling jobs was often the most important goal, some managers simply lowered their hiring standards.