Re: Making myself marketable

[Alexia Prendergast <alexiap -at- SEAGATESOFTWARE -dot- COM>]

Heck, no -- Higher productivity from a more experienced
writer is worth the extra bucks. Smart companies know it.

Consider this scenario (hypothetical salaries
in US$ and hypothetical times):

Writer A: Inexperienced, charges $30/hr
Writer B: Experienced, charges $50/hr

Job should take 100 hours.

Some non-writer manager says, Oh, what a deal,
let's get Writer A -- it'll only be $3000! I'll
save $2K!

Writer A takes twice as long to do the job,
takes lots of supervision, needs lots of
editing. Ends up costing:
$6000 (200 hrs x $30/hr)
$3750 (40 hrs manager's time above "normal" @ about $75/hr)
$1600 (40 hrs editor's time above "normal" @ about $40/hr)
-------
$11,350

Writer B could have done the job in 100 hrs
for $5,000 + minimal supervision, some editing.

Which is the real deal?

Note: I'm not slamming inexperienced writers -- I'm
just saying smart companies in a crunch don't balk
at paying higher prices for experienced writers.

Disclaimer: There are, of course, exceptions. This
is a rule of thumb. All similarities to people,
living or dead, are purely coincidental.

A.
--
Alexia Prendergast
Senior Technical Writer
Seagate Software
alexiap -at- sems -dot- com

>----------
Chris said:

>Other than that, all I'm doing is being passively and vaguely
>terrified that I'll be 50 years old and too expensive to be employable.
>

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