State of techcomm recruiting

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I’ve been a technical writer since 2005 and I have seen a lot of changes in the industry.

Early on, when I started, there used to be distinct highs (around Jan and July) when recruiting cycles used to hit peak with release budgets and planning, and definitive lows (around Nov-Dec, and Apr-May) when the contracting markets barely moved. Last few years, particularly post-Covid, I have rarely seen a lot good roles come up in the local Australian market. While I may not have been actively looking, I always like to keep my eye on the local market, and try and connect recruiters with folks from the technical writing community, and vice versa.

The job market seemed incredibly difficult last couple of years, and while AI may have a role to play, I was also curious to find out if the recruitment industry was seeing these patterns.

In one of my earliest contracting roles, I worked on a contract through with HCi Professional Services. As far as I know, they are one of the oldest, and perhaps the only dedicated recruitment organisation that actively places technical communicators, learning designers and eLearning specialists. So, I reached out to them in late Dec to find out how they viewed the current market, state of recruiting, any insights for technical communicators, and any variations in the salaries.

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About you

• Name: Phil Cohen
• Years of experience in tech recruiting: Nearly 40 years (seems longer)
• Primary industries you recruit for: Any
• Location/Region: Australia

Brief info about the organisation

HCi has been in business since 1985, first as a writing consulting firm (HCi Consulting) and then since 2004 as a recruitment firm (HCi Professional Services).  We’re much more candidate-focussed than most recruiters, and track people across their career, rather than (as most recruiters do) using job boards to find candidates for specific roles.  As a result, we go from brief to resumes in 24 hours 53% of the time, in 48 hours 85% of the time. 

State of recruiting (2022-2025)
Reflecting on the past few years, how has the recruiting landscape evolved for technical writers, content designers, and e-learning specialists.

• What were the most significant challenges, patterns, or shifts you observed?
• How did factors like the post-pandemic environment and remote work expectations influence hiring?

COVID caused a huge uptick in ID roles, as organisations found that they couldn’t deliver training face to face and moved into elearning in a big way.  Elearning vendors had been pushing the technology for years, but it took COVID to actually make the change.  That took us from 2020 to about 2024, when things went pretty much back to normal.

Another major factor was the increase in interest rates over the past couple of years (to kill the inflation caused by Government COVID handouts), which depressed the whole economy.  Yet another factor is the US politics ‘fog’ – the uncertainty caused by not knowing whether the US was going to crash the world economy.  As one US banker pointed out: “When you’re driving in fog, you slow down.”. 

And yet another factor was the introduction of ChatGPT.  This is starting to settle down now, but naïve managers got the impression (because the pundits were telling them that it was so) that you’d be able to replace all white-collar workers with AI in months.  This hasn’t happened, and won’t happen this side of the next “AI winter”.  I’m reminded of a client of mine in the early ‘80s who told me that they wouldn’t need my services as a tech writer any more “because we’ve bought a word processing system”. 

Current skills & trends
What skills and capabilities are employers currently prioritising for each of these roles (technical writers, content designers, e-learning specialists)?

• How has the rise of AI tools impacted job requirements and what employers are looking for?
• Are you seeing a trend toward hybrid roles that combine these specialisations?

AI is an ideal replacement for a particular writer role: content developer.  These are (were) people who generated web pages which used specific key words or phrases, basically for the purpose of attracting search engines.  This type of writing is far better carried out by AI. 

A similar use case is the generation of policies and procedures created specifically for the purpose of complying with RFT requests.  

The invention of AI is like the invention of the shovel: it doesn’t replace the worker, but it can make their job a lot easier.  Think of AI as a shovel for words.  Any tech writer who point-blank refuses to use AI is going to find the same problems as a tech writer who insists on writing longhand.  Or dig a hole without a shovel.

Employer understanding & misconceptions
How well do employers understand the differences between technical writers, content designers, and e-learning specialists?

• What are the most common misconceptions or unrealistic expectations you encounter (regarding role definitions, required skills, experience levels, or salary expectations)?
• Which industries demonstrate the strongest understanding of these roles?

There’s a common misunderstanding from clients on the difference between a writer and an SME.  Often we get requests for writers with particular domain knowledge.  Now, that makes sense up to a point: if you’re going to be writing about a medical device, it’s good if you have a background in the health industry.  But you don’t need to be an expert in radiology, or a surgeon.

We also provide bid writers, and the status of bid experts varies widely between industries.  In the defence industry they are treated like gold (because all of their sales come through bids) but in the professional services industries (particularly law) they are treated as a minor extension to marketing.  I think that’s just a reflection on their value of bids in those industries, but it does mean that salary expectations for the same skill set are radically different.  If you’re a professional services bid writer, think about moving to a better-paid industry.

Future demand (2026 and beyond)
Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, how do you anticipate demand for technical writers, content designers, and e-learning specialists will evolve?

• Which industries do you expect will have the strongest hiring growth?
• What factors will drive these changes?

It’s too early to tell what 2026 will bring for the tech writing industry, but I reckon it will be better than last year.  The factors that made 2025 a poor year (interest rates, world politics, AI) are now in our rear mirror.

I think that organisations that have tried to substitute AI for human writers will find the limits of that approach.  For example, a lot of companies are using AI for bid responses.  But if you and all of your competitors are doing that, who’s going to win the bid?  The next step is not to use more powerful AI, it’s to look at making better use of your sales intelligence to craft a response that actually speaks to your customer.  That’s something only your sales staff can achieve.

Similarly, I think more people will come to recognise AI-generated text either consciously or subconsciously, and its value as a marketing or communications tool will decline.  Ask yourself: this response is not AI-generated, but how can you tell?  The answer is that there are (hopefully!) new ideas in it that you won’t find on the web.

Emerging skills & AI impact
How do you envision AI impacting these roles in 2026 – will it create new opportunities, eliminate certain tasks, or fundamentally transform the nature of the work?

I think more people will come to recognise AI-generated text either consciously or subconsciously, and its value as a marketing or communications tool will decline.  Ask yourself: this response is not AI-generated, but how can you tell?  The answer is that there are (hopefully!) new ideas in it that you won’t find on the web.

Specialisation vs. consolidation
Do you predict these roles will become more specialised or more consolidated (hybrid roles) in 2026? How do you think recruitment processes will change – will assessment methods, interview techniques, or evaluation criteria evolve?

LinkedIn sent a rep to HCi some years ago, trying to sell us on the idea that LI was going to ‘replace recruitment’.  Didn’t happen, did it?  LI has been around since 2002, and the recruitment industry hasn’t died yet.

Recruiters who get lazy and use AI will find that both clients and candidates will stop using them.  An example: in a fit of enthusiasm, we developed an inhouse AI application (an extension of our in house VB.NET application drawing data from our CRM system JobAdder, and using the OpenAI API) to do the following: for a given job brief, for a given applicant, write a paragraph that shows how they fit the brief. This is used when we present the candidate to the client. It takes a few seconds and it’s pretty accurate.  But no-one at HCi uses it because this is such a critical part of our process that they’d all prefer to do it by hand.

Australian salary landscape
If you are ok to disclose, what are the current salary ranges for technical writers, content designers, and e-learning specialists across different experience levels in Australia.

• Have you seen any patterns or trends with these changes pre and post pandemic?
• What factors influence compensation the most?
• Which cities or regions have the strongest job markets, and how do Australian salaries compare to international markets?

Salaries and hourly/day rates have dropped about 10% in the past year, as you would expect during a downturn.