Technical Writing

Lesson 3: Preparing to Become a Technical Writer

Building a Portfolio

Hiring managers will want to see a portfolio of your finished work before they hire you.

If the job entails writing manuals showing how to operate an "X-26 Automated Purple Grape Picker," they will want to see manuals from the prospective employee showing that you have written similar documentation previously. Of course, it may not have to be with the Grape Picker. Experience documenting the "RD325 Super Excalibrated Cherry Picker" may suffice. . . There is always a pesky "catch 22" when you are trying to find an entry-level job in any field of endeavor. Hiring managers want to hire people experienced in work that is similar to the types of jobs that they have open.

The technical writng field is no different. How can you get some experience when no one will hire you without experience? Furthermore, you must have some experience in order to build your portfolio.

After all, this portfolio is your most valuable technical writing possession and job-finding tool, and you must work to build it and insure that it looks professional.

Here are some ways to get experience and build a portfolio before you land your first job:

• Volunteer to write something for a non-profit organization that needs technical writing (there are lots of them).

• Build your own web site to show what you can do. Choose some subject you are interested in and know something about and build a site devoted to that topic. For example, a hobby, a charity, an issue, a regional guide, whatever.

• Help a working tech writer on a project. Subcontract a portion of a project from an overworked friend.

• Create Your Own Experience. Find a friend who owns or runs a business and will back your story. Then write something similar to the kind of work you are trying to find. For example, a 20-30 page manual for that specific business describing how its employees are to perform some common tasks or use the company hardware and software.

• Go to school. Take classes where you produce portfolio pieces as part of your course work. Never waste your time on a class that does not end up with something you can put in your portfolio.

• The Open Source Writers Group maintains a web site that is very helpful to the aspiring technical writer with limited writing samples. You can register with this site as a volunteer writer or editor and write documentation for open-source projects (see resources for URL).

  Sometimes to get past an impasse and move on with your life you just have to take the bull by the horns and figure out a strategy to make your dreams come true.

  By way of illustration, I had a friend who wanted to break into technical writing for two or three years and was actually writing technical scripts for computer support. This person had a degree in English and lots of writing experience. The problem was that he was not experience with any of the publishing tools that employers wanted. Microsoft Word was the only technical writing software with which he was competent.

  Finally, he just got fed up with his job frustration and decided that there had to be a way for him to break into technical writing. He started surfing the Net and found some Web sites that offered advice on breaking into tech writing.

  From that site he discovered that he could download a demo version of one of the software packages that he needed and that there were shareware (or freeware) versions of the other tool that was used so much in his area.

  In the end he downloaded these versions of the software that he needed and used them to write documentation and help files for himself and other members of his computer support team. Eventually he had enough documents to build a substantial portfolio and soon was able to find a technical writing job that even at entry level paid twice what he had been making in technical support.

  So, don't give up! Like the sign I saw one time in a sports locker room in high school: "You make the breaks!"

  Recommended ReadingThe Complete Idiot's Guide To Technical Writing, Page 38

  Print this page
  
  

    1  2  3  4