I am currently a technical writer for a software company in the mobile technologies industry. I am young and early in my career and see growth in the pharmaceuticals sector in my career time, and so would like to switch into technical writing for a biotech/pharmaceutical company. I think the software industry is slowly dying. How do I go about making this transition? Will my experience in software technical writing automatically translate, or will employers be seeking any additional skills? Thanks in advance for your help!

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A resource to find info and links to Medical Writing is: www.writerswrite.com/medical/ As the health industry is an evergreen industry, your choice to switch to the pharmaceutical industry is on the right track. Because of the recession, the information technology industry is one of the hardest hit segment. When the economy recovers, however, the software industry would be the one that rebounds the fastest. Whatever the future scenario of the computer field, you could still utilize your technical writing experience in the software field to make money as a freelancer, when you do switch to the health sector, on a side-income basis. More info on freelance technical writing at: http://tinyurl.com/techl-writing Best of luck!

Frankly, I will advise you to stick to software. But, if you want a career progression, you can either try your hand at getting some certifications for pharmaceutical writing or shift to the position of a business analyst in your current domain of mobile technology. Software is one field that is dependent on the whole economy. So the chances of your not getting work in the software industry are directly related to economic conditions. Pharmaceuticals offer good work, but they wont ever pay you as much as you can earn by going onsite for a year or two through an IT company. With regards to your question, if you have knowledge of pharmaceuticals, you will not face much of a problem and you will be able to shift domains. Otherwise, you will be better off getting a certification in pharma domain and then shifting to pharma. And yes, your experience as a Technical Writer will definitely count. - I am a Tech Writer and I also blog at http://tech-writeups.blogspot.com

Hi This is Sundaram from KBuffer. Pharmaceutical Industry has a great scope for Technical Writing. The additional skill you need is of course, the domain knowledge. If you can find a good SME, that will be of great help. It might take a while for you to settle down in the new avenue but it is definitely worth a try.