July-August 2003

Do you have a job? Too many of our members have to say "no," or maybe evade the issue. "I'm consulting." (Do you have any clients?) "Building my portfolio with volunteer work." "Very involved with the STC regional conference." Yes, times are tough-and not just for people in our profession or in the Bay Area.

But despite the layoffs and other evidence of the economic slump, some people are getting hired. The Berkeley chapter's Employment Manager, Erika Reier, has broadcast job openings in recent weeks, and DICE, craigslist.org, and other online sources still have opportunities for technical communicators.

Who gets these jobs? I don't know. Who should get them? We should! The people who are invested enough in their careers to join STC, and especially the ones who are motivated to attend the chapter meetings or other events. As incoming chapter president, I can make some changes to the way the chapter runs, and I think what we need to do now is to focus more directly on helping our members get jobs or clients. (Those of you who are securely employed might want to share your stories with the rest of us.)

We have three main vehicles for giving our members skills and information.

The first vehicle is the monthly meeting. It is a good place for networking, but the main reason many people attend is the guest speaker. We hope to bring in speakers who can talk about not only the tools we use in our jobs, but about the technologies our potential employers or clients use: the things we will need to write about. We would also like to have guest speakers who can help us add to our job-hunting skills. If you have suggestions for specific programs that may meet these needs, contact our Vice President of Programs, David Alt (programs@stc-berkeley.org).

The second vehicle is our e-mail job list. We need to make more Bay Area employers aware of this free service we offer them, distributing their job postings to a small but focused group of job-seekers. Locating and contacting the employers will be a labor-intensive effort. Our Employment Manager could use some help. If you have a few hours to spare to handle some clerical work or make phone calls, please tell our Volunteer Coordinator, Kathryn Munn (volunteers@stc-berkeley.org).

Finally, we want to make the chapter's education program more active. In previous years we offered classes in publishing applications and the like. We will continue to do that, but we also want to give people skills that will be useful in job-hunting. Our Education Manager, Paul Sinasohn, will start work in earnest on the education program in late July. In the meantime he is very involved with the STC Region 8 conference.

See you at the July 9, 2003 meeting!

Joe Devney
President