I recently applied to an online writing job at a fairly popular pop culture website and I've been accepted into their training program, which lasts a week. Essentially, you have to write an article according to their specs and the person training you has to approve it. Problem is, although I do enjoy blogging about movies, TV, comics and games, I'm not sure if the job is right for me. For one, I messaged my trainer last week on the company's messaging app about something I wasn't clear about and he still hasn't responded, which I think is very strange since I can see when he's online. I also messaged the head person in charge about it and he said he didn't know and that I needed to wait till Monday since trainers don't work on weekends. It's Wednesday at this point and still no response. I think it's especially problematic since the whole point of the training is that you're supposed to be in close contact with your trainer over the course of the week regarding any and all issues and we haven't communicated once.
My second concern is the kind of content they publish- although it's topically similar to stuff I follow, there seems to be a lot of overlap in content where they're basically rehashing articles from other sites and their own. It's almost like a quantity over quality concept where they need to churn out content as fast as possible and therefore need their writers to write as many articles as possible every month, which may explain why the pay is so low (not that pay is my primary concern but it does relate back to my point). As part of the training, they give you exact topics that have already been published on their site and tell you they want a completely new article written about it. It also seems you don't really need to be familiar with the topics you're writing about, since you're getting most of your information from other sources, not your own personal experience. Maybe this is standard but to me it's kind of weird and I'm not sure if it's something I'd be comfortable doing. I'd message my trainer about whether they actually want me referring to those articles before I write my own but it's unlikely he'd respond so I'm kind of in the dark here.
Anyway, I haven't had a job in a long while and I feel kind of fortunate to have been offered this one but at the same time, I don't want to just take it because it's available. I realize there are other writing jobs out there that may be a better fit but I'm not certain of the likelihood that I'd be offered a job with them.
02 Mar 2022, 11:08 am
