Now, More Than Ever, STC is Important to Your Career

by Bryce A. Walat

President of STC Pittsburgh

A Letter to Fellow STC Members

Recently, I've heard STC members talking about the economy, especially the rising cost of fuel, food, health care, and other necessities, and the falling value of their homes and investments. For some STC members, their STC membership is a prime candidate for an "extra" item to cut from their personal or professional budgets. You may be thinking about not renewing your membership when it expires, or if you aren't a current member, you may be having second thoughts about joining STC. You may also be thinking about cutting back on meetings or events.

Question

Before you decide, I'd like to ask you this question: Over your lifetime, what is your biggest and most valuable asset?

• Your home
  
  
• Your education
  
  
• Your career
  
  
• Your retirement plan
  
  

Answer

Your career is your biggest and most valuable asset. Your career gives you the income to afford the necessities of life, such as food, clothing, and shelter, as well as other important necessities, such as an education, real estate, a retirement plan, and other investments. When you think about how much of your lifetime is spent working, you can see why your career is so important. That's why it's important to manage your career well. STC helps you manage your career by helping you to do the following:

• Launch your technical communication career or transition into a technical communication career.
  
  
• Learn new skills and enhance existing ones.
  
  
• Find opportunities to network with fellow technical communication professionals.
  
  
• Find a new or better job.
  
  
• Launch an independent technical communication career.
  
  
• Find help when you need it.
  
  
• Improve your "soft" skills, such as public speaking or team-building skills.
  
  

Cost and Benefits

The cost of STC membership is "chump change" compared to the value that it adds to your career. For example, STC's articles, seminars, and conferences give you knowledge and skills not only to keep up with changes in the fast-paced technical communication field, but also to get ready for the technical communication jobs of the future.

On a personal note, I've now been through four "career transitions" in my eight years as a technical communicator. In some cases, they occurred because of circumstances beyond my control, such as economic conditions; in others, my actions might have led to a different outcome. In every case, I found STC to be a helpful resource to manage those transitions.

STC proved valuable as a go-to for technical communication job leads, ways to improve my technical and interpersonal skills, and assurance that I wasn't alone in my career transition. STC Pittsburgh's WorkQuest was, as the MasterCard slogan goes, priceless. In addition, in every case, employers noticed my STC membership on my resume, and some even knew of me from STC.

Join Now For a Bonus

As president of STC Pittsburgh, part of my job is promoting the Chapter and the Society. I wrote this column as a way to promote STC and to make a case that STC is more important to your career in times like these. I also wrote it to explain how STC helped me and why I joined STC.

With that in mind, if you join or renew your membership in November, you'll receive two months free, because your membership won't expire until the end of 2009. Visit stc.org to join or renew.