An Invitation from STC President Hillary Hart

Dear Colleague,
As the President of STC, I’m writing with a special Alumni Renewal Offer to explain how STC has changed for the better and to invite you back to find out for yourself.

For a limited time, we’re inviting alumni to rejoin for the rest of 2011 at a special rate of $99. We’re waiving the reinstatement fee, too. Even more important is that, when you rejoin, we’ll RESTORE the years of membership you previously earned. This will allow you to get back on track for Society honors.

I want to explain how the Society has added new value—and I think you’ll like what we’ve done. During the past couple years, we’ve completed the following initiatives:

1. A New Website and MySTC Network. STC unveiled a cleaner website earlier this year and followed that up in May with the MySTC Network, a new social networking platform that allows technical communicators to connect and collaborate like never before. The website recently won an APEX Grand Award for publication excellence and members tell us they love it. Some areas of the network are open to the public, and you can visit for free at www.stc.org.
2. A Certification Program. The STC Board voted at the 2010 Summit to create a certification program for the profession of technical communication, and we launched it at the 2011 Summit. Certification provides value to practitioners, companies, clients, and the Society as well.
3. Free Educational Seminars. To add more value for the membership dollar, STC now offers free education as part of your membership. We have begun a library of free archived seminars, with 38 currently available and more to be added every year. See the full list and a demo at www.stc.org/education/online-education/free-archived-seminars.
4. More Educational Offerings. In addition to the free archived seminars, STC has also greatly increased the number and quality of our certificate courses and webinars, with a wide variety of topics and courses for all levels of experience. More than 3,000 attendees have taken advantage of these courses since 2010! And the Technical Communication Summit continues to receive high marks for excellence, bringing technical communicators worldwide together for three days of education and networking.
5. Online Publications. STC’s award-winning publications, Intercom and Technical Communication, are now online! All members receive access to the magazine and journal, which includes both HTML and PDF versions of the publications.
6. Community Affairs Committee. The Community Affairs Committee allows for two-way communication between the communities, Board of Directors, and staff. This committee provides a method for regular feedback from our communities and a better way to disseminate information.
7. Promoting the Profession. We reached our first goal with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics: "technical writer" is now a distinct profession in their annual Occupational Outlook Handbook. The addition of this title separates our unique position from the more common (and lower-paying) writer and editor fields. Our next step is to add “technical communication” as a job category.

All of these changes have helped improve our Society greatly, and we have much more we want to do—and together we can get it done. We want and need experienced professionals such as you to help us grow. We need our alumni to return and contribute expertise, share knowledge, and help us identify ways in which we can continue to improve and transform the profession.

Even with all the changes, we have many more improvements to come. The Board of Directors and staff firmly believe that—with members like you—there’s no limit to what STC can offer. So rejoin today, share your knowledge, network with your peers, rekindle old relationships, and take advantage of all the great new things STC has done while you were gone.
Sincerely,

Hillary Hart
STC President

PS: Please use the code ALUMNI when renewing to make sure you get the discount. If you don't remember your old STC username and password, you can get it emailed to you here.

Job Seeker Bootcamp

STC announces a FREE program for members who are currently seeking employment or contracts.

In this tough economic climate, STC would like to extend a helping hand to those conducting job searches. While members have free access to the Job Seeker Boot Camp, as well as many other benefits, STC has made this program available to nonmembers for the affordable rate of $65. So if you have friends or colleagues seeking employment, be sure to tell them about this special offer.

The STC Job Seeker Boot Camp includes four elements to help the effectiveness of your search:

• FREE access to the STC Career Center where NEW job postings specific to technical communicators are listed and shown to members EXCLUSIVELY FOR 14 DAYS before they are released to the public. STC recently partnered with the top recruiters in the tech comm field to post the best job openings on our Career Center.
  
• FREE access to a dozen-plus articles written by and for technical communicators about how to distinguish yourself, how to identify hidden job markets, what questions to expect during the interview, and how to increase your perceived value to your next employer. The work of technical communicators is an important contribution to a company’s bottom line. Learn what to emphasize when describing the value of your accomplishments.
  
• FREE access to audio podcasts by well-known STC recruiters. John Hedtke and Jack Molisani speak on topics such as: mistakes technical communicators make during job searches, résumé tips, creating buzz about yourself during your search, and how to ace the interview.
  
• FREE access to the latest STC Salary Survey to help you establish your value during negotiations. The survey also shows how technical writers have shifted from state to state or metropolitan areas, where salaries are holding firm, and where the largest increases in salaries have occurred. Learn what the average, median, and 90th percentile salary are for technical writers in your area.

HOW THE PROGRAM WORKS
The STC Job Seeker Boot Camp is presented as an additional FREE benefit for members.
http://www.stc.org/membership/job-seeker-boot-camp-intro.asp

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