WE'RE HIRING!

Under Secretary of Dark Web and Other Things

Important, Not Important seeks a part-time, inexplicably energetic human to fill out our social media and web production teams and also basically be an everything-person. 

Short story: we’ve got a ton of recurring stuff that we need help with, and you’re the person to help. Along the way, you just might help save the world.

Some fever-dream thoughts on requirements:

- You should have very strong writing skills, a sharp wit, a truly annoying respect for detail, a loving appreciation for spreadsheets and data, a full grasp of our voice and intent with every touchpoint, and a particularly keen eye for opportunities to add our own commentary to a particular moment or issue, or to create focus on a new one. 

- The job includes producing and tracking recurring daily and weekly social and web updates around our newsletter and podcast (jesus that’s a mouth-full), as well as engaging our followers, people we respect who don’t yet follow us, but are either making or reporting the news, and other generally activated and progressive folks online with aforementioned speed, knowledge, and wit.

- As mentioned before, this requires hyper-focused level of detail. Nearly OCD is probably a good start, otherwise you won’t last very long.  

- We’re concentrated on doing only a few things and doing them very well, but the reality is doing them well means your job includes a lot of little things that happen over and over, and also new things we don’t even know about yet, but they’re essential to get right, every time, and on time. Because those little things add up to become big things, and now I think I’m just quoting Spiderman. Something something about great responsibility.

- You’ve gotta be able to write. And write concisely. Seriously. You’ve gotta be smart, have a love for and knowledge of modern-day science, and also be funny. And to be able to express all of that, in a timely fashion, and in very few characters. It’s not an easy or common Venn diagram, but hey — that’s the deal.

- Familiarity with the social, digital, and science-based landscape is an obvious must. 

- You must not, under any condition, be a dick. Not to/with us, and certainly not as the voice of our brand. A one-strike policy resides.

- Though you will work remotely much, if not all of the time, you should probably prefer dogs over cats (Brian will take issue with this but he's not here right now so that's that)

AN ACTUAL LIST OF RESPONSIBILITIES, FOR NOW, AT LEAST

• Manage all digital duties relative to recurring podcast and website production. The list is way too extensive to post here, and also includes trade secrets, but involves work in spreadsheets, Squarespace, Libsyn, Hootsuite, etc.
• Shipping a very few specific items from HQ, but mostly managing our remote store/fulfillment/referral program, vendor relationships, inventory, etc.
• Be our engaged, proactive, mostly positive, fairly righteous, often sarcastic, social media voice across all platforms
• Grow and nourish social audiences across platforms existing and new
• Don't just push out our content. Engage with existing social audiences of all stripes — from influential journalists, to Nobel scientists, to science nerds, to folks just generally down with an empirically-driven future
• Aid in the planning and execution of content scheduling

MOST OF THE REQUIREMENTS

• Proficient in creating social-first images, videos, explainers, and real-time reactive video
• Be willing and eager to travel
• Actual expertise with social platforms
• A pre-existing social portfolio where we can judge your writing, etc.
• Expertise with Affinity Designer and various spreadsheet programs
• Expertise in Slack
• Capacity and eagerness to react quickly and ruthlessly in digital news environment
• Ability to straight-up shine on deadlines and thrive under pressure
• A relatively deep scientific understanding (you don’t need to be an actual credentialed scientist), but more importantly, a vast and unquenchable chasm of curiosity
• Must have sound journalistic ethics and judgment. We post only what’s relevant and backed up by science. Not clickbait. I mean make it sexy, but make it right.
• Must be engrossed in pop culture. 
• Must be a storyteller. Facts aren’t cutting it. 
• Must be a human, have values that embrace humanity, and all of the other animals that live here that we also haven’t sent to extinction yet
• Must be, above all, collaborative, and eager to take direction, learn from it, and run with it
• Team communications are absolutely and unequivocally vital. I’m delegating things so I don’t have to do or think about them every again. But at the same time, you should tell me, through our agreed upon system, why and how something has been done.
• A desire to be challenged and to grow
   

TO BE SUPER-DUPER CRYSTAL-CLEAR: This is a part-time position with no benefits.

We are an entirely bootstrapped operation comprised of two other part-time humans and a rescue dog. The benefits situation might change, and maybe even the part-time-ness, but we have no idea how, or when. Yes, we’d love for this to be different. For now, it’s not.

That said, you’d better believe we are committed to creating a diverse community and we’re proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, status as a protected veteran, status as a qualified individual with disability, or any other basis protected by applicable law.

If you got this far, I’m already impressed. I have about one coffee every two weeks and unfortunately for you, today was that day.

Please send your cover letter, resume/CV, references, and examples of previous work to questions AT importantnotimportant DOT com with "Under Secretary of Dark Web and Other Things" in the subject line.

Get pumped. Let’s do this.

-- Quinn