How would recruiters describe my job?

October 5, 2013 6:56 AM

I love what I do at work. I hate my company. What sort of job titles do other companies give my job, so that I can make sure I'm applying for something similar (but hopefully at a better place)?

My current job is at an online retailler. I prepare new products for uploading into the system. This includes the following:

* Sourcing product information from the manufacturers/distributors
* Sourcing product photos (or sometimes taking them myself)
* Writing product descriptions that fit within the style of the site and within the general culture of the product's users
* Writing detailed specifications of the product
* Editing photos of the product to fit with the site's style (often including some major Photoshop magic)
* Formatting the descriptions and specifications into HTML
* Creating CSV files with all the product descriptions, specifications, pricing, and metadata needed for the content management system
* Working with the content management system to ensure the products are appropriately placed within the system

I also do a heck of a lot more at the company (including Facebook/Twitter promotion, newsletter writing, designing advertisements, writing catalogues, and being the general IT support/person who knows the systems/general brain), but what I've listed above is what I really really like doing.

Honestly, you could lock me in a room with a few distributors' catalogues, access to a couple of B2B websites, and a nice computer, and I'd be happy for months to come.

But what is this job called? Right now, I'm called a Web Administrator, but that's such a vague title that it's nearly impossible to find on recruitment sites. All the Web Marketing ones I look at seem to think I'll want to do nothing but SEO and PPC, and I don't want that.

I like writing about things. How can I keep on writing about things without working for the awful company I'm working for now?

(I've thought about freelancing, but I know it'd be difficult, as I have problems selling myself to people, not to mention the whole "talking about money" thing. If there was a way to freelance-without-freelancing... Also: in the UK, if that helps)

posted by anonymous to Work & Money (11 answers total)

I'd call that E-Commerce Content Manager, Web Content Specialist, or some combination of those terms.
posted by dayintoday at 7:19 AM on October 5, 2013

It sounds like you're, in part, a product manager for many lines of product.
posted by xingcat at 7:19 AM on October 5, 2013

My company would describe you as working in "product management" as a "product management specialist" or a "product web specialist." So, similiar to what dayintoday and xingcat are saying.

In the organizations I've been a part of, your tasks sound like product management responsibilities (except for writing product descriptions, which is kind of a marketing thing).

As my company explains it, product development puts a product together and builds it from scratch. Product management essentially prepares a product to be sold by packaging it, preparing product information, pulling together info on specs that can be sold, etc. Marketing and sales then get out there and sells it.
posted by Old Man McKay at 7:52 AM on October 5, 2013

Depending on the type of organization, some of those tasks might fall on a E-Commerce Merchandising Assistant. Merchandising might be responsible for providing/formatting the data, but that work then expands into the buying end of the process.

Sounds like you are more on the content side, though. I would suggest E-Commerce Content Manager or E-Commerce Site Manager. Those roles are more specific to what you might be looking for, because they're going to have more exposure to the "other" things that you outlined (newsletters, social media promotion).
posted by tommccabe at 8:01 AM on October 5, 2013

My girlfriend does much of this, minus the IT stuff, and her job title is "assistant category manager" for a particular category of products at a national retail chain.
posted by tylerkaraszewski at 8:13 AM on October 5, 2013

I have seen exactly this job described as "Product Portfolio Developer."
posted by 256 at 8:52 AM on October 5, 2013

That role falls under merchandising or design in my experience. In my company the merchandising team owns this function, but other companies might put it under copywriting/marketing.

There are clearly places that call this "product management" based on comments here. In my world "product management" is responsible for determining feature roadmaps for the company and helping cross-functional efforts (like, new features on a website, etc). Not this at all. So just be aware that lots of jobs looking for "product managers" are not looking for what you do.
posted by ch1x0r at 8:56 AM on October 5, 2013

Sorry I didn't directly answer the question. Where I am, that job falls under the title "merchandising assistant".
posted by ch1x0r at 8:58 AM on October 5, 2013

Seconding ch1x0r that in my experience this would not be called "product manager". You're doing a lot of different tasks that in larger organizations would usually be split across several roles, so it's difficult to match a single title to it (and tbh it may be difficult to find a similar generalist role elsewhere)... Something like content developer or content editor might be closest.
posted by ook at 10:02 AM on October 5, 2013

I don't know what your job would be called, but make sure your resume incudes relevant keywords - I don't know all of them but I imagine that content management, ecommerce, merchandsing, etc. And if you are familiar with any systems in particular, make sure you mention those.
posted by radioamy at 11:36 AM on October 5, 2013

I'd call it more of a Content Producer than a Content Manager, and definitely not any kind of assistant.
posted by rhizome at 12:08 PM on October 5, 2013