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A common argument among companies and HR departments is whether the technical writers they hire should be well versed in many projects or just in a particular set of projects. And there are good arguments for both sides of this discussion.
Why Specialization Helps with Technical Writers
Technical writers are already specialists of sorts, helping to create technical documentation for any number of departments. They are able to create manuals, handbooks and other forms of documentation, such as online help, that instruct readers how to perform certain tasks.
This work is detailed, specific and needs to be well organized. The technical writer needs to be able to organize not only the material, but also the way the material is presented in order to be utilized to its full intent. Choosing technical writers who specialize in certain departments (e.g. IT) can be helpful as there is already a base of knowledge from which to write. They may already understand how certain information needs to be presented and how it will likely be used.
The More Skills the Merrier Argument
On the other side of the coin, technical writers who specialize in only one field or functional department might be limiting their ability to help a company that has more diverse needs and lacks the budget to engage multiple writers. For example, if the IT department and the marketing department need materials, technical writers who only have backgrounds in IT might have a harder time transferring those skills to another department like marketing. Certainly, marketing writers have different skill sets from technical writers, especially those technical writers who do not have a broad background of writing experience. Technical writers who have a varied writing background and the ability to shift tone and fully appreciate the needs of diverse audiences can serve multiple purposes in an organization, and thereby offer greater potential value to the organization.
Specialized or not, technical writers are a valuable part of a company. By understanding if you need a versatile writer or specialized writer, you’ll be able to choose the best writer for your company’s specific needs, and you will never be “at a loss for words”, so to speak.
What are your thoughts on specialists vs. generalists when it comes to technical writers? Please leave a comment.
Choosing a new employee is one thing, but finding the right technical writer to hire can be a daunting task.
While you might be up to your ears in resumes, the technical writer who is going to best fit a company’s needs isn’t always clear. While a person might be trained and available to begin work on Monday, there are certain skills that are especially valuable in technical writers to assure they will meet your needs.
3 Key Considerations for a Technical Writer
- Experience
- Efficiency
- Versatility (Can produce a wide variety of documents in various output formats.)
If your company is ready to take on a new technical writer, you need to know that the writer you select will not only produce the work you need to get done, but will do so with skill, expertise, and efficiency.
Their resume should begin with a list of past employers who have already seen the writer in action. The jobs performed for those employers might include documentation work while on staff contracting as a writer, and even working as a freelancer in the technical writing market.
Efficiency is the one skill that may be most difficult to judge. However, if the resume indicates your candidate has been able to retain clients over a longer period of time, that’s one potential indicator. Having a demonstrated history of being able to multi-task, especially in juggling multiple projects simultaneously is another. If prior and current employers have kept the writer coming back for follow-on projects, it’s generally for a good reason.
Demonstrated evidence of versatility is especially important if you plan to use the technical writer’s skills on multiple projects or occasionally ask the writer to contribute to knowledge base, marketing or website content in addition to his or her documentation tasks. Hiring a technical writer who has demonstrated versatility will allow you to entrust the writer with various projects, with fewer rewrites, restructuring, and reworking of the content.
Of course, it goes without saying that if the technical writer you are considering is already knowledgeable in your industry and has experience with the tools you use everyday to produce documents, he or she might seem like the ideal hire. However, a truly adept technical writer has probably had to learn a variety of new tools throughout his or her career, so tool skills alone should not be an overriding factor in making a decision, especially not in a decision whether to offer an interview to the candidate.
Related articles:
Hiring Technical Writers
What to Consider When Hiring Technical Writers
We’d love to hear your thoughts on choosing the right technical writer. Please leave a comment.
Editor’s Note: This was the feature article in this month’s TechCom Manager newsletter, reprinted here with permission. Click the previous link to subscribe to the newsletter.
by Buckley Jeppson
As documentation managers facing tight deadlines and tighter resources, we always strive to make sure we have the best possible team of workers. It stands to reason that when we need to fill a vacancy, we want the most experienced people we can find. But often, we skip over older workers in favor of younger ones. Why is that, and is it a wise business decision? Let’s take a look at why older workers might deserve more serious consideration.
The current economic slump has been especially hard on older victims of downsizing. I discovered this firsthand when the company where I expected to spend the rest of my working years suddenly became a victim of the economy and morphed into a virtual company with no office and only the president and vice president as full-time employees. After months of searching without a serious nibble, I began to approach a few personal friends in other industries for ideas.
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With the economy struggling to regain a foothold, many employers are reluctant to hire permanent staff. However, as business picks up, the need for additional workers, such as technical writers, instructional designers, medical writers and other hihgly skilled and experienced professionals also picks up.
Working with a specializied staffing company like Writing Assistance can help you solve your specialized staffing needs without having to commit to the overhead of a permanent employee until you’re sure the employee will work out, your budget can handle it and the economic recovery is on solid ground.
A specialized staffing company offers several advantages through Contract to Hire positions. Here are the top 5:
- Rent expertise – Bring in an expert that can “hit the ground running” and provide exceptional skills and experience. In addition to the contractor’s expertise, you have access to staffing experts who will offer insight to the writing world including salary expectations, hot or cold market, experience level required to complete the job and current tools being used to complete tasks.
- Limit your company’s liability – By working with a third party staffing company you limit your co-employment liabilities. The staffing company providing the consultant assumes the employee’s liability and will manage payroll (including unemployment), taxes and benefits.
- Gain immediate access – Using a specialty staffing firm you access the “best of the best”. Niche staffing firms have large networks of consultants for any industry, location or specialty and recruiters are always networking to build their connections in the industry. They work with the specialty day in and day out and typically can provide qualified candidates within a couple days.
- Try before you buy – By bringing in a contractor on a Contract to Hire basis you will learn the individual’s work habits and decide if they have the technical knowledge and personality fit to be an employee. There is no obligation to hire or keep a contractor. If you decide they are not a good fit, you end the contract.
- Thaw the hiring freeze – Instead of delaying a project or having the timeline fall apart while waiting for the hiring freeze to be lifted you can bring in a contractor as a Contract to Hire. This will keep the project going and when hiring is approved you have an expert ready to go.
What are your thoughts on adding Contract-to-Hire staff? Have you tried it before? If you need contract or contract-to-hire workers in our niche specialty areas, contact us to get started.
It’s really an HR department’s dream to hire a person with more than one skill set – two employees for the price of one.
But when you’re ready to hire a technical writer, are there certain skills they should have in order to be most effective?
What Should Technical Writers Be Doing?
Technical writers are meant to be performing a certain set of tasks, mainly the construction of informational documents, courses and instructional guides. Now, this doesn’t mean their skills can’t branch out to other writing tasks, but since many businesses now have websites to address, it makes sense that if the technical writer is handling copy for the website, that they might be able to handle the website as well.
Is this really the case? For many businesses, the website was created by an outside company, who then launched the site and maintains it. This is an arrangement that allows you to keep the web management separate from the daily routine of work – and it’s an arrangement that should stay in place. Having an outside firm is much more efficient than simply putting an hourly employee on the task.
The Skills the Technical Writer Needs
However, this doesn’t mean the technical writer should be completely without the skills to understand a website. Having some basic HTML knowledge as well as CSS will help them to better understand how their text will look on a website. When they understand this, it will help them to layout the text in a certain style that will show up best.
And in a pinch, they can help the IT department with their text placement on the website.
That said, if you find a technical writer with web design skills, HIRE THEM. Hire them quickly. That is a person who can be more valuable to the company than most people who are assigned the writing you need.
What are your thoughts? What skills make a technical writer more valuable?
Related topics
Technical Writer: Which Skill Sets are Important?
Considerations When Hiring a Technical Writer
Over the past few years, blogger Cammy Bean has conducted an open survey of her instructional designer readers asking whether they have a degree in instructional design.
The latest survey results indicate:
- 61.45% responded that they do not have a degree in Instructional Design
- 36.92% indicated they have a graduate degreein Instructional Design
- 1.64% indicate that they have a non-graduate degree in Instructional Design
The results may suggest that employers typically do not make having a degree in Instructional Design a top priority for learning professionals they hire. Those that do have a degree requirement are more likely to stress a graduate degree in the field than a Bachelor’s degree.
Connie Malamed, of The eLearning Coach, has compiled a top 10 list of what she believes are the qualities, knowledge and skills the ideal instructional designer should possess or develop. Her list focuses on instructional design for eLearning.
10 Qualities of the Ideal Instructional Designer
What do you think are the most important skills an instructional designer should have to be an effective in an elearning position? Leave a comment.
Find an Instructional Designer through WAI
Event: Workforce Planning Conference 2010
When: Monday, June 14 through Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Location: Chicago, IL
Sponsored by the Human Capital Institute (HCI), the second annual 2010 Workforce Planning Conference is designed with senior executives in HR, talent management and planning in mind. Since the economic downturn began, planning for future workforce needs has become more difficult than ever.
The conference is set to discuss the issues of workforce planning in challenging times. According to HCI:
“Rapid reorganizations, whether through downsizing or M&A activity, have made it difficult for companies to understand their current talent pool. Developing a hiring plan that accounts for a wide range of future scenarios is even harder. While many firms see the downturn as an opportunity to build a competitive advantage by acquiring top talent, this effort must be carefully guided by strategic workforce planning, with careful attention being paid to the alignment of talent with future business goals.
Conference Links
Conference Brochure
Meet the Presenters
Register Online
Also of Interest
Potential Position Descriptions for Information Engineering Professionals
What to Consider When Hiring a Technical Writer
As the economy starts heating up, the demand for contract technical writers is likely to be strong. As a rule, in the early stages of economic recovery temporary workers are first to get hired. This makes it easier on employers who may still be uncertain how robust the recovery will be and how long it will take to fully recover to the point where business resumes its once-steady growth.
When it comes time to resume permanent hiring, if the company needs to add a full-time technical writer to its documentation team, it can be very beneficial to convert a successful and highly-valued contract technical writer to permanent status. This saves employers time and money in the recruiting and hiring process.
In this article, Writing Assistance Inc.’s founder Scott Hartmann provides valuable insight into how to go about hiring a contract technical writer, including the development of an appropriate job description and what to look for in contract technical writing applicants. His insights will provide guidance not only to those needing to hire contract technical writers, but to those who may be considering the possibility of adding one or more permanent technical writers to their team.
Read: Hiring Contract Technical Writers
Related topics:
LinkedIn, like other forms of social media and social networking sites, is growing increasingly popular as an effective way to recruit employees.
While recruiters are still using big job board websites, like Monster.com, CareerBuilder.com and CraigsList.com to find applicants to fill job vacancies, contacts from these “traditional” sources often include hundreds of resumes from unqualified applicants and plenty of spam.
In her article, Use LinkedIn for Recruiting Employees, Susan Heathfield, About.com Guide to Human Resources provides specific insight from several recruiters on how they are using LinkedIn to find qualified applicants for open positions. And, as she correctly points out:
“The potential for LinkedIn and other social networking sites to play a major role in your employee recruiting strategy increases as millions of potential employees profile themselves on these sites each year.”
Source: Use LinkedIn for Recruiting Employees
For Applicants: Social Media – Are You Missing Out?
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If you have a group of stressed out and overworked technical writers and need to add to your staff, hiring the right technical writer can be a challenge. In his Considerations for Hiring Technical Writers, Philip Rastocny provides some tips on the hiring and interview process and what you might look for in exceptional technical writing candidates that will best fill the needs of your group of technical writers.
In Rastocny’s article, the scenario is this:
Your department is growing … things are starting to get out of control … your staff is about to mutiny. So it is time to expand your group. You already know what skills you need to handle the tasks, but what other assets can you get at the same time? Characteristics of a technical writer vary from individual to individual, and knowing what to look for before the interview process begins is half the way to hiring the right individual the first time.
Read: Considerations for Hiring Technical Writers
Get a Technical Writer from WAI
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