VS: Could you describe your day to day life as a copywriter?

JE: In the custom content ad sales world, I’m working on what we call pre-sale or post sale. Pre-sale is when you get a request from an advertiser saying, ‘hey, we want you to put together a pitch for us, here’s our budget, here’s how long you have, here’s what we want it to be about.’ Then, our team of about 15 people has a certain amount of time to
put together a presentation of a campaign idea that we have for the company. Based on the budget they give us and who they want us to talk to, we determine how we want to get their information out there. I used to write a lot of podcast scripts or audio ads. Sometimes we’ll have a print component to it, like a full ad in the Sunday Times. It’s
all just based on whatever they need for that program. If our pitch sells, then we transition to post sale, which is actually working on that stuff. Post-sale is a lot of finding a really quiet corner of my office or in my house and writing for hours on end.

VS: Can you talk a little bit about the application and hiring processes for working at a newspaper?

JE: For the New York Times, a recruiter called me to schedule a screening call, where they determined whether the pay and the type of role would be right for me. Then, you go through a couple rounds of interviews with different kinds of higher ups; the people who might manage you, or people on different teams who might work with you. Then, typically, there’s a writing test. They give you a sample writing assignment with about three different elements. It’s usually write a print ad, write an audio script, and take an article and copy edit it. I like that part because they give you five days to get it done. On the other hand, it’s a lot of pressure. To a certain degree, you can only prepare so much for a spoken interview. For a writing test, you can spend 24/7 until it’s due on it, in theory. You have to know when to put it down.

VS: What are your long-term goals?

JE: I would like to be a creative director. Creative directors are typically the ones who are leading the creative vision for the project. They’re trying different ideas out and getting a sense of how it might come to life. They work on having a broader idea for how a campaign would come together. A lot of copywriters end up climbing that ladder
and becoming creative directors.

VS: What advice would you give high school students looking to go into the journalism or copyrighting field?

JE: Having a niche that you’re coming in with makes the job a whole lot easier. At the Times, a lot of people would come to me to write their headlines or to help them with audio scripts because I’m better at the short form, witty, quick hitting kind of writing. On the other hand, I would go to them to help me structure a story, decide what elements are superfluous, and decide whether I could push for a better quote. Therefore, my piece of advice
would be don’t just try to be a copywriter. Get to know the advertising space. Maybe learn a little graphic design. Learn how to report and long form write an article. Find the places that you can shadow, get some mentors, and stay in touch with those mentors. Learn more than just one thing. Especially with writing. Make yourself valuable as an expert in a topic or as a pro storyteller who can also execute on the visual part of it. You guys have the benefit of being so much more social media fluent. I don’t want to go to TikTok with my skillsets, but you guys know how it works.
So, if you had a topic that was fascinating to you, yes, you could write it up, but you could also turn it into the format that people are consuming things now. So, I would say, stay nimble and don’t get too bogged down in one thing or one format.

VS: What are your favorite parts of the job?

JE: With publications like The New York Times, because of your title, the interviewees you want to talk to will often
say yes to an interview when they probably wouldn’t have otherwise. One of my first projects at the New York Times was for a company that made parts for the James Webb Space Telescope. I got to talk to a chief aerospace engineer and nerd out with him about space for a couple of hours. I have a coworker who interviewed Maya Angelou. My manager had personal one on one interviews with Madonna. That part’s a lot of fun, especially if you like learning
about new things and people. My other favorite part is just being in a room, riffing with people about ideas. Being goofy, silly, and witty. Being in a writer’s room space where people are coming up with whimsical ideas and just creatively writing. Getting to surprise myself and others with my ideas is another favorite part of this career.

VS: Could you give an example of an ad campaign?

JE: At the New York Times I did a campaign for Bumble, the dating app. I wrote an article after I interviewed a bunch of women who were either widowers or divorcees who had found their second chance love through Bumble. My article was in the Times as its own article, but also as an advertisement for Bumble. That’s basically the job, with
different companies who are interested in publishing advertisements.

VS: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

JE: For the readers of the SAGA, don’t underestimate how special it is to have a power like the school newspaper. To have that kind of source of news and have the ability to participate in something that could really make change in your community, I think that’s just as important as working at a big newspaper.