Hosting Content Bounce House means I get the inside scoop on the content marketing industry straight from the mouths of other people living this job every day. And these days (cue: recession, tech lay-offs, the impending doom of those recession-induced tech lay-offs as described in myriad LinkedIn posts), having a little extra career advice in your back pocket isn’t a bad thing.
Experts I chatted with:
- Alli Tunell, Senior Growth Marketing Manager at Teal
- Joel Klettke, Founder of Case Study Buddy
- Kameron Jenkins, Copy Team Lead at Shopify
- Jess Cook, Head of Content at LASSO
- Caitlin Burns, Content Lead at Dovetail
How to prepare for a career change
Any new step in your career is going to come with an adjustment period. How do the pros handle it? Being prepared. Here’s what to expect when you’re expecting (a career shift.)
“If I could go back in time and tell myself one thing before I started a B2C role, it would be: this is totally different. Be ready. Listen to different podcasts, follow different people on LinkedIn who are B2C influencers. This is a new beast.”
Alli Tunell, Senior Growth Marketing Manager at Teal. Listen on episode nineteen.
“For content marketers who might be looking for a new job, I really recommend if you can, taking on like side things, if you can do consulting, if you can do Upwork gigs. Diversifying is always helpful.“
Caitlin Burns, Content Lead at Dovetail. Listen on episode twenty.
“If you’re in a new role and you’re taking over a blog that already exists, Please make a content audit, one of your first, like tasks within your first 60 days.”
Alli Tunell, Senior Growth Marketing Manager at Teal. Listen on episode nineteen.
Job search tips from the experts
From getting in front of the right people to having the right answers, the job hunt can be nerve-wracking.
“The more connections you can make, the more you can leverage them to get an even better job.”
Caitlin Burns, Content Lead at Dovetail. Listen on episode twenty.
“You’re going to get a lot of questions on distribution. People don’t want you to just write a blog post and hope with all the fingers crossed that it just immaculately ranks first on Google. They wanna know that you’re thinking it through.”
Alli Tunell, Senior Growth Marketing Manager at Teal. Listen on episode nineteen.
Be honest about your priorities
A new job is a new opportunity to define your future. It’s not just about a shiny title. Where you work and what you do there will influence your day-to-day every day.
“Agency world is notoriously brutal in terms of work-life balance. I was already missing gymnastics lessons and trying to drive home an hour and a half every day. It was just so frustrating and, and heartbreaking, and I thought, I can’t do this the rest of my life.”
Jess Cook, Head of Content at LASSO. Listen on episode eighteen.
“Think, like, do I wanna go into content marketing still? Do I wanna be a growth marketer? Do I wanna be a product marketer? Like do I wanna work for a small team? Do I wanna work for an enterprise organization? What’s the best fit for me?”
Alli Tunell, Senior Growth Marketing Manager at Teal. Listen on episode nineteen.
Evergreen career advice
Whether you’re at your job for the long haul or it’s time for a complete professional overhaul, lend an ear to the sage wisdom of these content leaders.
“Even if you’re excellent at what you do, there just might not be room for you to get promoted because of the size of the company, but there’s always gaps that you can fill.”
Kameron Jenkins, Copy Team Lead at Shopify. Listen on episode thirteen.
“Rely on your content marketing community. Superpath is a great resource. There are a lot of people on LinkedIn that you can follow and learn from and listen to.”
Alli Tunell, Senior Growth Marketing Manager at Teal. Listen on episode nineteen.
“When a brief came to me as a copywriter, I got to go out and come up with cool ideas so long as they laddered back to the brief. The thing with B2B that I did not realize when I made the pivot was I am now the one who has to go out and make that business case.”
Jess Cook, Head of Content at LASSO. Listen on episode eighteen.
Must-knows for future content leaders
Want to lead a team someday? Take notes from these vets.
“When you’re leading a content team, you’re a people leader. You are working and helping your team get better in their career and advance and grow and love what they’re doing if you can.”
Alli Tunell, Senior Growth Marketing Manager at Teal. Listen on episode nineteen.
“I think it’s really important for anyone that wants to lead a team or content initiative to actually get in the gunk and do it from end to end themselves. I wanted to fully understand all of the sticky bits and the ugly stuff and the hard parts.”
Joel Klettke, Founder of Case Study Buddy. Listen on episode twelve.
Want more content marketing advice?
There’s more where this came from. Want to go from spending all your time editing AI content to crushing cyborg content strategy? No problem. We’ve collected all of our top AI content resources in one place. And don’t forget to check out Content Bounce House, where I have candid convos with content leaders (because it’s impossible to be anything but candid in a bounce house.)
