atw: Re: Job ads on austechwriter [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

Oh no! It's hopeless. We're never going to agree. 

This is exactly the kind of ad I *wouldn't* want to have. The advertising 
guff may be annoying but at least it gives you an opportunity to read 
between the lines and work out what *they* think is important. That tells 
you something about the employer - except, of course, that it's probably 
the agent that's written it, but still it gives you something to go on. 

If I were going to come up with a pro forma for job ads, I'd rather give 
the advertiser a series of open-ended questions: Tell us about the 
background to this requirement. Have you used technical writers before? 
Have you planned for documentation or is this a last-minute requirement 
that you overlooked till now? Do you have subject matter experts on hand? 
What other documents are available as source material? Do you want a 
writer or just someone to pretty up your documents? And so on. 

Of course you'd want to have a question about pay rates in there too. But 
it's likely the company's going to want some scope for negotiation, so I 
don't think they're likely to give an exact amount. That could be true of 
the length of the contract too - whatever they say is likely to be a 
minimum requirement and you want to find out how flexible they are.

Oh yes, and you'd obviously need the location up front too. (The rule of 
thumb seems to be: if they say nothing about location, it's almost 
certainly in Sydney.)

Howard

Howard Silcock
Technical Writer
Zare Pty Ltd
02 6261 2073




"Matthew da Silva" <mdasilva@xxxxxxxxxxx> 
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08/06/2007 08:38 AM
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This I agree with. Something like:

 

Industry: _______________

Target application/system: _________________

Location: ________________

Tenure: Permanent (or Fixed-term for ____________ months)

Pay: $XX/hr or $XX,XXX per annum

Contact: ____________________

Telephone: ________________

Email: _________________

 

Basta!

 

All the hype that goes with these things is a pain in the a***. Enough 
with the spammy marketing guff, already!

 



From:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Warren Lewington
Sent: Thursday, 7 June 2007 4:37 PM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Re: Job ads on austechwriter [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

 


We could always request some guidelines for job posts to be put in to the 
list information. 
You know, role, type (perm vs contract) what it is being done, where, 
when, rate, etc. 
If it is laid out in a standard form with a standard subject line you can 
delete it out of hand. 

Lots of the recruiters do watch the lists, and cringe or laugh in various 
amounts. If it makes it easier for us and no harder for them, then who 
would mind? 

Warren Lewington
Technical Writer
Phone: 02 8572 3195
warren.lewington@xxxxxxxxxx
John Holland Water Projects 



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07/06/2007 04:25 PM 


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Maybe we need to agree as a group on our attitude to job ads on this list. 
The information about the list says: 


This list is a forum for technical writers to discuss the theory and 
practice of technical communication. The forum will become an archive of 
useful tips and solutions regarding workflow queries, software usage, 
project planning, documentation standards...indeed anything of relevance 
to the profession of technical authoring. 

It doesn't mention job ads, though the last part is pretty vague. 

I don't mind the current quantity of ads - and I'd hope that the posters 
of the ads to this list might know a bit more about what tech writers do. 
But I can imagine it could reach an annoying level and then we might have 
to reassess the situation. 

Rereading the information I just quoted, I can't now resist observing that 
it starts of with 'technical writers', then moves to 'technical 
communication' and then finally to 'technical authoring'. Are there some 
subtle distinctions being made here, or was the author just using what 
Fowler called 'elegant variation'? 

Oh dear, here I go again. Some of us just can't read any piece of text 
without subjecting it to a critical analysis. (My toaster said 'Crumpets 
face inwards' and I started wondering whether it was an exhortation to the 
crumpets or a notional definition of the nature of a crumpet. Yes, maybe I 
do need to get a life.) 

Howard 



 






 

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