Dammit, Jim, I’m a Writer, Not a Welder!

Why Professional Writers Don’t Need Specialized Experience

WANTED: Accomplished career ballet dancer with at least two years of experience in the professional nut-cracking industry. An employment history with Planters is preferred.

This is what most online advertisements for freelance writing opportunities look like to me. The client would like not only a professional writer with the skill and creativity to bring their product or service to life in a way that they and their coworkers are unable to achieve, but they would also like that writer to have already spent years working in that industry.

On the surface, it’s an understandable notion. Of course the ideal candidate would already be an accomplished professional in both fields. The perfect actor to play a superhero would also already possess and have spent life living with super powers. Instead, we just have to find someone who looks and sounds like they might.

The problem is when the potential client believes the ideal to be a necessity.

Most professional crane operators aren’t also professional writers, nor vice versa. And when that hypothetical superstar responds to this to prove me wrong, I’ll ask them if they’re willing to write a 2,000-word trade magazine article for $35. It’s just an unrealistic expectation.

So what is a client in a specialized industry to do if they need something informed but appealing written? Well, they really have one of two choices: 1) They could try to hire someone who already works professionally in that specialized field to write something well enough that it meets their needs; or 2) they could hire a professional writer to learn the specialized information well enough to write an informed piece.

By the time a client’s post hits the freelance job board, I’m assuming they ahve already at least considered, and perhaps tried, the first option and determined it wasn’t going to work out that way. That’s not to say that it never can; it’s just to say that the first option may not be available to this particular client…