Question:
I'm trying to break into the tech. writing field. My specific area of
interest is software user manuals.
However, I may soon be offered a job where I'd be writing proposals. If I do
get that job (or another less-than-ideal job), should I take it so that I'll
be able to put a tech. writing job on my resume? Or should I wait for that
perfect job?
I guess my query boils down to this: how hard is it to change areas of
concentration in tech. writing once you've established yourself in an area?
Answer:
I can tell you about my personal experience, but I don't know if it's
typical. Maybe some other folks will chime in with their experiences in
this area. Keep in mind that I have never written proposals before and so
do not know exactly how specialized an area that is.
Except for one narrow area which I'll discuss in a moment, I've never had
any trouble changing areas within technical writing or with getting
typecast as this or that type of writer. I started out writing training
manuals. Then I wrote aerospace user manuals. Then I wrote a medical
equipment parts manual. Then I leaped into telecommunications, an area I
knew nothing about when I got the job and wrote some very techincal user,
training, and test-procedure manuals. After that I documented a Windows
software application; cleaned up the English in very badly translated
Japanese technical texts; wrote white papers, polices, procedures, and
presentations (I guess you'd call that business writing); did two classroom
training contracts; and went back to work for another software company,
documenting a large business application.
Now I'm considering an offer in which I'll be writing a programming manual,
and this is the one narrow area which I've never been able to move into
before. Always before, the programming documentation jobs have required
that the technical writers know how to program, too. I don't program, so
that's pretty much aced me out of those jobs. I might ace myself out of
this current opportunity: I've seen some of the very technical manuals my
potential client produces, and their complexity scares not a little.
Conclusion: it hasn't been hard to jump around at all, at least in my
experience. What potential clients and employers seem to look at when
considering me for a job is not necessarily whether I've worked in a
certain industry or done a certain type of writing before but whether I've
got good writing samples, whether I seem competent and assured that I can
do their job, and whether I have a wide range of software tools (word
processors, desktop publishers, graphics programs, online help, and the
like) or at very least the primary tools they are using on that job.
I think it's more important just to get some kind of technical writing on
your resume than it is to wait for a job that offers you the kind of
writing you prefer to do, as that experience will help you to get an ideal
job later on. There are a few circumstances in which you shouldn't take
such a job. If you're pretty certain that, given your current skills, you
really aren't up to the work (like writing a programming manual if you are
a non-programmer) or if the type of writing seems particularly abhorent and
unplesant to you--why do it?
