As a technical writer, you translate complex information into clear, concise documentation accessible to everyone. Your role involves crafting user guides, manuals, and online help systems, ensuring that even the most intricate details are recorded and explained.
With your meticulous approach, you excel in breaking down complex concepts into something far easier to follow. Despite your background in how-to’s, writing an effective cover letter and explaining your own skills might not come as naturally.
That’s what we’re here for! Our technical writer resume examples will help you find the ideal resume template and simplify the job hunt, so check them out to get started.
Related resume examples
What Matters Most: Your Writing Skills & Technical Experience
Your resume as a technical writer needs to showcase all the skills you use to create top-notch documentation. This includes technical knowledge, familiarity with software, research skills, and an intense drive to always keep learning.
Recruiters want to see that you’re willing and able to step up to new challenges, learn new systems, and build your foundational knowledge to guide users through—often complex—systems. To that end, it’s good to emphasize both your mastery of various style guides and your natural knack for breaking things down for a non-technical audience.
Focus on your technical skills here, and later use your work experience to demonstrate how much you collaborate and communicate with developers and other teams during projects.
9 most popular technical writer skills
- Trello
- MadCap Flare
- Microsoft Office
- Google Docs
- Zoom
- API Documentation
- Grammarly
- Adobe FrameMaker
- Confluence
Sample technical writer work experience bullet points
From the outside looking in, your job can be described as a writer and a researcher. To make it sound more impactful, focus the work experience section of your resume on achievements rather than your day-to-day work.
Whether streamlining complex technical content or creating user-friendly documentation, highlight your impact on various projects. You’ve contributed to things like improving document accessibility or enhancing user comprehension, so flaunt it!
Want a little cheat code? Metrics are a great way to demonstrate your impact. Talk about the notable decrease in support tickets due to clearer documentation or increased user engagement with your content.
Here are a few examples:
- Reduced publication turnaround time by 48% by streamlining the editing process and creating reusable templates using Document360
- Streamlined knowledge base content, reducing customer support ticket resolution time by 27% and improving overall customer satisfaction
- Implemented a standardized style guide, leading to a 22% improvement in document consistency and a more cohesive brand voice across all technical materials
- Achieved an 11% decrease in user errors by conducting thorough usability testing on software documentation, ensuring end-users can navigate complex systems with ease
Top 5 Tips for Your Technical Writer Resume
- Highlight specialized certifications
- Extra credentials are always great to have, so show off any additional certifications you might have. This includes certs such as Certified Professional Technical Communicator (CPTC) or Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP).
- Flex your technical skills
- If you possess any skills listed in the job description and can explain them in a user-friendly way, you’re already well ahead of the curve. Highlight your knowledge of programming languages, engineering, and other technical topics that are related to the role.
- Showcase relevant projects
- As a general rule, writers are often expected to have a portfolio of work. Whether it’s creating comprehensive user guides or simplifying complex technical concepts, put some examples of your writing online or in Google Docs and link this at the top of your resume.
- Tailor your skills to the job
- Align your skill set with the job requirements. Focus on tools like MadCap Flare or RoboHelp, and emphasize proficiency in markup languages like HTML and XML, ensuring your resume mirrors the specific needs of the technical writing role in question.
- Keep it user-friendly
- You’d never send over a set of documentation that’s anything less than perfectly formatted, so give your resume that same treatment. Use a clean resume format that puts your most recent jobs first and isn’t too flashy or difficult to follow.
You’d be better off focusing on key abilities listed in the job description—your people skills will show up in the interview! Emphasize proficiency in document management tools, markup languages like HTML and XML, and any other software specific to the job.
Yes, certifications like the CPTC add credibility and validate your skills against a recognized standard. This is particularly helpful if you’re low on professional experience.
There are two routes to take in your situation, and both can get you a job. For starters, if you’ve worked in the field you’re applying to (such as programming), that’s a huge bonus. If not, any writing experience will help, especially if you’ve ever written how-to guides.
