Editorial Echoes

Is Technical Communication the Best or Worst Place to Be?

By Kathy Graden, Managing Editor

Ask little boys and girls what they want to be when they grow up, and they'll say things like "Batman," "cowboy," or "movie star." Granted, kids' pint-sized view of the world limits their knowledge of the kinds of jobs in the marketplace. But even so, probably not one in 10,000 kids would name any of the following professions as something they want to become:

Accountant
Actuary
Bank officer
Biologist
Computer systems analyst
Financial planner
Parole officer
Software engineer
Statistician
Web site manager

Yet, in a survey conducted by researcher Les Krantz for www.careerjournal.com, The Wall Street Journal's Web site for job providers and seekers, these professions were rated as the best in terms of criteria such as job security, emotional stress and basic physical safety. Of these jobs, "Web site manager" comes close to what we technical communicators do.

Krantz used six main factors to rank jobs:

Income
Stress
Physical demands
Outlook
Security
Work environment

He also made some assumptions about those factors' importance for workers, assumptions that some of us might dispute. For example, Krantz assumes that it's better to work indoors in an air-conditioned office than to work outside. He also assumes that it's better to be in a noncompetitive environment, and that it's important to earn more money.

Physically demanding, high-risk jobs, such as cowboy, brought up the rear, showing up on Krantz' list as the worst jobs:

Construction worker or laborer
Cowboy (Tell that to your kids!)
Dancer
Fisherman
Garbage collector
Ironworker
Lumberjack
Roofer
Seaman
Welder

Those who see technical communication as a declining profession would point to issues such as the following as reasons to put "technical communicator" on the "worst jobs" list:

Outsourcing and offshoring are reducing the number of available jobs.
Management often view technical publications as costly overhead.
Some say salaries in our field have never recovered from the recent recession.
"Everybody" thinks he or she can write, so employers don't respect what we do or pay us what we're worth.

On the other hand, those who are happy being technical communicators would shoot back with statements like the following:

It's rewarding to take a highly technical or complex topic and explain it so anyone can understand.
The kinds of jobs in the technical communication field continue to grow.
We're finding new areas where our skills are in demand, for example writing for the medical and financial industries.

Krantz sees "Web site designer" as one of the best profession. Where do you think the other job titles (technical writer, instructional designer, usability expert, etc.) under the technical communication umbrella would rank? Would they be among the best jobs around? Or the worst? Drop me a line and let me know where you stand.

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