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Shannon LeahyContent 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
Video
Here’s the video version of our conversation:
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. I’m going to try to make the most of it. But it’s really interesting that you just got a new job because we talked months ago about talking about your … And a lot of people probably know you. If Shannon’s name is vaguely familiar, it’s probably because you’ve seen your LinkedIn feed where she just has this torrent of job listings that she posts. I don’t know how many alerts you have set up, but you’re pretty well known for sharing that. And then you just landed a new job yourself, so I think this is probably a really good time to talk about job stuff. But I guess the first thing is it’s a little fraught out there right now. There’s been a lot of layoffs, a lot of consternation in the market. What’s your high level take on the current state of content jobs?
Shannon:
Yeah. I don’t want to sugarcoat it. I think it’s really hard. It’s really, really hard out there right now. And I keep getting text messages and DMs from friends and peers about such and such company is going through another round of layoffs and things like that. So it’s been hard. I have also been following along with some really interesting articles and podcasts. Amy Santee comes to mind. She did this really incredible write up about what’s going on with the UX job market right now. I don’t know. I don’t think I’m an eternal optimist, but I do also think I see glimmers of promise out there as far as seeing jobs for manager level folks, so folks who want to grow teams, build teams. Have been seeing a little bit more of those crop up lately.
Shannon:
I think the other thing that’s been really interesting going based on vibes and just what I’ve been seeing on LinkedIn, have been seeing more staff to principal, so those really experienced individual contributor roles. So for folks who don’t necessarily want to manage people, but they still want to step up and lead projects and initiatives, influence and coach other people, but again, don’t necessarily have that administrative or HR relationship with somebody, I feel like I’ve been seeing more of that lately. And I think this one’s always … It’s a little bit hard for me because I think that part of my perspective is it’s a little bit skewed because I’ve tried to look at and just see what kinds of jobs are out there outside of your air quote, the check industry proper. So I have been posting a lot of jobs and stuff, but I think part of it’s because I’ve been trying to look in other pockets of places. I do think it’s not where it was in 2021, 2022. Just the sheer volume of jobs isn’t there. But there are jobs out there, but also there’s a lot of people on the market looking for those jobs.
Larry:
Exactly. As you were talking about that, you remind me, I can’t remember if you were at the last in-person Button in Seattle, but there was 10 people there from this company called McMaster-Carr. And first of all, every time you got introduced to one of them, they would say, not Master Card we’re McMaster-Carr. It’s like a tool and supply company in Ohio or something like that. I don’t know if they started as it, but they’ve become just a giant online catalog thing. But they had a team of 10 content designers that they sent. And nobody’s ever heard of that industry or that company. And you just alluded to exploring other arenas. That was just somehow they got budget to send 10 people the Button. But it just made me wonder how many other industries or segments have that level of content work going on?
Shannon:
Yeah. I don’t have exact numbers on that one, but in a related vein … And this is actually, it’s reminding me of a conversation that I had with old coworker and manager, and now she’s doing coaching. Her name is Sarah Goelitz. And she was remarking that if she’s talking to old colleagues or talking to people in the tech industry, “Oh my gosh, my training budget, professional development budget, it’s been shrinking. It’s not as much as it has been previous years.” She’s worked with clients in other industries like manufacturing or more trade oriented, for example, and they still have a budget, they’re doing professional development, they’re going to conferences and things.
Shannon:
I think it’s one of those things that … I don’t know. Content folks and UX folks, we’ve got that ingenuity anyway. But I think that part of navigating what’s going on right now is … I don’t know. In a way it’s just kind of stepping back and remembering almost the roots of content strategy and content design and UX. It’s like there’s so many different applications and places where these kinds of skillsets can show up, and so you start to get to think about things like manufacturing, even healthcare tech, so thinking about medical devices. Somebody that I was talking to that I’ve done mentoring with, they’re going to be working at a startup that has to do with early childhood development, and that hearkens back to in previous life, they were a speech therapist. So it’s been really, really cool to talk to and see how people are taking that step back and going, okay … I don’t know. You don’t have to necessarily put all your eggs in the big FANG basket or the big, well-known tech places. It’s more about finding those places and those companies where they’re getting back to that root of, hey, how do we help people understand what it is we do? How do we show up and help people? How do we help them better?
Shannon:
In conversations I’ve had with folks over the last year, year and a half … Even things like, oh my gosh, UPS keeps popping up with UX jobs. Somebody that I know who used to work at Capital One, they’re at the NHL. They’re doing product design for the National Hockey League in the US. So sports, energy, transportation, manufacturing, logistics. There’s so many different facets of where and how people can be looking. I think those things have always been there. It’s just we had a moment where we were like, oh my gosh, look at all these cool things that are happening in some of these bigger companies. But smaller companies, midsize companies, startups, they’ve all been there too and it’s just … Yeah. Yeah.
Larry:
As you said that, you’re reminding me like, god, 10 or 12 years ago, Marc Andreessen wrote this article called Software is Eating the World. And it’s occurred to me many times since then that a logical follow onto that, and software needs lots of content. And his point in that article was that any company of any size is a software publisher now because they’ve got your app. Like UPS, they’ve probably got all kinds of apps for sending, delivering, the drivers and who knows who else.
Larry:
So I guess it’s probably really ubiquitous and I’ve heard you talk about this someplace, that sometimes the job titles … You have to be creative in your searches even to find opportunities. Sometimes it’ll be like all they have is some list of job descriptions from IT or something that says Developer II. And then you read the job description, you go like, oh no, that’s a content design. Is that still the case? And if so, how do you hack that? Or do you have any tips for hacking that?
Shannon:
Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know. It’s probably always going to be true because … I don’t know. Who knows what job titles will be out there in the next five years or whatever. But I think part of it is just different companies describe things in different ways. And so starting to navigate that. Civic tech government jobs have a really funky way of how they name things. I just saw a job that got posted with the Department of Homeland Security this morning, and it’s like a UX manager job, but it’s like “IT supervisor specialist.”” It’s something that it’s like, I would not have thought that that was mapped to a UX job, but based on who posted … I think it was, I think Dana Chisnell posted that one.
Larry:
Oh, I saw that. Yeah.
Shannon:
Yeah. Yeah. But you get into it and you start looking at USA jobs and you go, oh yeah, it has all these things … All this government jargon that I wouldn’t have thought to think of. But then you start reading the descriptions and it’s like, oh, yeah, look, that’s a content job. Or, oh yeah, look, that’s a UX job. So I think part of it is around that awareness. Part of it is just going into and just you know what, it’s a known, known, I accept that there’s going to be all these different synonyms and adjacent terms for a content or content related job. And part of what I’ve done in posting on LinkedIn and things is I’ve opened up my searches. I’ve probably also broken irretrievably my jobs algorithm for the rest of time, but in a way I’m also glad that I did it.
Shannon:
But when I search for things, I’ll look for a variety of terms. Some days I search content designer jobs and I’ll look in the US. Other times I look for UX writer. Other times it’s technical writer or content strategist. Or even going back to my first job title, I was a web copywriter. So looking up web copywriter, web content specialist. Scott Kubie in one of his … Was it last week’s? One of his really recent newsletters for the Content Career Accelerator, he’s got a really nice section in there about talking about how you want to approach your keyword search for your job search and talks about mixing it up with … It’s not necessarily just about the job title, but also if you start looking at and delving into, is there a specific responsibility or set of different content skills that you’re looking to practice? Just really good stuff about, again, where and how can you get creative with your parameters for your job search.
Shannon:
And so I think some of what I’ve done probably overlaps with some of what he’s described. I’ve focused more so on job titles. But I think it’s been a mix of looking for different job titles. And then as I have probably interacted with content and seen other kinds of jobs and if I liked it or re-shared it or started following other people who have been posting jobs as well, I’ve also noticed that in turn, whatever magic is going on behind the scenes with the algorithm, because I’ve looked at different titles, different companies, different industries, all of that is making a really nice potluck of search results for me. But yeah, it’s definitely been through a lot of just … Part of it’s been my own … I’ve been working in some facet of content or design for 15 some odd years. So some of it’s like, oh, as I’ve gotten exposed to new folks or met people at conferences, being able to tune into, oh hey, this manufacturing niche, what? I wouldn’t have thought to look there. So I think a lot of that has also compounded over time.
Larry:
And the benefits of diversity … It seems like every content person has a fairly diverse background. I believe yours also includes instructional design and some stuff back in the old SEO marketing kind of stuff. And I’ve got similar diversity in my background. And I think the way you were just talking about that, all that stuff compounds in your awareness and knowledge of what might be out there.
Larry:
And also, as you were talking, it reminded me that … We were talking before we went on the air about applicant tracking systems a little bit. And I wonder if that keyword research that Scott’s talking about or that you’ve talked about, if that’s helping at least get you past the applicant tracking system. Is that a valid hypothesis, do you think?
Shannon:
Maybe. I don’t know. Because I’m going to go based off of just my most recent experience being part of the job seeker market. In some cases I think it helped, but in other cases, I would tweak my resume and I would have the matches for … You need someone who can do this, writes in these channels. I had all of that stuff in there and I still didn’t hear anything. So with the applicant tracking systems, I don’t know. I feel like sometimes that stuff is just a magical box of who knows what. I don’t know. I don’t know. I think as with anything, there might still be a little bit of that mix of, some of it’s the computer and some of it’s however those systems have been trained. But then you still, depending on the company and what support the recruiting team has, how involved the hiring managers have been. I think there’s still some of that human feedback loop too. Yeah. I think there’s still that element of other folks might be in the mix helping to augment what the robots are doing.
Larry:
Yeah. Even as I asked that, I was thinking … I do this all the time and I’m like the last guy. Anyhow, I’m falling into that trap of like, oh, this is mostly about technology, when in fact it’s mostly about people. And another thing you’re known for … You mentioned the meetups that you’ve been running for, I think 12 years. That might be the longest running content strategy meetup I’ve ever heard of. So congrats on that. And there’s all the well-known benefits of hitting up your network on your job hunting and things like that. Can you talk a little bit about how community has fit into both your ongoing professional life, but your job hunt in particular?
Shannon:
Yeah. Gosh, I don’t know. Community is how I got into UX in the first place and got into content work in the first place. Before Twitter came into its era that it’s in now, that is where I first started learning about Marco Blumstein, Kristina Halvorson, all these other folks who were out just sharing ideas on Twitter. And Twitter, I think is where a couple … We were acquaintances and now very dear friends, but we were all talking on Twitter in some … We were just talking about like, oh, we see that there’s this thing going on where … We want more meetups to start for content meetups. And the three of us saw it, and we all said, “Hey, should we do something? We know nothing about running meetups, but hey, what the heck? Why not?” So I think for me, being part of a bigger community, it’s been part of how I’ve learned new techniques. It’s been part of how I’ve helped to keep myself anchored in moments of doubt or when things are really hard at work. And then it’s also been as I’ve met people and worked with them as we’ve stayed in touch, if our working paths have diverged, mentoring folks, just continuing to grow that connection and that community. It’s been part of my learning, but then that’s also been part of how I’ve been introduced to folks.
Shannon:
Twitter’s also Twitter’s how I ended up at Adobe, because I DM’d somebody who worked there and I happened to say, “Hey, I saw this job opening for an individual contributor,” and they said, “Oh, actually, we’re looking for a manager too. Let’s talk more.” So this random conversation actually ended up turning into a really cool opportunity. And with this most recent job search too, I am so, so grateful to … Just too many people to name. But part of it was I had people who were in my corner and keeping my spirits up when I got rejection after rejection after rejection because there were like 20 plus of them. There were a lot of rejections. I had people, as I confided in them that I was starting to look for a job, they were offering to make connections or have coffee chats to talk about, “Oh, there’s a company to be keeping an eye on. I hear they’re getting ready to open up roles.” Or in the event that I was like, “Ooh. Hey, I’m interested in maybe this role over here,” I was really fortunate enough to get introductions to hiring managers, or if it wasn’t the direct hiring manager, I still managed to get introductions to other folks who helped me learn more about the culture or could help make other introductions to people who were closer to the actual roles and teams that I was looking to talk to.
Shannon:
But I couldn’t have just done that if I just randomly emailed a bunch of people and was just like, “Hey, help me.” I think that a lot of it had to start from this organic place of we’re all learning together and learning about each other and sharing information and resources. And then it was a place where if I had a really close relationship with someone, then I was able to be like, “Hey, can I borrow 15 minutes to learn more about this?” Or, “I see that you might know so-and-so. What’s your relationship like? Would it be weird if you reached out to them?” Yeah. Just being able to come at things from all these different angles.
Larry:
And as you’re talking, you’re reminding me of that truism that … I forget who coined this idea. But the power of weak ties. It sounds like a lot of that was just like a random connection or something that led to something else. One thing I want to point out too, as you were talking, it occurred to me that some people listening to this might think, oh, I have to start a meetup to do this. But I want to point out that you just show up a lot too. I see you all over the content community, so you’re not always just organizing or speaking. You just show up a lot. I don’t know if you can estimate the percentage, but I am going to guess that you probably have as many connections from just showing up as you do from organizing things.
Shannon:
Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, I think some of the stuff that’s happened, especially in the last year, it’s just been showing up, amplifying other folks, supporting other folks. I randomly … I don’t know. I tweeted some nonsense about my favorite design tool is a Word doc, and then that led to some speaking opportunities and some other really interesting things. But it was just showing up in a way that I felt comfortable doing and also showing up in conversations or talking about things that I felt most comfortable weighing in on. It’s ironic to me to be like, oh, look, we’re recording this podcast episode. Look, wow, I did it. Oh, I did the thing with a capital T. But it’s like the more that I let go of, I have to have the right answers or all the answers, or I have to show up in a certain way, then other things just started happening organically. It all came back to this sense of, but what do I want to do and what do I feel comfortable doing? And stop trying to follow this blueprint of, well, so-and-so did this, I have to be like that now.
Shannon:
And it’s funny that we’ve talked about community already, because I think it was the community around … When Button first started, Button was virtual. 2020. And the main way to participate was Slack. And that was so huge for me because when I’m in real life, I actually have a really hard time going up to and introducing myself to people and starting conversations. But in Slack, I was just like, I can just Slack somebody. And we’re all in here talking together. And it was those kinds of conversations in Slack that got me feeling like, oh, I feel a little bit braver. I’m going to do this. I’m going to try and pitch into conferences. I’m going to try talking to more people online. But it all really grew out of, I started a very small experiment and I did something that felt really comfortable and authentic to me. But yeah, no, running a meetup is a lot of hard work or doing conferences, things like that.
Shannon:
Who am I thinking of? I’m thinking of Michelle Keller. She’s a content designer in Charlottesville and works in hospice care and bereavement and she started writing her thoughts and reflections on her job and how she thinks about content design. And I know right now she’s doing some reflections on trauma-informed design principles and how that applies to her work as a content designer and working in bereavement services and hospice. She was just like, “You know what? I’m just going to try this thing. I’m going to write.” She’s like, “I’m going to write my thoughts.” So I think it’s just listening to that voice inside that says, here’s the thing that gives me energy and I’m going to really focus in on, and zero in on that.
Larry:
As you’re saying that you’re reminding me, I’ve been in a lot of different communities, a lot of different situations in my life, and there is more permission in this community to be your authentic self. And it’s not just that you can be it. A lot of opportunities ensue from that. Like you just mentioned Michelle’s work and then the way you’ve been in the community. Does that make sense? Because I think we all admire what a lovey-dovey community this is, but I think that’s one little thing on it, that permission to be authentic and not in the performative social media way, but genuinely authentic. Does that make sense?
Shannon:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know. I’ve had some stints as a UX manager, but even then I always told people I will still always true back to and I’m always going to be that content person inside and have that at heart. Yeah. I don’t know. Super, super biased being a content person. But I do really appreciate the community and the flavors of community too that I’ve found because I think that in addition to feeling part of this bigger industry thing, there’s also just these really organic … Yeah. There’s just these organic connections and smaller local communities too that pop up around different shared interests or as different folks collaborate together. And I think having those communities at those different levels, like, yep, cool. We’re tying up into this bigger picture of things, but also there’s so much beauty around all of these different flavors of how people are approaching things and doing things. And I think that has been really, really powerful and really, really helpful too.
Larry:
Yeah. And as you talk about that, I’m thinking that as we figure out these new verticals or all these different opportunities that we just haven’t discovered yet, that ability that we have to coalesce around flavors of practice is going to help everyone. Hey, Shannon, I can’t believe it. We’re coming up close to time already. These things always go way too fast. But before we wrap up, is there anything last, anything you want to revisit from the conversation or just make sure that you share before we wrap up?
Shannon:
Oh my goodness. Gosh. I think the big thing is, especially for anybody who might be looking for a job right now, this is the pep talk part of … Yeah. It’s really hard out there right now. Yeah, there is a lot of amazing people out on the market, and I think we have to acknowledge those things because those things exist. We can’t pretend them away. But I think that and different flavors of things, that’s really huge. And then something else that I’ve taken away from Sara Wachter-Boettcher’s work, and Jen Dionisio with Active Voice, they’ve had some really great, powerful episodes of Per My Last Email, and then also in some of their coaching materials and things. But something I really, really took to heart is that the next step doesn’t necessarily have to be the perfect thing. It might be a short-term thing, it might be a band-aid, it might be just a recovery job, I think is a phrase sometimes that they use.
Shannon:
But just freeing yourself from that pressure of, but my resume has to look a certain way, and it has to carry these certain titles and roles and responsibilities. I think being able to channel into and come back to, there’s a lot of really cool transferable skills that can feed into how you show up as a content person and really embracing that. Sometimes you might be in a job where it’s like, hey, I wasn’t an instructional designer forever, but I still borrowed tools that I was learning about from UX writing, from UX. I snuck that into my day job. So the places where you’re able to do that, if you want to do that because you might also just be like, well dammit I just need to make some money and pay my bills right now. And that is okay too. And I think, honestly … We talked about this with community and stuff too. It’s just find your you. Figure out where your values are pointing you and what you need to think about right now, and then do that little bit. Do that little bit. Because there’s so much weird shit going on right now that even what might be a good move for this month or the next few months, it might look a little bit different. So just stay in touch with you. Stay in touch with you, and let that help you navigate things.
Larry:
I love that. And always in the context of community. Oh, and hey, one very last thing, Shannon. If folks want to connect or follow you online, what’s the best way to reach out?
Shannon:
Probably LinkedIn. Yeah. LinkedIn. LinkedIn. Oh gosh, what is my LinkedIn handle? If you just look me up, if you look up Shannon Leahy, you will find me in all of my bob haircut glory. But that’s probably the best bet. Otherwise, if you go to my website, which is … You would think I would know what my website URL is too. But if you go to my website, which is shannon-leahy.com … Because I think the owner of shannonleahy.com, I think they’re an event planner. They’re a very successful event planner. If you go there, you can also get to my email address.
Larry:
Oh, great. And I’ll put a link to the meetup in there too for folks in the Virginia area. You don’t mind, do you?
Shannon:
Oh, yeah.
Larry:
Because I went to the screaming into your ice cream one…
Shannon:
Yeah. Yeah. Rvacontentstrategy.com is also a way to find me. We started with local meetups, but now I’ve kept everything virtual since the pandemic and I’m going to keep things virtual for the foreseeable future. So yeah. If you’re local to Richmond, definitely please come stop by. But also, yeah, we’ve hosted folks all over the US and across the world at this juncture, so please, please, please, yeah, come hang out with us. I’ll be adding some new events over the course of the spring and the summer, so definitely check us out.
Larry:
Excellent. Well, thank you so much, Shannon. Really great conversation.
Shannon:
Yeah. Thank you again so much for having me. Super. Super appreciate it.
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