FOUNDER JAY ACUNZO IS HIRING AN EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
But first, a limerick!
There once was a maker named [Your Name],
Who wanted a career doing [What You Like That ALSO Rhymes w/ Your Name],
They worked with Jay a bit,
Now all their work’s the shit,
And today, they’re happy as a [Something That Rhymes With Lines 1 and 2]
👉 Here’s my point: When the created work is missing a few key details, or those details aren’t quite as good as they could be, no matter how small they are, the whole damn thing suffers.
I’m hiring an editorial assistant to ensure that the details of what we create are the best they can be. Personally, I’d like to help slingshot this person forward in their creative career, too.
Location agnostic.
MORE DETAILS ON THE ROLE, THE ORG, AND HOW TO APPLY
🔍 I’m looking for a creative collaborator who can be my shadow on some creatively ambitious projects, doing research and writing bits of copy or outlines as needed. This is a part-time, contract-based role, paying $1k/month for 3 months as a trial. You should be a creative generalist, able and willing to tinker on lots of different things and learn new skills along the way. Your primary creative skill is writing.
The ideal person wants to (A) level up quickly as a maker and strategist in their career, (B) spend a lifetime making a wide array of creative projects for a living, and (C) receive some mentorship and a transparent look into how we’re running our editorial and our business.
The end result is that you’ll have a portfolio of jaw-dropping projects, a lifelong evangelist in me, and a bunch of skills and insights capable of moving you forward in the direction you most want to go in your career.
A win for me is that you will eventually price out of this position, as you want to more fully own your projects vs. assist on mine, and you become capable of winning the best clients or the best job in-house you could imagine. I want to say, “Yanno [State Your Name]? I knew them when…”
WHAT THE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT WILL DO
📝 Research, write, and shape creative projects:
You'll be the editorial assistant to me, emphasis on the editorial, not the assistant. You won't be getting coffee (I recently learned how to use my wife’s espresso machine, which as it turns out is far less complicated than I thought. Also my left eye is twitching but that’s probably unrelated). You will be helping shape and execute some ambitious creative projects that will have significant impact on the audience we serve. Research is the primary component here: The vision of a project is beyond what I can sit and do off the top of my head, and we need to really dig into the topic and various themes, stats, stories, and studies to create something that’s tough to create and therefore worthy of others’ time.
👋 Work alongside me personally:
I’ll own the vision for a certain project, with feedback from you. You'll then take a few pieces of that work and run with it, performing the research and initial scoping needed to better execute it, as well as pitching improvements, creative wrinkles, clever ways to format it, and more.
We’ll collaborate on things like: longform essays, podcast and video show scripts, online workshop content, etc.
📈 Learn how the business operates and strategies form, as well how to spark and lead a movement within the industry:
I’m an open book. Anything and everything I do and we do, you will learn, whether that’s public-facing stuff to rally others to our cause, or internal operations. How do we move from a broad idea of the topics we explore to a narrow focus? How do we grow the business tactfully, serving the right audience? How do we flip measurement on its head to look at impact and resonance, not total reach? How are we developing paid educational products and a deep sense of community around them? You’ll get the full download to equip you to do whatever you want in the future of your work, too.
YOU HEAR “CONTENT ABOUT MARKETING,” AND I KNOW WHAT YOU PICTURE. HERE’S WHY THAT IS SIMPLY NOT WHAT WE DO…
❌ No hollow content. No tips-and-tricks articles. We never do keyword research. We talk to our audience a lot, and pair that with our own intuition, and it works out just fine. 😊
We’re more inspired by, say, The Ringer or NY Mag than we are by any other marketing blog or source. We are entertainment-forward and aspire to go deep into the insights and ideas behind whatever we explore. Call it “slow content,” or “steady growth,” or “resonance over reach.” We just call it “content.” It’s the only way we know how to do this stuff.
👍 We also know who we’re for and who we’re not for. We are not for any marketer who sees podcasts and video shows as a means to an end, a way top simply arbitrage a current opportunity to generate outcomes. Instead, we serve marketers who want to serve others. They feel a higher calling in creating content, and are heavily and personally invested in their content too. They don’t just manage a budget.
🌟 Our mission:
Help marketers find and share their voices, make a difference, and shift the culture for the better. (A great byproduct of all that? Their work will create business outcomes.)
👁️ Our vision:
Each person we serve will go on to create their audience’s favorite show, so they can be their favorite brand. (We believe that the days of hollow content and hucksters-as-marketers are over. The job isn’t to grab attention. The job is to hold it. Because this is about trust and love, not transactions. Happily, the lone “tactic” that works to hold attention is to provide the best possible experience. You can’t hack or cheat your way into hours of someone’s time. Thus, the service-minded marketers who care for their craft of creating great shows and want to lead a movement with their audience will win out. We call those showrunners., and their time is now.)
♟️ We teach chess, not checkers. We know this stuff is hard, but it’s also meaningful. We will never promise simple secrets or easy buttons. We care too much. Our audience cares too much, too. ♟️
TO APPLY:
Email jay@mshowrunners.com with…
- Your all-time favorite writing sample (just one, personal or professional). The logo behind it doesn’t matter. Send something you can proudly say is your full self in your work.
- Share links to any side projects that you created just for fun (written, or otherwise). This person should be a serial tinkerer and relentlessly pursue their curiosity. Show me that’s you.