But You Need Experience...Don't You?

There is probably no greater mystery to the beginning student of any profession than how to circumvent the familiar job requirement of "experience".To students, it really IS a mystery, because, on the one hand, there are people out there who must have started at some point, like them, with no experience - but on the other hand, how the devil did they get around this requirement?

The unspoken working assumption in many students' minds is that somehow things were different way back when, but now, "everyone wants experience". Actually, it is not true - in fact, "experience" is sometimes as much as a hindrance to getting a job as the lack of it.

Over the years, people have asked me about whether their background is suitable for pursuing a career in Technical Communications. They mostly worry about the fact that they don’t possess any formal technical education - many have had little exposure to technical subjects. Typically, many of these people have degrees in English Literature, Social Sciences, Philosophy, Art, Music, History, and Education. They all have the same question, “can I do it?”

Added to their insecurity is the “wisdom” of friends, personnel managers, and even other technical writers who counsel that “only experienced people are considered for jobs today. And besides, without a technical background it’s going to be very hard to get a job in this field.”

YEDA has been fighting this perception for over 12 years and, with great success, we’ve succeeded in proving that those with no technical background and no previous experience can, with our training, enter the field of technical communications and succeed. Here are some cases that come to mind: