On a regular basis, industry peers, friends, and their friends ask me “do you know of a technical writing job?” or “is your company hiring?” or “can you give me some job search tips?”
From many years of answering these questions, I’ve maintained this work-in-progress tech comm job search resources blog post that I first published in 2013. If you know of additional resources, let me know and I can add them here. Rising tides float more boats.
Social resources
The universe is changing and so is the job search journey. Social channels provide many paths to finding a compatible job.
Job boards
Job boards that don’t require memberships:
- Write the Docs: Job board and Slack community with very active #job-posts-only channel
- Content Writing Jobs with optional paid daily job alerts
- TechWhirl: Job Board
To successfully use twitter as a job search tool, you’ll first need to be active on twitter as part of your digital branding. Follow job posters and search for key words, for example:
- #technicalwriting #technicalwritingjobs #techcomm and other keyword hashtags
Career Sherpa extensive job search resources
Hannah Morgan, the Career Sherpa, put together a list of websites to help with every aspect of the job search process, from assessment through negotiating your job offer and everything in between. Follow the career sherpa, she’s got good tips that apply to contemporary job searches.
TechWhirl Jobs
TechWhirl TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a long-lived resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information. Remember list serves? Yep. For more than two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by, and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications. TechWhirl blog posts are handy, like How to Be an Amazing Tech Comm Job Applicant: Tips from a Tech Comm Hiring Manager and their job board http://jobs.techwhirl.com/
Society for Technical Communication (STC) job postings
- STC Career Center jobs for STC members only STC job bank.
- Many STC communities provide job postings for members.
Professional recruiters
Many of the people you know have a list of their go-to staffing firms. My list includes:
- ProSpring Staffing and Jack Molisani
- Signature Consultants
- Tek Partners
- Mondo
- Writing Assistance, Inc. Vendor at STC Summit conferences.
- ProEdit staffing firm that specializes in hiring technical writers and editors.
In a past life, I worked with several agencies in Florida that placed technical communicators. Signature Consultants placed me in my first-ever technical writer contract at EDS for Ryder and subsequently in two different contracts at Motorola.
For New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania geographic searches, reach out to tech comm recruiters in the NJ, NY, and PA geography. This is a somewhat stale list, but it still might provide some insights.
NinaNet-Writers Group
Members of this group are people in the technical communications field in, for the most part, the greater Boston area and southern New Hampshire. I got a solid lead to my location-independent job at Rocket Software from this group listing, so remote jobs are also posted and sometimes disguised as on-premise jobs. Three of my remote jobs were out of offices based in the Boston area.
Join this moderated email group at https://groups.io/g/NinaNet-Writers.
SimplyHired.com
I found a very satisfying 5-year remote technical writer job at DataStax on www.simplyhired.com. I registered on the site and subscribed to email job alerts.
AngelList
Learn about the startup ecosystem AngelList. I found my first and second startup jobs here.
The Ladders
In past years, I would receive frequent “I need to hire a technical writer” calls and emails from recruiters who find my resume posted on TheLadders.com. I have a basic free membership. In my experience, most of the calls and leads from The Ladders are geographically inappropriate, but if you are looking, you’ll be found here.
Glassdoor.com
“Glassdoor strives to be the most trusted and transparent place for today’s candidate to search for jobs and research companies.” I follow various companies on www.glassdoor.com and have made career decisions based in part on the company reviews. To help us all succeed, consider creating an account and posting company, salary, and interview reviews of your own. When I receive or hear of a low ball compensation, Glassdoor is a sharable resource to show current compensation standards.
Remote job postings
Remote job postings are now available on an overwhelming number of web sites. Since 2015, remote job postings are showing up on standard job boards and in mainstream job alerts from Indeed.com and LinkedIn.com, along with other job boards. Previously, these remote-specific sites were on my radar and in the news:
As always, LinkedIn as a social networking platform has enhanced job search options and a mobile job search app.
I set up a weekly jobs alert just to see who is hiring for technical communication roles. Sample technical writer search results.
Keep your profile current and your skills highlighted in your summary and job descriptions. Review your LinkedIn profile, do a careful edit, and add the right keywords for your job target. Be an active member and interact for an authentic experience. Plan to give 2 or 3 recommendations for every one recommendation that you request. Giving thoughtful recommendations not only helps you keep in touch, but it’s is a worthy activity and helps elevate your connections.
Do you have good stuff to share?
Do you have additional tech comm job search resources? Share them so that we all benefit from our collective wisdom and experience.
Silver linings 
Thank you, Barrie, for a really helpful post!
I’d like to add Beyond.com, Indeed.com, and CommunicationsJobs.com as potential sources of job orders. Both Beyond & Indeed tend to be aggregators, listing jobs from all over and even other services, but you can do a fair job of finetuning your searches with them.
I second the use of Glassdoor and LinkedIn.
And a downcheck to VirtualVocations.com. I looked at them and was in the process of going through the basic registration process, but they want money to see their listings. Um, no, thank you, I’ll pass, particularly because the JOs that they seem to be listing aren’t exclusive… so if you see the first sentence or two, chances are you’ll be able to find the same listing elsewhere without spending money for the pleasure.
Posted by John Hedtke | April 10, 2016, 6:18 pmThanks for this wonderful resource, Barrie. And thanks, John Hedtke, for your take on VirtualVocations. Here’s to a thriving community of tech-comm professionals finding the jobs (and job seekers) they’re looking for!
Posted by Marcia Riefer Johnston | December 26, 2018, 6:17 pm