Careers in Technical Writing
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Some Career Information

This page contains information on a wide variety of issues involved with careers in technical writing including some specific types of jobs technical writers often have, information on the current and predicted job market for technical writers, a couple of points about resume and cover letter writing, and some job search engines you might find useful.

Specific Jobs in Technical Writing

One of the things I find the most interesting about technical writing is the variety of jobs associated with this profession.  Because it would be very difficult (if not impossible) to include all of the individual job titles and descriptions of technical writers, I have included a brief list of some of the careers most often associated with technical writers:

  1. Technical Documentation Specialist

  2. In-House or Customer Manual Developer

  3. Document Design Specialist

  4. Editor

  5. Free-Lance Writer

News and Statistics Concerning Job Availability

The job market for technical writers is very good right now, and continues to improve as more companies learn what technical writers do and how they can benefit their organizations.  For more information on current and predicted trends for technical writers, visit some of the following sites:

  1. Minnesota Careers 2000:
    This site contains some information concerning current and projected job availabilities for technical writers in the state of Minnesota.  The job market for technical writers in Minnesota is currently very strong, and it looks as though job availability and benefits will continue to grow over the next few years.

  2. STC Salary Survey:
    This part of STC's site provides a file containing a report on a survey conducted by the STC involving salaries of technical writers throughout the United States and Canada.  The salary survey report has been broken down according to the location, experience, and job function/responsibilities of those polled.

Resume and Cover Letter Information

When writing or updating a resume, it is difficult to know what information to include and how the information should be arranged on the page to make the document as attractive and as useful as possible.  The following is a list of links you might find helpful when considering the issues of design and content in your resume and cover letters:

  1. My Resume:
    Although I don't consider myself an expert on resume designing and writing in any way, I thought that it might be useful for you to have a look at a copy of my current electronic resume so you have an example when writing or updating your own resume.

  2. Technical Writer Jobs:
    A sub-section of the Technical Writer Jobs website contains information on composing resumes and cover letters which is geared specifically toward technical writers.  The site's resume section includes example resumes, resume guidelines, and information on contacting professional resume writers.

  3. Monster.com
    This section of the Monster.com website provides several examples of different styles of cover letters including letters of application and letters of inquiry.

  4. University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire Career Services
    This page provides a lot of good information about cover letters including a definition, purpose, suggestions for organization, and general guidelines for writing cover letters.

Job Search Databases

In my experiences with looking for a job for after graduation, I have found that there are a lot of job search databases out there.  My problem was deciding which of them were the best to use.  The following is the list of my top five favorite job search databases that I have come across.  The criteria I have used for ranking the sites involves both the accessibility of each site as well as the number of job postings each of the sites contains.

  1. Job Search Engine:
    The thing I like the most about this search engine is that it allows you to search multiple databases at the same time.  After entering your search criteria (e.g., key words, job location preferences), you can select the databases you want to search and the Job Search Engine takes care of the rest, telling you the number of hits it has found on each of the databases you have searched.

  2. America's Job Bank:
    I found America's Job Bank to be very useful in narrowing my job search from the national to the state to the local level.  An interesting component of this search engine is that it allows you to refine a job search by entering personal information such as any degrees, formal training, licenses, or certificates you may have received.  Also, in all of the search engines I have used, America's Job Bank has the greatest number and variety of job postings I have seen.

  3. Job Factory:
    Job Factory's site provides a number of interesting job-search components in addition to the job search database it offers.  Some of the more useful aspects of the site include links to on-line newspaper want ads, links to other employment sites, and links to news groups which focus on a variety of career-related topics.

  4. Sun Oasis:
    Sun Oasis offers one of the most attractive and user-friendly job search database I have found and allows you to perform searches both nationally and internationally.

  5. Technical Communicator:
    Although this site's job information was rather limited, it does contain some postings I have found to be valuable as well as a search engine which allows for both national and international searches.

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Jeremy Bates
E-Mail: batesjd@uwec.edu