Job Searches for Technical Writers

 An attempt to crowd-source tips on finding relevant jobs in technical writing or adjacent fields. Some of these will be relevant for other roles too, generic advice. 

Disclaimer: This is just a compilation of advice from various people. Not fool-proof or complete guidance. Use your own judgement and other sources.

Remember: AI is causing job losses. But it is also a great tool for job searches. Everything it  tells you, you need to evaluate, but it is a good place to start. 

To Note

• Technical Writing as a profession is undergoing a massive change. The old role of writing content for products is morphing into new ones, as AI is increasingly creating content. 
• The focus is shifting from Content to Knowledge. 
• In order to know about new roles that Tech Writing/Tech Comms teams are shifting to, ask any good AI tool - like ChatGPT or Claude or Copilot. You will get a big list. 
• Make a list of all the new roles it finds being created in the industry, which seem interesting to you. Find out what these roles actually do. 
• You may have transferable skills for some of these already. You just need to re-work your resume to highlight those. 
• For some you will need to upskill yourself. Ask AI to identify good courses, or learning material. 

Resume

• Get AI tools to review your resume and provide feedback - usually you get really good points.
• Don't just ask for a review - ask targeted questions, from many angles. 
• Ask it to compare your resume to the latest content-related roles (the list you created above) being advertised, and point out the gaps. 
• Ask it to act as a hiring manager for the roles you selected, and evaluate your resume from their angle. 
• Ask it to look at your resume and suggest what jobs you could apply for, given your set of skills and interests etc. 
• Make sure you have a list of Transferable Skills highlighted - what you learnt from all your jobs, which could be used in a new field. Again, ask AI if you are not sure what to draw out from your experience across jobs. 

LinkedIn

• Is your best bet. Get a paid account. Also make use of the Job Seeker badge it provides. 
• Set alerts for jobs in the list you created above - check what they are asking for, see if there are matches. 
• AI tools cannot usually access LinkedIn profiles. I believe there is an option to download your profile as a PDF.
• Feed this into an AI tool and give you feedback, just like with the resume. Again, ask AI to look at the content from a hiring manager's perspective. 
• Follow companies that you are interested in. 
• Share knowledge if you can, also helps raise your visibility, connect to new people.
• The paid account does allow you to message a certain number of people who are not in your network. 
• Get testimonials.   

Articles

• The Technical Writer’s Edge: A Job Search Guide for the AI Era

Please ping me if you have any relevant advice that could be added here. Thank you.