Education Editorial Leader - Content Strategy & Rankings

US News & World Report ,L.P.; Washington (District of Columbia); Hybrid; USD 100,000 - 140,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Paid vacation time

Medical benefits

Tuition reimbursement

Training

Job summary

U.S. News & World Report is seeking a Managing Editor of Education to lead and shape editorial coverage across higher education and K-12 topics.

You will steer content strategy, recruit and mentor reporters, edit articles, and coordinate calendars to serve parents and students. You’ll work with digital producers, SEO experts, rankings data analysts, and cross-functional teams to deliver trusted guidance on Best Colleges, Grad Schools, High Schools, Online Programs and more.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of professional editing experience at a media company or education publication
• 5+ years of experience managing a team of in-house reporters and editors
• Experience recruiting and managing freelance writers and editors
• Experience managing editorial calendars
• Experience developing and refining content strategy, and identifying opportunities to improve content and better engage our audience
• Experience employing SEO best practices and using SEO tools to inform content strategy decisions
• Ability to prioritize assignments and meet deadlines
• Expertise and prior experience using AP style
• Experience with traffic analytics tools like Google Analytics
• Comfortability with media interviews and spokesperson opportunities
• Excellent communication and organization skills
• Ability to collaborate with multiple teams
• Journalism or related degree or equivalent experience

Responsibilities

• Oversee and develop our content strategy for a consumer audience of parents and students who need help choosing a school, getting into school and paying for tuition, identifying topics and areas of coverage.
• Manage a team of in-house education reporters and editors.
• Recruit and manage freelance writers with expertise in the education space, assign articles, and process invoices.
• Work with experts in the student loans, medical school, law school and college admissions spaces to write content and expert review content for our site.
• Edit articles, slideshows and other content for flow, consistency, tone, audience, brevity, accuracy and SEO.
• Manage the editorial calendar for education advice content, setting run dates and assigning content to reporters and freelancers.
• Employ SEO and GEO best practices and use SEO tools/programs to determine topics to cover and optimize content for search.
• Use AI tools to increase editorial efficiencies and automate repetitive, manual tasks.
• Use Google Analytics to monitor performance of content and inform decisions - ensure our content is positioned to support our consumers and the business strategy.
• Oversee our education webinar calendar, and have the opportunity to host these webinars.

Skills

Editorial leadership

AP style

Team management

Content strategy

SEO

Google Analytics

Freelance recruitment

Editorial calendars

Editing

Spokesperson interviews

Education

Journalism degree or equivalent experience

Tools

CMS

Google Docs & Sheets

SEMrush

Google Analytics

Job description

U.S. News & World Report is seeking a Managing Editor of Education to lead and shape editorial coverage across higher education and K-12 topics.

You will steer content strategy, recruit and mentor reporters, edit articles, and coordinate calendars to serve parents and students. You’ll work with digital producers, SEO experts, rankings data analysts, and cross-functional teams to deliver trusted guidance on Best Colleges, Grad Schools, High Schools, Online Programs and more.