Content jobs: a guide to roles for the chronically online

At its most literal, "Content" is defined as "an amount to be contained" or "something selected by an artist for graphic representation". This begs the question - what exactly is a job in content? There are few titles more ambiguous. Content can mean different things to different companies and that can make applying to them challenging. In this guide, you will learn not only what a job in content is, but also how to best understand what a company wants when hiring someone for content.

1. The Content Strategists

Content strategy is the planning end of the discipline - what a company should publish, for whom, and why - and then building the system that keeps it publishing. A strategist spends more time in analytics software, documents and spreadsheets than in a text editor.

The tell in a listing is the verbs. Own, define, plan, measure. If the role describes a calendar, a taxonomy or a set of audience segments, it is strategy, whatever the title says. Understanding data analytics and how to organize data is also useful for getting jobs in this role.

2. The Writer-Producers

Writers, editors, designers and video producers. This is where most content jobs sit, and where titles are least reliable: a "content specialist" at one company writes copy and long-form articles, and at another they may be shooting and editing short videos.

Read the deliverables, not the title. What the company wants you to make for them will tell you the most about what working for them will entail.

The title tells you what the company calls the job. The list of deliverables tells you what the job is.

3. The Creators

A newer branch, and a distinct one. In-house creator roles hire people to shoot and narrate video in their own voice, for the brand's channels. These jobs are less about the ability to shoot and edit (although these certainly are useful to have) and more about having charisma on camera.

Think of it as acting. To get these roles you must truly understand how the company you're applying for wants to be perceived. Because in these roles, it is your job to physically embody the image that the company wants to project.

Sometimes these roles will have you working alongside a cameraman and an editor. But other times you will have to do the shooting and editing yourself.

4. The Marketeers

Content marketing treats all of the above as a means to an end: pipeline, sign-ups, revenue. The work sits closer to growth and demand teams, and it is measured like it. If a listing mentions conversion, SEO performance or funnel stages, you are reading a marketing role that happens to produce content.

Content roles in marketing often mention "Growth", which is another new, loosely defined role.

5. The Community Builder

Some content roles exist mainly to hold a conversation through all channels. Community managers and social leads publish constantly. Think Wendy's roasting everyone on twitter a decade ago, or Duolingo's unhinged owl, that is the type of role this is.

It is increasingly common to see these roles cover in-person community (like the recent Corgi cafe and Claude events). If you are applying to these roles it is important to have experience in hosting and community organization.

How to read a content listing

Four questions do most of the work:

1. What gets made? Formats and volume. A role producing daily short-form is a different life from one producing a monthly report.
2. Who decides what gets made? If the answer is you, it is strategy. If it is a brief, it is production.
3. How is it measured? Reach, engagement and quality point one way; pipeline and revenue point another.
4. Who does it report to? Brand, marketing, product and communications teams all hire content people, and they want different things from them.

None of these are in the title. All of them are usually in the listing, if you read past the first paragraph.

Where to look

The board sorts these roles by what they are rather than by what they are called, and every posting on it is re-checked against the company's own careers page.

• Content marketing jobs
• Community and content jobs
• Social media jobs
• What these roles pay, worked out from live postings