Tech writing hiring freeze
I hope the title caught your attention, because if you are in the market to get hired as a technical writer, keep a watch on your calendar. In general, most companies stop hiring around the end of October (sometimes weeks earlier), and start again around mid-January. This often has to do with approved budgets for headcount, and also businesses just start hunkering down as the holidays approach.
What should I do about it?
I’m glad you asked. If you want to get into technical writing, maybe you have some past experience, have relevant skills without the experience, or just want to take a stab at it, I would recommend these action items (the other AI):
Update your resume. Add skills, any volunteer experience, a link to your portfolio website, or any new certifications related to tech or tech writing. Then format it carefully and proofread it again and again until it’s as perfect as you can get it. Remember, this is the first piece of writing your future employer may ever see. Ideally, have someone take a look at it, because they will often find mistakes you miss. Don’t take it personally, even the best make writers mistakes.
Upload your resume to LinkedIn internally. This is more complex than you might think. There are two places to do this. There is a place in settings which is only used internally to help with recommendations for jobs and connections.
In order to locate the internal upload page from their website:
Click on your picture where it says Me. Then Settings and Privacy > Data Privacy (on the left sidebar) > Job seeking preferences (also on the left sidebar) > Job application settings.
On the phone app, do this:
Click on your picture in the top left (the small one). Then…Settings > Data Privacy > Job application settings (under Job seeking preferences) > Job application settings.
You can upload your resume as a Doc, Docx, or PDF.
Upload your resume to your profile page (external facing). This can be seen by people in your network (who may have jobs available), or any recruiter or other possible employer. This is the real deal, the one people will actually see. Here are the directions to do this from LinkedIn.
Get the rest of your LinkedIn page in order. I’m not going to go into detail here, but update your intro, skills, possibly photo, about, experience, etc. Besides being an introduction to your experience and skills, this is again a writing sample, so go over it with a fine-toothed comb. Having someone else read through your profile page and your resume would be a good idea as well.
Once it’s all set, on your LinkedIn profile page, at the top, select the “Open to” button and choose that you are open to “Finding a new job.”
Then get back to work. If you’re learning new skills such as programming, get back to it. Just check your LinkedIn account from time to time (not 10 times a day) to see if you have a bite. Be careful of recruiters from outside your area who tend to be more of an annoyance, and could even hurt your chances by over submitting to companies on your behalf. If you go with a recruiter, find one that knows the business and actually has contacts in the companies they submit to.
I hope this helps you get ready before companies batten down the hatches, because winter’s on it’s way!
Start with a good resume
This post will not go into resume writing basics. There are some great guides out there for free already on that topic. Here I will just cover what is specific to technical writing.
Keywords are key
According to Josh Hrala at careerminds.com, 17% of all resumes submitted are never read by a human being. Instead, they are processed by an ATS (applicant tracking system), which searches for certain keywords that match the job description. If these words are not in the resume, they will never be forwarded to the hiring manager.
So here is what you can do:
Look at job descriptions for positions you might like. Find the most common keywords and write them down. Compile a list over a number of jobs you find. Likely a lot of these words are regarding certain technologies. Now try to use as many of these words in your resume as possible. But don’t do this dishonestly. That will likely backfire, preventing a company from even considering you for future positions.
For example, let’s say you are looking for a tech writing job on LinkedIn and you keep finding that most of them require some knowledge of HTML. If you do not know HTML, then write that down on a list as something to learn. There are a great many HTML tutorials online for free, such as sololearn.com or w3schools.com. HTML can be learned in a couple of weeks. Once you get the hang of it, including some real-life practice, put it on your resume under “Skills.” If you use it somewhere you volunteer, or for your own website, that’s even better.
Sections to include:
A resume for technical writing should include any experience related to the job. Since I used to do technical support, I made sure to include that. I also volunteered for a startup and wrote a white paper for them. I put that on my resume as well.
Here’s what you can include in your resume:
- Objective
- Skills
- Work Experience
- Education
If your work experience is unrelated to technical writing, include any parts of it that might have some relation if you can. Perhaps at your last job you did a fair amount of writing, or you used Photoshop or InDesign, or helped update the website. Put these in a Skills section above your Work Experience if you have lots of skills related to tech writing, but little experience.
Keep building over time
This is a process. A journey. Each time you learn a new technology, put it under Skills on your resume. If you gain some experience, volunteering somewhere, or writing something in your current job, put it in the Experience section of your resume. Keep learning and developing. As you build your resume, you will also want to build your LinkedIn profile, but I’ll talk about that another time. You will also need to write some good customized cover letters, which will be the topic of my next blog post. Feel free to leave comments below.
Technical skills trump writing skills
If you are trying to get into technical writing, you may find it is a sad fact that much more emphasis is placed on your technical skills than your writing skills. It seems it is assumed that writing is easier to pick up than technical skills. Or perhaps the assumption is that everyone can write, but not everyone has technical know-how. Take a look at this list of requirements for a fairly low-level technical writer position I found (really, it was the first one that came up on Indeed).
Requirements:
- Expert in MS Word/Open Office
- Experience with Adobe InDesign cross-references
- Experience with Adobe Illustrator or equivalent illustration software
- Able to perform basic graphic design tasks, such as arranging information, creating icons, finding artwork etc. to create attractive layouts
- Able to work with non-native English speakers and deliver multiple assignments in parallel
- Able to work with both planned and last-minute assignments
Notice that the word “write” is not even included in the list of requirements at all. However, there are several software titles they want you to know.
Here is another more technical role, also from a search on Indeed:
Requirements:
- Bachelor’s degree. Advanced degree preferred.
- 6+ years of technical writing experience, including experience researching and writing excellent developer documentation.
- Working knowledge of two or more of following:
- Application development (Javascript, JSON, DSL)
- Web user interface development (HTML, CSS, Javascript)
- Extract, Transformation, & Load (ETL) techniques
- Machine learning concepts (linear regression, PCA, decision trees, k-means clustering)
- Ability to read code and write code examples.
- Skilled in use of documentation development tools & methods. (DITA, XML authoring tools)
- Experience working in a range of delivery and media formats—including online help, printed guides, HTML—knowledge of wiki’s a plus.
- Ability to work in an agile development environment.
- Strong communication skills with that ability to work across functional units.
- Self-motivated, organized, and able to work independently and make independent judgments.
First, I want you to notice that years of experience are the second in the list. In my last post I discussed how experience is king, and that certainly comes up here. Now notice the list of technologies required to get this job. They want you to be knowledgeable in application development (programming), web development, machine learning, DITA, and agile development practices. Each of these is its own world of learning, and can be broken down into specific technologies and disciplines. The only line in this list of requirements about writing at all is combined with the candidate’s years of experience.
These two jobs demonstrate some of the range of what is available for technical writers. However, little attention is given to the skill of writing itself, while there is a great deal of concern for the technical skills involved. As an ex-English teacher, this is maddening! It takes many years to learn to write well, whereas some technical skills can be learned in a short bootcamp or tutorial. I can attest to this myself, since I learned the technology almost entirely on my own.
So what can you do? Before the Internet, it would have been difficult to learn each of these disciplines, but not anymore. In another post I will go into much more detail about how you can learn these skills, but I don’t want you to go away empty-handed. Here is a list of places to get started.
Resources to improve your technical skills
- sololearn.com (my favorite free place to learn programming languages).
- agilemanifesto.org to understand the basics of agile (hint: it’s more of a philosophy than a technology).
- learningdita.com if you want to learn DITA and XML.
- w3schools.com/html to learn HTML and other web technologies.
- helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/tutorials-explore.html to learn Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, or Adobe Photoshop.
- idratherbewriting.com to read a great blog on in-the-trenches technical writing, or go through his free API documentation course.
This is a good start. It really depends on the type of work you want to do and what you’re interested in. If you find you are especially drawn to one technology, it may be you want to look for a technical writing job in that area. Have fun learning!
Experience is King
As I said in the last post, How to get a job in technical writing, there are two main obstacles that you have to overcome to get into technical writing.
1. Experience is king.
2. Technical skills trump writing skills.
Before I go into each solution in detail, I want to give you an idea of how problematic these obstacles are. I had a number of phone interviews that began and ended with the phrase, “How many years of experience do you have as a technical writer.” Unwilling to lie, I told them I had worked with a startup some, and then tried to point them to my skills, as well as my extensive portfolio. I had the mistaken idea that if they knew what I could do, years of experience would be less of an issue.
I couldn’t be more wrong. Most interviewers would not be dissuaded by any list of skills or accomplishments. They only wanted to know how many years of experience I had as a technical writer.
I want you to notice the wording here. They often used that exact phrase. They didn’t just ask me how much experience I had, but how many years of experience. I learned that until I had at least one year under my belt, I had no satisfactory answer to give.
The worst case in point was when I had gone through four interviews for one company. I met with the current technical writers, took a writing test, which I passed. They asked me some technical questions, which I also passed. It seemed they thought highly of me because they passed me on to the hiring manager. So far, so good. The manager was the guy who could actually make an offer, so I thought I had a good chance.
From the moment we started it was clear he had not read my resume because he never asked me about anything on the resume. He also never referred to my online portfolio. Immediately he asked, “How many years of experience do you have as a technical writer?” I told him about my experience with the start up, but that it was never full-time. From that point on, the interview was essentially over.
I know I’ve painted a bleak picture here. One that has been confirmed by other technical writer colleagues I’ve talked to. But just because it is hard does not mean it is impossible, and I did eventually get a job from someone who valued my skills and the experience I was able to gain. Here are some practical ways you can gain experience.
Help out a startup. Even if there is no pay involved, getting some experience this way can change everything. My little expense writing a white paper for my friend’s startup got me into a number of interviews. And you’d better believe I listed that on my resume and on LinkedIn. One good place to search for startups is through AngelList. They specialize in startups and recruiting for startups.
Volunteer. This is similar to the startup idea. Often charities cannot afford for someone to rewrite their employee manuals or technical manuals like how to install and use certain kinds of software. Often this can be geared towards new employees. Offering to learn about, and then create, a step-by-step guide for new employees might be a real help. You could do this for an animal shelter, church, public radio station, or relief organization. Keep in mind, you want to help with something technical enough that it will be similar to jobs you might apply for.
Find an internship. This mostly applies for those of you who are getting a degree in technical writing. If that’s you, an internship is a great way to go. Many companies offer them for recent gradates or those still in a college program for technical writing.
Contribute to an open source project. This may be very difficult or almost impossible. In fact, I hesitate to add it at all. Logging into GitHub and contributing to anything in a meaningful way is very difficult. The existing documentation is often so poor that it is hard to find a foothold to get a start. Other contributors might not reply to you if you ask questions. When they do reply, they often want you to read the code like a programmer and make sense of it yourself. It might take months to get a handle on what is going on at all. Now, if you have such expertise or experience to do this successfully, then this might really work out for you. There are innumerable projects that need documentation and they would welcome the help. But for most, this is a path to the most frustration with the least to show for it.
Another time, I will discuss creating your own work samples that could land you a job. But that will be when I talk about portfolios. For now, consider getting some experience with a startup or nonprofit. If you have the skills or experience to tackle an open source project, then go ahead with that route.
If you have any other ideas for getting experience in technical writing, feel free to leave a comment.
How to get a job in Technical Writing
There are two categories of people interested in technical writing. Those who have received a degree or certificate in technical writing, and those who want to make the switch from another career. While you might think those with a degree or certificate have all the advantages in the job market, that is simply not the case. Without experience and a good portfolio, employers will seldom even consider a candidate.
Since I recently made the switch into technical writing, I thought I’d pass on what I learned along the way.
Observations from my experience
Before I get into what you can do to get a job in technical writing, let me give you a couple of disappointing realizations I had as I was looking for my first technical writing job.
Experience is king. Companies will act as if they want passion and skills, but over and over I was passed over because I did not have work experience in technical writing. In fact, many hiring managers did not even glance at my portfolio or resume, but only asked me how many years of experience I had as a technical writer. Getting through this barrier was difficult, and is one reason I am writing this blog.
Technical skills trump writing skills. This was frustrating. As an ex-English teacher, I would have hoped my writing skills would carry more weight, but in interviews, my writing ability consistently came second to my technical skills. By the way, really technical technical writing jobs pay more. Writing API documentation for software developers pays more than writing procedural manuals for HR. Search through a job board to discover what kinds of technical writing jobs are available in your area.
What you can do
Having said the above, the market is great to get into technical writing. Here are some things you can do to get your foot in the door.
Start with a good resume. Even with all the online tools available, employers still want to see a resume (in Word or PDF). It should include any experience you have related to technical writing. Make sure to list any skills you have learned that apply as well.
Write custom cover letters. Since a hiring manager often struggles to match your resume to the job description, write a custom cover letter that you send with each application. The letter should point out how your experience or skills match their job description point-for-point, at least as much as possible.
Update or create a LinkedIn account: This will likely be how many companies will find you. Come back to your LinkedIn profile often to update it. Spend as much time on this as your resume. Stay away from job boards such as Indeed, Glassdoor, Monster, etc. About 2% of people find jobs through these, but a lot of low paying recruiters will find you here and fill up your inbox and voicemail.
Create an online portfolio. Portfolio samples are often requested before an interview. Putting it online makes it easier to discover and share. I did a presentation a while back on how to do this, and my notes and resources can be found here. Create a tutorial or other technical writing docs and put them on this site. Here’s an example of mine.
Build up your skills. Use a job board such as Indeed and do a search for “Technical Writer” and see what skills are most in demand. Then start training yourself in these skills. If it’s a piece of software you don’t know, see if you can get a free trial version of it and learn the basics. Then create something you can put on your portfolio to demonstrate your skill with that program.
Build up your experience. I found a startup that needed some technical writing and wrote a white paper for them (I had to first learn how), and I also made them a tri-fold brochure. You can volunteer for a non-profit and write a manual. Any experience is useful.
Don’t do it alone. Find technical writers on LinkedIn and add them to your connections. Attend a local STC chapter meeting or a Write the Docs meetup near you. Ask for advice, make connections, and find out about job openings.
I will expand each of these points above in more detail in the coming weeks, but this is a start. Feel free to leave comments below about your experience in searching for work in, or getting started in technical writing.
