Five Great Reasons to Continue in STC

Five Great Reasons to Continue in STC

You know why you joined STC. Do you know why you should stay?

By W.C. Wiese

3. Career Resources

Have you got a better plan for learning what you didn’t know you needed to know?

You will have bad days at work. You’ll be passed over for promotion, project managers will give you impossible deadlines, another will want to send out a release without paying for you, or your only champion will move into another division. You might even be let go. Then what?

The good news is that you’re not the first to face a professional crisis. In fact, most STC chapter members have had to deal with challenges like these. In dark times, they’ll be able to tell you how they handled it when it happened to them. They’ll also be sending you encouragement while you work things out.

Today’s work world is complex and the obstacles many. How you deal with working from home, outsourcing, a layoff, your role as a lone writer, meetings you don’t attend, or cases of professional disrespect could turn on a conversation you’ve had at an STC chapter meeting. How you prepare for your next job – in a hybrid job, as a contractor, as management – might depend on the sessions you attended at an annual STC Summit.

Maybe you need to get smart in a hurry on project management, preparing for translation, authoring systems, or single sourcing. STC’s online archive includes 15 years of its issues-focused magazine Intercom. A related site hosts online archives of STC’s peer-reviewed professional journal Technical Communication. Also, with luck, there might just be a timely STC webinar that provides the answers. When you don’t know what you don’t know, STC at least provides a place to start looking.

Finally, don’t forget the annual Salary Survey. Each year, STC gathers and publishes U.S. government data on salaries by region and industry. It’s how you find out that you’re underpaid, and it’s how you convince Human Resources to correct it.

Editor’s note: This article is being released as a series over a few months- be sure to check MtM regularly so you don’t miss it!

An STC Fellow with 45 years’ experience in aerospace marketing support and program communications, W.C. currently serves as Florida Chapter Treasurer. He has served STC as Society Treasurer and as a member of the Board of Directors. He previously served as President of STC’s Orlando Chapter and Treasurer. W.C. has presented at 13 Annual Conferences.

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