Career Prospects for Writers

27/07/2021

Writers Writing is a skill and in most cases, writers identify their interest from an early age. With digitization, writing is fast emerging as a profitable career option with an array of opportunities to choose from. Here are six such prospects which writers can explore:
1. Technical Writer: The ability to elucidate complex ideas into simple English can land you with a profession in technical writing. Technical writers are taken onboard to write documentation, FAQs, instruction manuals, how-to guides, and other supporting content. Though not the most exciting profession, those with a keen interest in engineering, science, web design, software, and other technical domains can find it challenging. Positions for technical writers are mostly full-time, and to explore opportunities in the field one needs to be a graduate. Knowledge of technical issues will enhance your prospects of getting hired.
2. Editor: It is a general belief that good writers make good editors. Most editors have a writing career before taking up editing; hence they are efficient in writing clear, succinct and clear copies. Ideas for articles and stories and eventual drafting of those articles are done by a team of writers, after which the editor fine-tunes them. Editors can look for opportunities in a plethora of domains including media. One can also be a blog editor or a copy editor with a publishing house. Bachelor's degree in mass communications, media, or journalism will help aspirants enter the editing world.
3. News Reporter: Journalism is an age-old profession and writers have made it big in life by beginning their careers as a news reporter. Asking the right questions, coming up with the precise details and writing the right story can help you immensely to be a news reporter. News reporting world is fast-paced and dynamic with opportunities to travel, interact with famous and interesting people, and breaking stories. However, news reporting is not a 10 to 5 job and demands late nights, early starts and working on Sundays to meet deadlines.
A journalism degree from a reputed college will help you cross the threshold of the world of journalism, while internships can bag you a good opportunity rather fast. Skills like identifying a gripping story, getting strong quotes, writing a rich and relevant article & meeting deadlines, are the qualities expected from news reporters.
4. Freelance Writer: Freelancing is the next big thing. Since writing does not need teamwork, many young writers are now taking up roles as freelance journalists or content developers. They are working with print publications, magazines, and are writing stories for the press. Writing multiple articles per day for online mediums is also very much in vogue.
There is no dearth of opportunities in the online content space today and also every niche-including science, medicine, politics, and sports- has demands for content for their online platforms. The online content space is quite competitive & writers often have to start with modest pay.
5. Social Media Manager: Even a decade ago, no one could think of using social media to market businesses. In a dramatic change of events, businesses today are rushing to appoint skilled resources to manage social media platforms. In addition to channels like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn and Twitter, many are also promoting their brand through Quora, Vine, Slack and the like. Writers have a great advantage for positions like social media manager as it involves a great deal of creative writing-info-graphic copy, tweets, Facebook captions, LinkedIn posts and so on. Writers can put their skills to good use in this position. Job responsibilities include maintaining active profiles on all of the main platforms. A freelance experience in social media marketing even with a small company will increase your odds as a candidate.
6. Blogging: The independent blog world being over explored by now, chances of commercializing your private blog is now relatively low. At present, there are many online tools out there to stay competitive in the blogging world. Many bloggers use popular tools to re-write or paraphrase online.
However, bloggers are now mostly thriving by writing for others. Most company websites, irrespective of industry, now have a section for blogs. Though they cannot bring you fame or fortune, the creative blogs, with powerful ideas and messages, can drive business goals. To put your best foot forward grasp whatever writing prospects or offers you hit upon.
(Views expressed are personal)

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