I am sitting on 92* legit job applications for a recent posting we had for a “modern-day” storyteller here at Community Journals. This job description (http://bit.ly/22ZnmVZ) was built around two major selling points:
Sales Item One: New approach, same intent, and the opportunity to create.
We are a 17-year-old company that tells stories about the Upstate. We have a targeted yet diversified readership, so we have to try our best to have entry points for a variety of readers, both young and old. From readers who just put down the Financial Times to those who are checking out Wired on their phones. We have to deliver in-depth AND time-sensitive, breaking information – while also getting and holding people’s attention, even when 15 people send out the same press release to 15 other people. We must entertain and inform at the same time. We now live in a sea of modernized content and distribution, where media consumers spend their time on Snapchat and Instagram, “liking” pictures of lattes and double rainbows. These days, everyone is both an authority and an author. Editorial staff seldom understands how appreciated their work is; they are immediately corrected by our readers when it is not perfect; and the job changes daily, because the industry will have changed by the time this goes to press.
This is not the newsroom of the ’90s. This business is not for everyone. But I think we are seeing that this change is actually exciting the journalists of tomorrow instead of deterring them.
Anyone who has ever worked with me or my father knows we like to change direction, invent new product offerings, and respond to customer and reader demands. Our customer demands are changing, so we must change right with them; but they don’t always know exactly what they want either. Readership studies don’t work. I agree with Henry Ford, who believed that if he were to ask the customers what they wanted, they would’ve asked for a faster horse. So we have to make some bets. We want these writers – and 68 job applicants –to be a part of placing those bets, and I think that is attractive to them.
Sales Item Two: Doing the above here in Greenville.
We posted the job for two weeks in the Upstate Business Journal, listed it on Glass Door and Linkedin, and solicited interest through word-of-mouth.
Here’s a geographical breakdown of where the applications came from:
International: 10
NYC/New England: 11
Midwest: 5
West Coast: 5
Southeast: 14
Greenville: 23
These people want to tell stories HERE, in the Upstate. They want to live in a region that we are marketing really well (maybe too well). First hand, I see that we at Community Journals are doing something right; and it got me excited. We reached beyond what we thought we could grasp and found a lot of hands reaching back. Maybe your company will too.
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*The print version of this column references 68 job applications, which was the number at the time the issue went to press. It has since increased.
