In the field of technical communication, you will find approximately 80% lateral entrants and 20% specialists with basic training. The growing demand in the job market speaks for the high percentage of lateral entrants because students alone cannot fulfill this requirement. Additionally, there are many employees, who hardly know which form of address to call themselves in this profession. They may be instructors or engineers, but fundamentally they do the same work.

Such lateral entrants should be familiarized with their job because technical writers play a very important role since they are responsible for the following in a company:

• Legal security and adherence to standards
• Consumer protection
• Consumer satisfaction
• Efficiency in translation work
• Professionalism and knowledge about all forms of media control

Technical communication offers a relatively high degree of employment security. Thanks to increasing mechanization and innovative capabilities of the 21st century, a fast-growing number of products require information for use. The demand for technical writers, who create such information for use, has therefore increased. Many companies have already identified this need and are expanding their workplaces accordingly. This results in relatively secure employment relationships for graduates. The job scenario seems especially promising for university graduates with an undergraduate education in technical communication because a rising number of senior managers value the skill sets that come with such a degree.

Point job > prospects explains that success need not always relate to a career in the conventional sense of the term since there are other attractive development opportunities as well.

In the field of technical communication, specialists usually work as employees–with or without a managerial role. Working as the director of a company (one’s own company; with staff responsibility) is a very rare thing. It happens most frequently in the service sector. Here, it is more mangeable for specialists to be self-employed as freelancers or heads of small businesses. Under the given conditions–a small company with few hierarchy levels–the decision-making power is automatically higher.

Job vacancies are aplenty! You will find job postings on country-specific as well as pan-Europe job portals such as LinkedIn, Monster, StepStone, etc. Interesting positions are also advertised via the tekom Job market.