Where to Get Your First Job

People often think that technical writers work in the field of Medicine, write grant proposals, or articles in journals. We have seen, increasingly, that high-tech companies have a limitless need for technical writers.

How many businesses have their employees using software on a screen? We can’t think of any who don’t. Who makes all of those systems your auto repair shop, stock broker, doctor, science researcher, accountant, insurance carrier, and credit card company look at all day long? Oracle, SAP, and hundreds of thousands of additional large and small companies.

How do the programmers who work at Chevron, Ford, and your bank install new software they bought? Their technical, IT (Information Technology) people read manuals, or online Help, where the instructions appear on a Web site.

One of our clients makes software that cuts down on the amount of spam and viruses a company gets, if they buy this software. They make five versions of this software application. Technical writers have to produce up to 22 manuals for each version. And each manual contains at least 150 pages. What’s more, software makers upgrade their products as much as four times a year, so technical writers have to update the instructions again and again.

When you get hired on to produce manuals (or online Help) at a software company, you spend from four to seven months on each manual. Many software makers have 30 technical writers working in their companies. The big outfits employ hundreds.

High-tech companies come in all sizes: from new startups with eight people, slightly more mature companies with 30 or 40 employees, mid-size makers of software and chips, on up to Oracle, Cisco, Juniper Networks, Symantec, and thousands more. In fact, 41,900 high tech companies now operate—just in California! We recommend that you apply for a job at a high-tech company: software or hardware.

Every product now uses chips. Can a company that bought a chip just look at the chip and figure out what do do with it? No. The engineers who put chips into computers, cell phones, cars, DVD players, watches, and iPods must refer to a databook explaining how to install the chip and how to tap its capabilities, plus what it can and cannot do, and how fast. A technical writer specifies frequencies and speed within each register on the chip. Broadcom makes a chip that has 3,400 registers in it. Databooks can get up to 1,000 pages very quickly. Technical writers who get a job at a chip manufacturer also write application notes, another technical document with tables showing parameters of various registers and pins.

These companies make many products behind the scene that enable you to send and receive e-mail, buy things on Amazon, iTunes, and eBay, make reservations, and view millions of Web sites. These companies make things called routers and switches for firms doing business on the Web, broadband providers, and telephone companies. Cisco operates in this space, along with thousands of others.

Technical writers employed at networking companies explain installation, configuration, and operation and troubleshooting to network administrators within every company now to keep the e-mails and money transactions flowing.

This segment of the technical writing business has a longer learning curve. You have to learn all of the protocols in seven different categories, or layers. Many have done this, on the job. You can, too.

When business heats up, which has happened again, brand new companies who have received millions in venture capital investment need technical writers to explain their hot new technology in white papers and Web site content. Once you have done marketing communications at one or two high-tech companies, you’re on your way.

Later in the lifecycle of a new high-tech company, a Technical Writer must set up a system for both writing and then distributing customer instructions (documentation). This involves creating a template in FrameMaker or using RoboHelp or WebWorks to put the instructions on screen.

First, talk a small high-tech company into giving you a chance as an entry-level technical writer. You can pretty much only do that if you have manuals to show that you wrote. That’s why we offer the online course, ‘How to Do Tech Writing’ right here on this site. When you take it, we show you how to produce not one, but two actual high-tech manuals that you can show a future employer. We even edit your manuals for you, telling you what to do to make them exactly what a future employer wants to see in his or her company manuals.