CAREER O P P O R T U N I T I E S

may seem slow, but each step upward widens your horizons and brings into truer perspective the relation­ship between your work and that of the chemical industry as a whole.

Writ ing for the Chemical Industry HOWARD A. MARPLE Monsanto Chemical Co., St. Louis, Mo.

The field of writing in the chemical industry is a rapidly growing and recognized arm of management. It is highly important to the chemical industry and chemical science. It has many specialties within itself —from technical report writing to advertising. Yes, even to editing a publication like this one. Like sales, research, or production, technical writing is another avenue to highly responsible jobs and above average compensation all along the way.

While the gift of the Muses is not essential to com­mercial writing in the chemical business, the individ­ual must have a liking for writing and the willingness to work patiently with words.

Trade magazines in the chemical field require com­petent staffs of editorial writers. I t is a field that can offer a technically trained writer either great speciali­zation or wide diversification. This work permits an individual to keep himself informed on the latest de­velopments in the field and in time can confer upon him an impressive amount of prestige.

Some company magazines have attained the stature of a bona fide trade paper with the readers they serve. These company publications are written to the highest technical level and offer a challenge to imagination and technical ability that is scarcely matched by large general interest magazines.

The basic job of public relations is to keep citizens at large, customers, and stockholders fully informed about company operation. A technically trained man, so inclined, could make a satisfying career in interpret­ing a chemical company's activities to the public through the press and radio. Basically, such writing would be selecting newsworthy developments in a highly technical operation and interpreting them so that they are vivid and understandable to ordinary people.

In advertising, technically trained men will find many opportunities ranging from technical report writ­ing to the executive direction of chemical advertising. Obviously, a technical background must be comple­mented with knowledge of advertising techniques, sales psychology, and marketing.

In the preparation and placement of chemical ad­vertising, a technical education can be a valuable background for qualifying judgment and guiding the decisions that must be made at every step of the adver­tising operation.

Technical men will find that their backgrounds en­able them to correlate and present technical informa­tion in the form of sales booklets, pamphlets, catalogs,

and circulars used to carry information to lists of other technical people who can make use of tb_e products offered.

These broad brush strokes outline the major fields in which a technical man can use his training in other than research, engineering, production, and sales. All of them require additional training, not necessarily formal, but definitely somewhat apart froirt the stand­ard formal training given technical graduates. This consists of some bedrock psychology, salesmanship, advertising, and marketing. Since virtually all the fields require the ability to write, the man entering these green pastures should be able to express ideas in words that are clear, fluent, and emphatic. He must be able to produce readable writing.

The Technical Salesman H. D. HUGHES Carbide & Carbon Chemicals Division, Union Carbide & Carbon Corp., New York, Ν. Υ.

What technical sales means in die chemical process industries can be broadly conveyed by a list of func­tions that the technical sales representative may be called upon to perform:

• He is a salesman. First, last, and always his reason for being is to sell his company's product.

• He is a technical consultant. He nmst offer to the customers and prospects in his area a thorough knowledge of his products and their uses in practical industrial applications.

• He is a market research man. His company relies heavily on him for knowledge of business trends, de­velopments in specific areas or industries, and general market conditions.

• He is a public relations man. To his: customers, prospects, friends, neighbors, and acquaintances, John Jones of the ABC Co. is the ABC Co.

• He is a business diplomat. When shipments are delayed, invoices are incorrect, materials do not meet specifications, the technical sales representative bears the responsibility of explaining such situa-tions to the customer's satisfaction.

• He is a credit investigator. The credit manager of his company will call upon him for financial in­formation on his customers.

β He is a writer. He writes reports, and lots of them. He must convey through the written word an accurate view of the situations in his area-

• He is a citizen. He must take part, in so far as he is able, in the affairs of his business coimrnunity and his civic community.

This tabulation, which is far from complete, should make it clear that technical training alone will not ensure success in the field of technical salens.

The challenge of work of this type lies in the appli­cation of knowledge, information, and experience in an infinite variety of situations. The problems confronted

8 2 C & E N A P R I L 8, 1957