Description
Note to Applicants
Below, in the Hiring Process section of this job post, we request a "knock-your-socks-off cover letter that shows personality while remaining professional." In our experience posting elsewhere, applicants either hold-back or simply don't possess the creativity: irrespective of the cause, we've yet to read a knock-your-socks-off missive. So please, surprise us. Inspire us. Impress us. We seek an early career professional who possesses an inner drive coupled with writing talent and an uncontrollable urge to keep getting better. For those of you who we have failed to scare off, we eagerly await your submissions.
Overview
In this position, you will develop, capture and tell stories related to (i) RocketDocs, (ii) its customers and (iii) industry trends, problems and solutions. You will create an array of content: white papers, blog posts, web page articles, presentations, product-service fact sheets and infographics.
We think this position reflects the chance of a lifetime for a talented, hungry, early-career professional on a writing trajectory. The selected candidate will join a fast-paced and high-performance workplace, with friendly tireless peers who will help you succeed.
As you might guess, we can’t give this "chance of a lifetime" to just anybody. Like each of our new hires, we will get crazy selective. We’ll look at your portfolio of writing and presentations. We’ll test you online. You’ll interview with 8-10 people. But if this sounds like a fit for you, keep reading…
Our Business Ecosystem
We serve large, business-to-business (B2B) enterprises. Our customers use our industry-leading SaaS product in the high-volume RFP-to-proposal space. And we’ve got two new products in the pipeline that sit adjacent to the proposal space: both will solve key customer problems.
OK, OK, this doesn’t sound as sexy as inventing the next iPhone. But honestly, the new products will blow your doors off (assuming you can get excited about enterprise software). So where does your job fit in?
You will engage with our team and our customers to develop and publish information that helps the industry. You will do research. You will develop findings and uncover best practices. Then you will deliver valuable insights to our target customer personas through the various content types you create.
To the degree you want to call this a “marketing” job, think of it as marketing via the delivery of compelling insights. You will serve as a researcher and story-teller.
Your ability to (i) research and understand problems, coupled with (ii) an ability to write and present in a compelling way, reflect the most essential skills for this job. For clarity, (i) and (ii) get you more than half way there. You absolutely must write well.
As icing on the cake, we'd like to find someone with a tech/SaaS Software background who possesses creative, business, and social media savvy as well. Throw-in some graphic design knowledge as an extra bonus. We cover duties and qualifications more comprehensively below, but first a word about our company.
About the Company
As of this writing, you won’t find much, if any, public mention of RocketDocs. Historically, we’ve gone to market as Proposal Software, Inc and we have held off on the RocketDocs.com website. With the first-to-market solution, PMAPS, we invented the proposal automation space. Over time, we won contracts with a significant portion of the world’s largest financial services institutions while also penetrating the insurance and technology verticals.
While we enjoy a global reach, our customers cluster in the Northeast, Chicago, California and to a lesser degree, London and Western Europe. Our success has stemmed from (a) delivering the industry-leading proposal management SaaS offering and (b) having two founders obsessed with customer satisfaction.
As we rebrand into RocketDocs, we will continue our penetration of the high-volume proposal management market while repurposing our fast and flexible SaaS technology stack into adjacent problem spaces. Forthcoming SaaS products will expand TAM by $1B-2B. Our company has the backing of institutional growth equity, and as of Q2 2017, a new leadership team with a track record of SaaS success.
Culturally, we operate like a startup. Small, agile teams with quick decisions and short, iterative cycle times. We relish our core values of speed, real-talk and growth & learning. All of our positions include a bonus, unlimited paid-time-off (i.e., unlimited PTO), health insurance and optional 401K. We like big brains tied to obsessive doers that work well in a team environment. Come help us win.
About the Position
Essential Duties and Responsibilities include the following. Other duties may get assigned.
- Develop a daily, evergreen content calendar based on the ebbs and flows of our business and prospect behavior.
- Create content about industry problems that relate to our products and services.
- Write external communications, web content, social media posts, blog posts, white papers, infographics, articles, and emails.
- Assist in the development of any product promotions, marketing/sales collateral, and signage.
- Update and upgrade our existing content
- Act as our internal “Content Czar(ina)” using our own content management system (CMS) – and tell us how to make our CMS better because we sell it to customers.
- Assist with special projects as needed.
- Interface with the company’s marketing agency.
- Work with our internal designer to assist in maintaining our brand.
Qualifications (Entry Level: 0 - 3 yrs work experience)
To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill and/or ability required.
Education and/or Experience
Bachelor's degree from four-year college or university. As far as your major in college, we don’t really care if you can show us a portfolio of compelling written and presentation content (that you created). Truthfully, we lean toward those with journalism majors, but majors might also include English, creative writing, history, political science, zoology, business, marketing, math, etc.
Reasoning Ability
Ability to define problems, research, establish facts, and draw valid conclusions. Ability to interpret an extensive variety of input and distill down to something interesting, compelling and utilitarian (for our business customers).
Key Skills
- Excellent writing skills and attention to detail.
- Excellent communication skills – verbal and written.
- Strong interpersonal skills, including a thick skin – we’ll need to give you feedback on your work without worrying about tip toeing around a fragile ego. [Note: we’ve got no shouters and zero manufactured drama; but again, we don’t tip toe around.]
- Working knowledge of SEO best practices and Google Analytics reporting a plus.
- Working knowledge of graphic design platforms and ability to do rudimentary design desirable also a plus.
- Proficiency with Keynote, PowerPoint, Word and WordPress.
- Experience with business blogging, guest posting and business blog channels.
- Strong understanding of social media platforms, especially LinkedIn, as well as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for business use.
- Working knowledge of Salesforce.com a plus.
Job-Office Location (Geography)
This position requires day-to-day work at our HQs in Frederick, MD. Like most professionals in today's software space, we all work a day here and there from home. We expect the same with this position. But make no mistake, this position resides in Frederick and we will not entertain remote workers.
Hiring Process (READ CAREFULLY)
We sequentially follow the process below, with progression to the next step contingent upon "passing" the prior step.
(1) You apply on Indeed and do the following:
- Send us a knock-your-socks-off cover letter that shows personality while remaining professional. We won't read your resume if not compelled by a well-authored cover.
- Include a resume w your cover letter.
- Provide attachments and or links to writing samples you authored. Incidentally, we'd gladly download PDFs from a cloud storage provider.
(2) Take a 20-min online test.
(3) Undertake a paid writing assignment and we will send you $ upon your submission (whether we like it or not).
(4) Attend face to face interviews with RocketDocs staff in Frederick, MD.
(5) Receive contingent offer of employment, followed by reference and background checks.
A Word from Our CEO
Regarding the "missing" RocketDocs.com website, we won’t let our designer get distracted (right now) by the re-brand until she’s done with our next product. We beg your indulgence.
With regard to this job description write-up, you may detect an ongoing search for our company voice. Everything you read herein authentically reflects our company – whether we should and can effectively go-to-market with such a voice remains a question. We look for you to help us answer this question.
Lastly, I have served, and will continue to serve, as the executive-in-charge on this recruitment. I personally review cover letters, resumes and writing samples. Good news? You've got deep involvement and commitment from the company CEO. Bad news? I can get pulled in many directions, and this recruitment may take a little longer than we'd all prefer. That said, we've got budget and plan to hire ASAP. Thank you for your interest and patience.
--pj