Sharing a market snapshot in case useful to other content folks: As many of us have seen, there have been increasing layoffs and hiring freezes at various tech companies / startups as the economy slows. Despite that, various companies continue to hire. I took two recruiting mtgs last week, for example: • One was for a very early stage startup with a successful serial founder. They want a head of content who’s previously helped grow a recognized brand from scratch. Higher end of pay runs in the low $200s, plus equity. Remote work. This stage of startup is a big bet, because it’s hard to tell whether the product will catch on. Depending on circumstances, it can be worthwhile to join early or to just learn about what they’re doing. Then you can track progress and consider joining later. A successful serial founder can make a big difference, because they know how to build and can raise money much more easily than unproven founders. That’s especially meaningful during down economies and tightened funding. That can mean life or death for a startup. Some very successful companies start during downturns. That’s because opportunity cost can be lower for founders and talent can become cheaper or less competitive to land. Plus, some companies grow a lot and pull away from competitors during downturns, because they invest wisely and don’t freak out. Downturns can be a good time to gain market share or to overtake competitors on building and preparing for an economic recovery. Another example of the importance of timing in the startup world: As a business becomes more successful, its hiring bar rises and it attracts a stronger candidate pool. That’s something to consider if you’re a career changer or someone early career: You can increase your odds of landing work by targeting earlier stage startups — less competition. Plus, if you join early, you can often negotiate for more equity, because the risk is greater. Of course, most startups fail and you could end up jobless, with worthless equity. For more experienced folks: Sometimes, instead of joining, you can offer to advise for cash and / or equity. That depends on your relevant background and ability to pitch yourself, plus negotiate. Advising also can allow you visibility to decide whether to join full time. • The other meeting was for a global startup that’s been growing aggressively. They asked for POV on how to build out content strategically. They need leaders who’ll figure out winning content strategies across multiple markets, users and channels. They said top-of-market compensation would be available for the right hires. Remote work. Key elements to weigh when considering jobs or advising opportunities at startups: How big is the market? How competitive? How much product differentiation? How fast have they been acquiring users? At what cost? How soon before running out of investment dollars / before they need to start making significant money? In a challenging economy, many companies will be more deliberate about hiring. Savvy ones do more frequent financial forecasting and modeling, so they know at which points of slowing revenue they might need to make freezes or cuts.

Separately, for folks who might not know this about salary ranges: Even when employers post them publicly (more states are requiring this, for example), they sometimes will make public only the range for typical candidates. For exceptional candidates, employers will sometimes go above the range. Why they won’t share that widely: They don’t want average candidates mentally anchoring on higher numbers. Like last week, I pinged a hiring mgr, because I know an editor who was a potential fit for an opening. The hiring mgr said privately that they could go $XX over the advertised compensation range, for the right candidate. If you’ve previously delivered exceptional business results or otherwise consistently performed above and beyond in ways that employers recognize, that’s worth keeping in mind when you’re job hunting. Depending on circumstances, managers also can make a business case for raising compensation for their teams as well. I did that at NerdWallet, for example — told our finance and HR folks that we’d start ignoring compensation data sets that they purchased annually for use as benchmarks companywide (many companies do this) — because they would be too low to recruit or retain the content candidates we wanted. I always track the market and saw rates rising for prime talent. I successfully made the case to our CEO — made clear that if we didn’t raise comp, we’d see attrition rise as top employers tried to poach from us. That would cost us what we’d invested in our folks. So I was able to get raises across the board for our team to make sure we stayed competitive. For mgrs who manage prime talent, that’s something to always look out for. Thing is, you have to consistently track the market and be able to convince top leaders, HR and finance folks at your company. You can’t just go around randomly asking for more money.

Hi everyone, I am consulting for Nia Growth, a female-led fintech startup that is democratizing financial planning for the self-employed. We want to hear your story. As a self-employed professional, what were some of the best benefits/advantages that you received from your previous 9-5 job that you feel you are missing out on today?

Is anyone looking for a full-time graphic designer? My friend was laid off and is looking for remote opportunities.

i'm curious how people are finding the job market right now. for anyone actively looking for roles or being recruited, what kind of comp packages are you seeing? better or worse than a year ago? do you feel like you have more or less leverage?

[sponsored] Shout-out to EditorNinja (👋 @miniature-greece-54413 for supporting our community! 😀 EditorNinja is an on-demand content editing service focused on copy editing and proofreading. They’ll improve your content, adhere to style guides, and ensure your copy is as tight as can be. You can learn more and get a free editorial assessment here → https://editorninja.com/

This message was deleted.

What are the business processes that consume more time at your organization, that you would love to cut down on?

I’m running a poll on Twitter.

Calling all freelance writers working with agencies: how deeply integrated are you with them?

If you have a sec to participate, I’d appreciate it 🙏 https://twitter.com/deanwithani/status/1578356630726615040

Hi all, for cold emailing do you guys use single user with multiple domains? or separate user for each domain? eg: Approach 1: Lets assume userA, userB, user C & domainA, domainB, domainC userA@domainA.com | userB@domainA.com | userC@domainA.com userA@domainB.com | userB@domainB.com | userC@domainB.com similarly for domainC in this approach we will use 3 google workspace account for 3 domains and each acccount will have 3 users i.e user A,B,C So cost of google workspace is based on number of users so in this case cost will be 9 users * $6 per user = $54 Approach 2: In this approach we only buy 1 google workspace account and add only 1 user to it. Now in gsuite I have seen we can connect one primary domain and multiple secondary domains to same user. So user will have one primary domain -> userA@domainA.com secondary domains ---> userB@domainA.com | userC@domainA.com | userA@domainB.com | userB@domainB.com | userC@domainB.com ...etc same for user So cost here is $6 only which is very cheap. Which approach do you guys use? and why?

curious to get folks' feedback on something. we have a ton of sponsor interest right, more than i know what to do with. have you seen other communities come up creative ways to work with partners? anything you'd like to see from sponsors? any feedback on what you've seen from us so far?

Hey everyone. Has anyone taken Grow and Convert's content marketing course? I'd love to know how it helped you.

Hey everyone, anyone knows the best way to reach out to B2B companies related to sponsorships. I run a marketing newsletter and currently looking for ways to find better sponsorship

Hi everyone — I’m looking to connect with people who work/have worked in IT in the defense/government sector — looking to understand the considerations for IT infrastructure and security measures for those organizations. If you know someone, would love to get an intro! Thanks a bunch ❤️

This message was deleted.

This message was deleted.

This message was deleted.

Did anyone else catch this 90s flashback from SMS-marketing company Attentive? It's pretty good stuff. https://www.attentive.com/holiday

This message was deleted.

This message was deleted.

Bit of a random question - has anyone struggled to upload video content to Twitter/LinkedIn directly? As in, it’s not uploading so I’ll have to do it through YouTube and then share the links, but has this always been a thing that I’ve just forgotten about?

Market snapshot: An experienced journalist turned content editor got two job offers last week and negotiated. Ended up taking a role at $235k in salary, plus $205k in RSUs. This job is hybrid in-office and remote. The other offer was fully remote, but this person prefers hybrid work. This is a senior editor, who will have to learn a lot about the business and working with teams from various domains. The job will take IQ and EQ. Restricted stock units are sellable, depending on vesting periods. Usually, they’re structured as a one-year cliff, four years. That means if you leave before one year, you forfeit all equity. If you stay beyond one year, you get 25 percent for the first year, and you get the rest prorated over three remaining years, broken down into months. Competitive companies will keep adding to your equity, if you’re performing at par or better. That’s because they won’t want valuable employees job hunting or vulnerable to poaching. Any new equity is often pieced out in similar fashion, to incentivize employees to stay. With companies that are publicly traded, their equity is the easiest to evaluate and sell. With companies that have yet to go public, that can be harder. You can sell on the secondary market, if there’s demand, but the valuations can be hard to pin, be inconsistent or erratic. Plus, you’ll usually get a haircut on prices, because the companies aren’t public yet, aren’t fully liquid. Note: Most startups fail, so your equity might ultimately end up being worthless. Compensation / equity also is changing. That’s partly because of competition. Plus, the volatile economy and stock prices have rippled across the value and liquidity of equity (which includes stock options and RSUs). Some companies are tinkering with or overhauling equity to try to recruit and retain. Problem is, especially for companies with tumbling valuations or stock prices, and depending on size, their hands might be tied in various ways. Their legacy practices can be impossible to overcome sometimes. That’s sorta like with legacy companies with pensions, union contracts and other obligations — new companies can start without such and can compete more effectively and nimbly. That makes legacy companies vulnerable to being sidelined or put out of business. Note: I mention this not to argue for or against pensions or unions, etc. This is about the messy math of what companies must contend with to stay alive and compete. Any company that grows successful enough will encounter such headwinds sooner or later. This kind of thing is worth observing and noting, because it can affect your livelihood in various ways. For instance, some people assume that big companies are safer to work for. That’s not necessarily the case. In reality, no jobs are ever safe (unless maybe for U.S. Supreme Court justices, bc they have lifetime appointments and revenue streams don’t affect their pay). You can freelance on the side or full-time, or consult, but such work can dry up as well. No matter what type of work we do, it’s best to keep eyes open to wherever we’re vulnerable, to look ahead at employability and trends, and try to build leverage and financial buffer, to build skills ideally demanded by multiple industries. No one else will do that for our careers.

[sponsored] Shout-out to EditorNinja (👋 @miniature-greece-54413 for supporting our community! 😀 EditorNinja is an on-demand content editing service focused on copy editing and proofreading. They’ll improve your content, adhere to style guides, and ensure your copy is as tight as can be. You can learn more and get a free editorial assessment here → https://editorninja.com/

what's the job title for someone who writers and distributes thought leadership content? is that different from a content manager? is content strategist inaccurate?

Hey guys 👋 I am here again for some help. So we are building a platform to help marketers accelerate SEO content performance. Under one roof, you will get all keyword details, topic suggestions, an AI-writing assistant to write on those topics, publish it to CMS, and analytics on their performance. Since this is in the BETA stage looking for marketers like you to have a look at it and share your thoughts on how this tool should evolve and what is missing in the current stack. If this sounds exciting, please book a timeslot through this calendly link. Looking forward to connecting with you. @lively-sugar-90032 @rough-truck-39249 @damp-hydrogen-49608

Hello folks, besides Superpath which community do you find helpful for technical writers or writers in general? Communities that give you writing opportunities list, recruitment opportunities.

Good advice. Everywhere, people sell beliefs, ideas, vision, jobs, products, services and more. If you want to have influence, land great jobs, own initiatives, recruit great talent, lead teams, get resources for your team or function, earn more, get buy-in, manage up or down or sideways, land clients or partners, etc., you can’t just count on heads-down work. Hard skills are table stakes. Soft skills are key differentiators. You need both to thrive, whether you work for yourself or others. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/abelcak_want-to-have-unlimited-opportunities-and-activity-6987036039429169152-FZZn?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios

I really wish there was more visual examples of internal confluence pages, for those that draw inspiration from how other companies put theirs together

This message was deleted.