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Introduction
Writing job descriptions is not easy. And they can't just be thrown together. You need to ensure you're appealing to the best talent for the role specifics, and be mindful of diversity and inclusion.
In this article we look at two Content Manager job descriptions. We'll focus on the important details to give you advice and inspiration to attract the right candidates.
Diversity and inclusion also shouldn't be a tick-box exercise. This should be in the job description, and weaved in through the use of (or not using) certain language and design elements. You need to make sure your job description is in plain language, and accessible for all applying and sensitive to protected characteristics.
To give you an understanding of the Content Manager role, we'll define it first.
Then we'll see what job descriptions from Adobe and the UK Ministry of Justice look for in candidates.
Things like:
- What they offer in terms of salaries
- Key responsibilities
- Qualifications and skills
- Benefits, workplace experience and culture
- Diversity and inclusion statements
Let's dive in.
What is a Content Manager?
Content Managers wear many hats. But generally, a content manager oversees the creation and dissemination of content across multimedia channels, as well as developing a content strategy, online community building and managing projects and content teams.
What to include: Examples from Adobe and UK Ministry of Justice
Now let's look at these two examples so you can gain an understanding of what to include in your job description to make sure it covers all the bases, and is comprehensive.
The one from Adobe is for a Content Manager (APAC) (Asia-Pacific), based in Sydney Australia with a heavy SEO focus, and the role at the Ministry of Justice is for a Senior Digital Content Manager based in London.
Salary
It's really important to show the salary. This is for many reasons, including diversity and inclusion. For example, lack of pay transparency hurts those that are less likely to negotiate.
The Ministry of Justice job description shows the pay clearly at the top of the page in a list, along with other details like the location (which is London), whether it's full time or part time, permanent or temporary, and the department / how the role is categorised (which is Communications / Marketing and SEO).
While there aren't specific details of the salary on the Adobe job description, they do specify that it is Mid-Senior level, based in Sydney, and the job category is Marketing / Sales.
We've taken salaries straight from job descriptions where they have specified. If not, we have used LinkedIn, PayScale and Glassdoor to find out averages.
Here are some salaries for Content Manager roles:
| Content Manager Salary | |
|---|---|
| UK Average | Average: £31,300/yr, range: £22,000 - £49,100 |
| London Average | Average: £34,000/yr, range:£24,000 - £52,500 |
| UK Ministry of Justice | Range: £36,798 - £47,591 |
| Australia Average | Average: AUD $67,632/yr, range:AUD $53k - $94k |
| Sydney Average | Average: AUD $71,200/yr, range: AUD $54k - $102k |
| Adobe | No data available for Content Manager role |
Typical responsibilities
Here is a quick-reference table of typical responsibilities and criteria for the role of Content Manager. The Ministry of Justice one is a Senior Digital Content Manager role, and Adobe are looking for an SEO Content Manager, and we can clearly see the differences and similarities here:
| Responsibilities | Adobe | Ministry of Justice |
|---|---|---|
| Reporting to | Not specified | Head of Content and Channels |
| Managing other people or teams | ❌ | ✅ |
| Developing an SEO content strategy | ✅ | ❌ |
| Performing technical site analysis, site & content compliance audits and assisting with launch QA. | ✅ | ❌ |
| Collaboration across teams | ✅ | ✅ |
| Building relationships with other departments, partners and influencers | ✅ | ✅ |
| Online community building | ✅ | ✅ |
| Hands-on content creation | ✅ | ✅ |
| Working with a range of content formats / multimedia / digital channels and platforms | ✅ | ✅ |
| Analytics and reporting | ✅ | ✅ |
| Measuring impact and reach to intended audiences | ✅ | ✅ |
| Line management of other employees | ❌ | ✅ |
Qualifications, skills and attributes
Now onto skills and qualifications. This includes things like character traits, types of thinking (strategic, creative etc), and we've included how many years' experience is required where the data is available.
| Qualifications/Skills/Attributes | Adobe | Ministry of Justice |
|---|---|---|
| Experience | A strong customer focus and a passion for SEO with 5-7 years of SEO experience; minimum 5 years at least across search engines in Asia-Pacific region | Proven experience in leading ambitious digital campaigns that are audience-focused, channel-specific and grounded in insight.Extensive experience in crafting, commissioning, designing and publishing a range of creative digital content. |
| Bilingual knowledge and proficiency | Reading/writing Korean and/or Chinese (traditional and simplified) languages | ❌ |
| Ambitious, innovative self-starter | ✅ | ✅ |
| Ability to juggle several initiatives, successfully and shift priorities | ✅ | ✅ |
| Attention to detail, working under pressure and to tight deadlines | ✅ | ✅ |
| Knowledge of best practice for digital content and emerging channels | ✅ | ✅ |
| Creative thinking | ✅ | ✅ |
| Strategic thinking | ✅ | ✅ |
| Versatile content creator | ✅ | ✅ |
| Excellent written skills | ✅ | ✅ |
| Excellent interpersonal, communication and influence skills | ✅ | ✅ |
| Engaging and liaising with stakeholders, relationship management | ✅ | ✅ |
| Confident people management and training / upskilling others | ❌ | ✅ |
Benefits
Next on to benefits. Here we have put together a list of typical benefits, and checked which are offered in each job description. Think about deeper benefits like company culture to attract talent, and flexible working for happier employees, as well as typical benefits.
(Adobe benefits found on their employee benefits page - their full Australia benefits package can be found online too).
| Benefits | Adobe | Ministry of Justice |
|---|---|---|
| Medical / dental / vision | ✅ | ✅ |
| Pension | ✅ Contributory Pension (with a contribution from us equal to 20.6% of your earnings) | ✅ |
| Health and wellbeing | ✅ | ✅ |
| Discounts including things like shops, restaurants, gym, mobile phones, and insurance | ✅ | ✅ |
| Annual leave | Plus a paid sabbatical every five years of service | Generous allowances for paid holiday starting at 25 days per year, and rising as your service increases. Buy and sell leave scheme. |
| Flexible and family friendly working (which may include part-time hours, job shares, flexible hours and part-remote set ups) | ✅ (With approval from a manager) | ✅ |
| Childcare vouchers / benefits | ✅ | ✅ |
| Staff development and training | ✅ Plus a learning environment that offers generous educational reimbursement for eligible courses and programs, on-demand access to training through LinkedIn Learning and Harvard ManageMentor, leadership development, and more. | ✅ |
| Paid paternity, adoption and maternity leave | ✅ | ✅ |
| Access to employee networks and support for minority groups | ✅ | ✅ |
Diversity and inclusion
As we've said, diversity and inclusion should be key in content job descriptions, and many organisations are now making a conscious effort to ensure they are hiring fairly and diversely.
As well as the need to comply with things like reasonable adjustments and accommodations throughout the hiring process, you also need to ensure your job description is inclusive in the sense that it is accessible, in plain language, readable and understandable. This means no bad formatting, overly complex language or unexplained acronyms that somebody applying wouldn't understand.
Adobe
Adobe haven't included a statement on their job description, but we've found one from their 'What we believe' page:
"John Warnock and Chuck Geschke founded Adobe based on fundamental principles: Our people are our most important asset. Good ideas come from everywhere. Build a company where you'd want to work yourself.
More than three decades later, Adobe continues to invest in building a diverse and inclusive environment for our employees, customers, partners, and the tech industry as a whole. We call our vision Adobe For All, and we work toward these core beliefs every day."
This is nice and unique to the company, and shows some personality. Then they go on to talk about their beliefs, such as equality, employee fulfillment, and opportunities. And they have used the hashtag #AdobeForAll to promote this.
Ministry of Justice
Here is an example of the of diversity and inclusion statement from the Ministry of Justice:
"We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles.
The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity. There is a guaranteed interview scheme (GIS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria."
This is short and sweet, but they do include a link to further information on their diversity and inclusion. It's really positive to see that they have a scheme in place to ensure they make it easier for people with disabilities to succeed in applications for roles.
Highlights: comparing and analysis to inspire your job description
Now, to finish up is some analysis. We've pulled some key quotes from the job descriptions, and deconstructed and compared the roles further. This should help you gain a better understanding of what's important to include. We've also included links to docs with the full adverts if this is helpful.
This mid-level role is part of the digital marketing team in APAC (Asia-Pacific) that focuses on
"making adobe.com a best-in-class experience for users in the region – all the way from a web search to onsite experiences."
It's a highly specialised role, focused on one location and SEO.
There is again a focus on building relationships with other teams, and collaborating effectively.
"Working in partnership with content and product owners across the organisation for our Digital Media (Creative Cloud) business, you will develop an effective SEO strategy in APAC to improve the organic traffic, rankings and conversions alongside the global teams."
Although not specified in the title, this role has a heavy SEO content strategy focus.
They need someone with a
"deep understanding of SEO methodologies, standard methodologies and experience with website analysis."
And someone who can lead SEO programmes, set targets, reflect and iterate, and take an "analytical approach to understanding business requirements and translating them into a strong SEO content strategy."
We can see from the day-to-day tasks that this is almost purely SEO-focused, an there's a lot of technical knowledge needed here, with
"experience in providing keyword research, forecasts and performance reports to cross-functional teams around core SEO metrics, including backlinks, keyword ranking and traffic."
Key tasks include:
-
Conducting keyword research, content and competitor analysis to better optimise existing content, identify gaps, drive new traffic opportunities and to influence the overall strategy across Adobe web properties.
-
Working with local teams to ensure copy is written with country level SEO keyword research and search engine standard methodologies followed.
Here is a link to the full job description.
This is a very comprehensive job description from the UK Ministry of Justice for a Senior Digital Content Manager.
While some jobs might be general content manager, this is specifically Digital. While there is some SEO work, this is completely different to the Adobe role. It's more of a wider overseeing of digital content, rather than highly targeted and focused.
There's a real focus on social media and community engagement in this one:
"Our work has a strong audience focus and you will be at the forefront of finding creative ways to engage with different groups with an interest in our work. You will take a leading role in managing digital campaigns across our social media channels, as well as building partnerships with digital influencers in this space."
Key responsibilities include to:
"Produce, commission and oversee high-quality, audience-focused digital content for key MoJ announcements and low/no cost campaigns - making use of creative content, partnerships and existing/emerging digital channels."
As it is a Senior role, they are looking for somebody who can be confident and influential, with the:
"ability to work confidently with a range of colleagues, external partners and ministers, and to influence direction of work" and "a good understanding of risk and how to mitigate it."
It then goes on to say what they look for in a person. This includes a criteria that they assess candidates against throughout the process:
"We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Working Together
- Delivering at Pace
And these GCS competencies:
- Comms – Ideas: Digital
- Comms – Insight: Digital
- Comms – Impact: Digital
- Comms – Implementation: Digital"
There is also mention of the company culture which is always really nice to see in job description and helps candidates build a fuller picture of the company they are applying to:
"We are a happy team and vacancies in this team are rare. We pride ourselves on having a great team culture and a focus on innovation and making a difference in people's lives."
Here is a link to the full job description
Next steps: Writing your job description
Hopefully this article has given you a deeper understanding of the Content Manager role specifics, and some ideas to kick off writing your own job description. If you need help with this, we also have a free template:
Use this Content Manager Job Description Template as a base, or to inspire your own. It's comprehensive and includes example excerpts discussed in this article.
