Wanted now: Communication Skills

There is a huge demand for people who can combine technical expertise with professional communications or writing skills. Employers are looking for people to write company web sites and other online copy. The jobs break down into two distinct categories: working for companies that are primarily online information providers and working for the web operations of more traditional firms. Both sectors are equally hungry for fresh talent.

It’s not good enough just to know how to create good looking web pages, to get this work you’ll be expected to write the kind of compelling content that will keep customers coming back.

These jobs are not necessarily suitable for journalists and others moving over from old media. It requires a different mindset. Keeping copy flowing through a site and making sure all the clicks work is much more important than worry about whether a site is well-written or not. If you’re a hard-bitten newshound you might be expected to swallow your instinct for high levels of accuracy and checking.

And then there’s the tricky subject of search engine optimization—that is writing the kind of copy that ensures your company features at the top of Google searches from relevant keywords. As The New York Times points out this can mean waving goodbye to elegant, well-crafted prose and witty eye-catching headlines. These two aspects of online writing probably explain why grammar and readability standards are often so dismal on most web sites. Inside the online buisness it’s an open secret that ex-newspaper journalists are often particularly good at delivering readable material that scores well with search engines.

If you’re interested, you’ll find online communications jobs are advertised under I for Internet or M for marketing rather than J for journalism. It’s a great opportunity for out-of-work journalists—and there are a lot of them these days—as the supply of jobs is far greater than the supply of talent.

Many journalists think they can’t do this kind of work because online production tools are difficult to use and that it may involve scary things like databases and programming. In fact, most content production is not at the hard core code-cutting level. That’s usually all done by more geeky, backroom types. And today’s content management systems are no harder than editorial systems. In fact I’d argue they can be simpler.

Right now junior content producers and editors earn salaries in line with people of the same age working in other industries. In other words, you won’t get much of a pay rise if you sign up. However, while the raw salaries might not be all that exciting—the opportunities are fantastic. Some employers offer options, equity or profit share schemes—which puts an entirely different perspective on the offered salaries.

Many of the online editorial-oriented jobs on offer today are in companies which only have a few employees. They offer a chance to get in on the ground floor. There’s always a good chance that options will be worthless, equity minimal and any profit share doesn’t amount to much. In a small organization you’ll have plenty of scope to make sure there are profits.

Even if the promises of on-top-of-base-salary income never materialise, you’ll get to learn how a small company at the sharp end operates. And you’ll see the mistakes. You can take that experience to another start up or use it to form your own business.

Disclosure: I should come clean here and admit I do a lot of web writing and editing in my communications business. If you’re in business and looking for an experienced publishing professional to handle an online editorial project contact me through my web site.

Read: This Boring Headline Is Written for Google

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