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Get That Job! Creative Résumés That Make You Stand Out
By Elaine Tsang and Silke Fleischer

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December 11 meeting details

Gain an edge over your competition by developing a résumé that attracts attention. In December, Silke Fleischer of eHelp Corporation will provide you with ideas, tips, and tools to help you get your résumé noticed immediately. Learn how you can convince your future employer of your great writing skills, technical knowledge, and creativity.

The following topics will be included:

• why standard resumes fail
• dos and don'ts for interactive resumes
• what to include
• how to distribute
• tips and tricks

The following tools will be covered:

• RoboHelp
• Word
• FrameMaker
• Photoshop
• RoboDemo

As a Product Manager at eHelp Corporation, Fleischer is a RoboHelp and RoboDemo expert who conducts product demonstrations and presentations at numerous industry events. Fleischer is a member of the STC and has demonstrated products at several industry events, including STC's 49th Annual Conference in 2002 and Digitext 2002.

She has also been a featured speaker at other national and international conferences, regional STC events, and chapter meetings.

A full copy of RoboDemo (value of $899) will be given away, so mark your calendars for December 11.

Attendees: 48

After acknowledging some of the many STC-San Diego Chapter volunteers, Walter announced the need to fill the following roles.

• Vice President-Programs. Please contact Walter Hanig if you are interested in serving as VP-Programs. This position requires you to arrange chapter meeting programs for March through May 2003, to prepare meeting
  announcements for the chapter newsletter (January through June) and Web site, and prepare e-mails to the chapter announcing the meetings (January through June).
  
  
• Temporary Master/Mistress of E-Mail. This position involves distributing e-mail reminders just before our meetings. The volunteer must have access to an ISP that allows large mailings. Contact Lance-Robert if interested.
  
  
• Resume Reviewers. Volunteers with hiring experience are needed to review résumé of writers who are looking for jobs. If you are interested, contact Ken Wilson.

Walter also announced the following.

• Contact Lance-Robert if you would like to be included in the STC San Diego e-mail list. The list is used to distribute news of upcoming events.
  
  
• STC International is conducting a series of mid-day phone conferences. There is a flat fee per phone connection. Please contact Audrey Johns if you are interested in hosting a call or attending. [See Professional Development article.]
  
  
• A headhunter is seeking a medical writer. Please contact Walter if you are interested or know a medical writer who is looking for work.

After Walter's announcements, members seeking work announced their credentials and types of jobs desired, after which those seeking new employees announced positions. On a hopeful note, it was nice to see more employers seeking talent than employees seeking jobs. Let's hope this trend continues.

Signature Copy Editor Receives Plaque

Rick Bradshaw, last year's Signature editor, presented a plaque to newsletter Copy Editor Beth Vollbach. The newsletter won an award in the 2001-2002 STC International Newsletter Competition and received one plaque. The chapter ordered additional plaques to present to the copy editors. (Copy Editor Pam Fridie was unable to attend the presentation.)

Competition Exhibit

The STC International Competition winning entries exhibit made a stop at Wednesday's meeting. Attendees were treated to many fine examples of technical communication.

Guest Speaker: Identity Crisis

The key speaker for the evening was Bonni Graham, our STC Region 8 director-sponsor and owner of Manual Labour, a technical documentation outsource provider. Her topic, "Identity Crisis—The Persona as a Tool for Formulating and Evaluating Information Designs," was delivered with an animated speaking style and great sense of humor to an eager crowd.

What is a persona?

A persona is a character biography that is used as a tool for understanding and writing for your target audience. It is as if the writer took an individual from the target demographic and set him or her down on paper.

A persona is:

• a carefully defined character biography, including details about an entire person
  
  
• created in part from marketing demographics; observations of friends, family, and co-workers; and an anthropological/sociological understanding of the adult learner
  
  
• given a name
  
  
• precise rather than accurate, typically a stereotype of the target audience
  

How is a persona useful?

Persona creation is useful for the following reasons.

• Although only a percentage of the users may actually read your documentation, a positive user experience with a manual not only affects the user as a potential repeat buyer but affects the advice they give their friends and family.
  
  
• It is easier to write for a single person than for an entire group.
  
  
• Persona creation fills the "black hole" at the beginning of a project when lack of information about the product makes it difficult to write help.
  
  
• A persona will answer questions about scope and end feature debates.

How is a persona created?

This is how to create a persona.

1. Collect information from three demographics: those that Marketing provides; those from primary and secondary resources; and those created when there is a lack of information.
   
   
2. Gather information about the users. Look at existing documentation that was written for the group; gather information from magazine articles and people around you; then note all characteristics, and rate how common they are.
   
   
3. Extrapolate from the demographics. If the demographic is composed of males aged 25 to 35, choose a specific age such as 32. If the typical user is a college graduate, choose a school and specific degree and major.
   
   
4. Include information that describes their personality, learning style, and background.
   
   
5. Add fiction to flesh out the character. A single page is a good length. Use clip art to zero in on the character.
   

How is a persona used?

A persona helps you defend decisions when you design documentation. The following are types of decisions that can be made using a persona:

• depth of information that won't make them feel dumb
• organization of information
• format of the deliverable (poster, quick start, manual, reference guide)
• layout and font choice
• terminology use in headings and index entries
  

Tips

During the course of the presentation, Bonni fielded several questions from the audience, the points of which are summarized here.

• Marketing people will be more than happy to provide you with demographic information.
  
  
• If you recognize that different deliverables for the same project may be useful to specific groups, create a persona (e.g., posters with big graphics for a user with little technical experience or reference guides for a savvy user with a short attention span) for each.
  
  
• If there will be more than one audience for the document, create a persona for each and prioritize them. But don't go overboard. If a persona can represent the majority of your users, stick with one. It will be easier to write documentation for one persona.
  
  
• When considering marketing information, keep in mind that the purchaser of the system may not be the user. Also keep in mind that the majority of the users of the system may not be the majority of the users of your help. Create personas that represent the people who will be using your help the most.
  
  
• Don't worry if reviewers pick at your details. It means they read it.
  
  
• If you are not sure, just write it incorrectly. This will catch the reviewers' attention and get them more involved.
  
  
• Personas are a hybrid of a biographical sketch and a resume, personality plus expertise.

Additional Information

For a list of related books and other technical writing information, visit
www.manuallabour.com/symposia.htm.

For a site that will help you understand the adult learner, visit www.vark.com.

Wrap Up

Walter thanked Bonni for a terrific speech and conducted the monthly raffle drawing for a Wally Buck. This month's winner was Nadine Barter Bowlus.

Also, special thanks to all who helped rebag the competition winning entries.

Hope to see you all next month!