All right. No more messin’ around. Time to take that incredible 10 years of experience, that deep-in-the-bones knowledge about how to reach audiences, that killer editorial instinct and those serious leadership chops, and put them to some very good use in the world — and what could be better than a senior role at one of the most effective and storied organizations in the world of educational nonprofits? If you feel like it’s time for you to make that leap, we hope you’ll read on — we’re pretty sure this gig has more than enough going for it to keep your interest.
Nitty Gritty
The organization is ready to make some serious changes to its communication and marketing approach, and a big part of that means hiring somebody like you to help design a needle-moving content strategy across all of its digital channels and communications. They’re prepared to empower you to build out the function just as you see fit given your extensive experience. Whether it’s web, social, or email, you’ll drop down into the weeds and zoom out to the big picture as needed in order to ensure that a cohesive strategy is rolling out, and rolling out in an optimal way. You’ll have a handle on every point of the content life cycle — creation, deployment, measurement, refinement — with each of those steps having been thoughtfully defined and documented in advance. At your disposal will be a team of content strategists, copywriters, UX designers and support people. Of course this big old world is always changing, so you’ll have processes in place to react to data insights, market shifts and new technologies. There’ll be a big quality-assurance component to your work, as well, both editorially and from a development point of view. And you’ll make sure good, usable data is being gathered and that it’s being properly converted into actionable insights.
Hired Gun Profile
Your impressive content strategy expertise is backed by extensive experience in information sciences, user experience, or research at big complex organizations, in which you’ve interacted closely with editorial teams, software engineers and creative directors. You can point to some high-profile and successful multichannel content strategies that you’ve developed over the years. Unlike quite a few content pros out there, you understand that content should not — indeed, cannot — be divorced from technology, and thus you’re just as able to speak intelligently about software development as about audience segmentation or effective copywriting techniques. Along those lines, you’re quite familiar with such practices as conducting content audits, creating taxonomies and building out tagging structures, and it’s second nature for you to use data-derived insights to inform content.
As for your leadership skills, you’re not just “comfortable” managing people; it’s one of your favorite parts of the job. You take seriously your role as tone-setter and culture-builder. You’ve got the discipline and gravitas to make smart, responsible decisions and act on them, whether it’s hiring and retention, securing and managing vendor relationships, or otherwise allocating resources to achieve the best possible outcomes. You’re a natural collaborator and the kind of communicator everybody wishes could be cloned.
Inside Skinny
The closer your work and/or volunteer experience comes to the education sector, the bigger the leg-up you’ll have.
Net Net
This outfit is serious about hiring a ready-made expert and granting that person the autonomy they’ll need to do the job right. You would think that that would be a common thing, but it isn’t. For the right Gun — one who’s serious about education as an issue and has that exceptionally strong background in content strategy — this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
All qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, creed, age, sexual orientation, veteran status, marital status, disability, or any other status protected by applicable law.