Shannon Leahy: The Content Design Job Market – Episode 188

Content Strategy Insights

Shannon Leahy Content design jobs have become scarcer as the digital world adjusts to the post-pandemic tech economy. Shannon Leahy does her best to make sure that her content colleagues discover the jobs that are available, scouring the internet for job listings and sharing them in her social media feeds. But that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to her contributions to the field. She's also a long-time meetup organizer and an avid and generous participant in the content design community. We talked about: her take on the current state of the content design job market the wide range of industries beyond tech that offer content job opportunities - like sports, energy, transportation, manufacturing, and logistics how to sift through job listings to find opportunities that might be labeled differently than content folks might think about them how her algorithm-breaking job-search alerts reveal employment patterns that might have otherwise gone undiscovered the importance of community participation in her career development and employment history how her participation in virtual communities during the pandemic jump-started her subsequent real-lie networking her assessment of the current tight job market and ideas about cope with it how to open yourself to discover opportunities that may not first occur to you how to get creative about repurposing your existing skills and aptitudes Shannon's bio Shannon has worked at the intersection of words, strategy, design, and people for more than 15 years. She is currently a senior content design manager at Capital One. Shannon calls Richmond, Virginia home, and organizes meetups for the content and UX communities. When she’s not exclaiming about error messages, you can find her snuggling up for movie night with her family and their dog Ginger Snap. Shannon’s favorite neutral is leopard print. Her superpower is asking questions...lots of questions. Connect with Shannon online LinkedIn Shannon-Leahy.com RVA Content Strategy meetup Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/WXlYVgzjli4 Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 188. As the pandemic-era hiring boom in the design and content worlds has quieted down, more and more really good content designers find themselves competing for fewer and fewer jobs. Shannon Leahy is here to help you navigate this fraught employment environment. She tirelessly scans content job listings and shares them on her social media accounts, and she's a reassuring presence in our field, regularly organizing events and always showing up in the content-design community. Interview transcript Larry: Hi everyone. Welcome to episode number 188 of The Content Strategy Insights podcast. I am really delighted today to welcome to the show Shannon Leahy. Shannon's a senior content design manager at Capital One. She just returned there after a stint of a year or two at Adobe. And anyhow, welcome Shannon. Tell the folks a little bit more about what you're up to these days. Shannon: Yeah. Hey, Larry. Thank you so much for having me. Really appreciate it. Yeah. Just recently changed up the job situation, but other than that, keeping busy with two kids and a dog in Richmond, Virginia, in the US. I also run a meetup called RVA Content Strategy. You may have seen us with our food themed un-meetup series that we did in partnership with Jane Ruffino, and I've been joking with some folks. Had a little bit of a banner week. Just found out I have just the amazing privilege to be at Lead with Tempo this summer and at Button in the fall. So a lot is going on to say the least, and getting ready for some big milestones with the kids with school too. So yeah, big old word nerd and content nerd, but also really busy with family stuff too. Larry: Well, I feel really lucky to have your attention for a half hour.