The New Jersey Institute of Technology's
Electronic Theses & Dissertations Project

Title:	The technical communication industry : a study of today's job requirements in the United States
Author:	Conte, Maria
View Online:	njit-etd2003-003 (xi, 43 pages ~ 1.9 MB pdf)
Department:	Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Degree:	Master of Science
Program:	Professional and Technical Communication
Document Type:	Thesis
Advisory Committee:	Coppola, Nancy (Committee chair) Elliot, Norbert (Committee member) Steffen-Fluhr, Nancy (Committee member)
Date:	2003-01
Keywords:	technical communication employment advertisements employment requirements
Availability:	Unrestricted
Abstract:	Technical communication, "the process of gathering information from experts and presenting it to an audience in a clear, easily understandable form," (Society for Technical Communication) has grown more popular in the last decade, even as an academic discipline (Staples and Omatowski xi). The growth of the technical communication profession has led to an increase in skill requirements needed to obtain a position as a practitioner. This study, using Glaser and Strauss' Grounded-Theory approach, identified the requirements of today's technical communication job candidates by examining recent technical communication job advertisements in ten of the top newspapers in the United States. The four major categories of requirements for examination are experience, education background, hardware/software skills, and knowledge about general job skills. Results from the study show that the experience requirement was found in 69.6% of the advertisements, the general job knowledge requirement was found in 50.4% of the advertisements, the hardware/software skill requirement was found in 47.59% of the advertisements, and education was only found in 37% of the advertisements.