Managing Editor, Education

Job Description

U.S. News & World Report is a multifaceted digital media company dedicated to helping citizens, consumers, business leaders and policy officials make important decisions in their lives. We publish independent reporting, rankings, data journalism and advice that has earned the trust of our readers and users for 90 years. Our platforms on usnews.com include Education, Health,Money, Travel, Cars, News, Real Estate, Careers and Insurance.

We reach millions of people monthly during moments when they are most in need of expert advice and motivated to act on that advice directly on our platforms. Our signature franchises include our “Best” series of consumer guides on colleges, graduate schools, hospitals, diets, cars, financial services and more. These guides provide an easy-to-digest list for consumers to better understand and compare when making their decisions. We continue to publish annual guides of the authoritative Best Colleges and Best Hospitals rankings on our website and in print. And our U.S. News Live flagship conferences highlight important national conversations such as Healthcare of Tomorrow .

We believe in having a broad range of talent and backgrounds at U.S. News. We strive to maintain a welcoming and inclusive workplace where everyone is given an opportunity to succeed and contribute to their fullest.

Your role in helping us shape the future:

U.S. News empowers everyone to thrive. In this position, you will use your strengths and skills to create and oversee education advice content for consumers that covers a wide range of higher education and K-12 topics, as well as lead the editorial coverage of our education rankings, including Best Colleges, Grad Schools, High Schools, Online Programs and Global Universities.

You’ll be responsible for our content strategy in the education space, which includes creating content that helps people make decisions about choosing a college, getting into college, paying for college, financial aid, selecting a college major, graduate school, K-12 schools for your children, non-degree continuing education and certificate programs, and earning a degree abroad. You’ll manage and set our content calendar; recruit and manage freelance writers; develop a content strategy to reach an audience of parents and students; edit articles, slideshows, blogs and product pages; occasionally write articles; oversee our education newsletters; use analytics tools to monitor the performance of our content; and use AI tools to increase workflow efficiencies and automate certain tasks.

You’ll also work with our communications team to promote our content on social media and with other media outlets. The Managing Editor of Education will serve as spokesperson for our education rankings launches, so you should be comfortable being interviewed by TV, radio and online outlets to talk about our data, methodology, rankings results, trends, etc. You will also moderate education webinars and serve in a spokesperson capacity for various other U.S. News Education events.

In this role, you’ll manage and lead an in-house team of reporters and editors. You’ll also work closely with digital producers, SEO experts, rankings data analysts, and product and business team members to deliver helpful and actionable advice content to our readers and ensure our content aligns with our business strategy. The Managing Editor of Education reports to the Executive Editor of Consumer Advice.

Are you up to the challenge?

You should be a nimble editor and leader who is skilled at juggling several tasks at once, can drive the editorial coverage in the education space, and can lead a team of talented reporters and editors. As part of the job, you’ll:

• 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.

Please submit a resume and cover letter for consideration.

Job Requirements

You should definitely have:

• Minimum 10 years of professional editing experience at a media company or education publication inclusive of 5+ years of experience managing a team of in-house reporters and editors
• Expertise in the higher education and K-12 spaces, and prior experience writing and editing this content
• 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

It would be nice if you had:

• Experience building and optimizing newsletters
• Experience using AI tools to increase editorial workflow efficiency
• Experience with project management
• Experience using Google Docs and Sheets, and Google Gemini
• Prior experience editing and publishing content in a CMS
• Familiarity with SEMRush

What it’s like to work with us:

Talent is our best asset!

We invest in people with passion and potential who understand U.S. News’ dedication to our consumers.

• Entrepreneurial, mission-driven culture with core values of quality and integrity
• Focus on fostering personal and professional growth
• Competitive benefits including paid vacation time, medical, tuition reimbursement, and training
• Collaborative Work Environment ~ Fun, diverse, inclusive and ambitious co-workers

Other Job Info:

• These statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by employees assigned to this job. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties, and skills required of employees assigned to this job.
• U.S. News & World Report strongly encourages all employees to be fully vaccinated (including boosters).
• Washington, DC based applicants to work a hybrid schedule in the office location. Remote applicants will be considered.
• The anticipated base salary for this position is $100,000 to $140,000. The actual base salary offered will depend on a variety of factors, including without limitation, the qualifications of the individual applicant for the position, years of relevant experience, level of education attained, certifications or other professional licenses held, interview performance, and if applicable, the location in which the applicant lives and/or from which they will be performing the job.

ABOUT THE Organization

U.S. News & World Report is a publisher of news and information that empowers people to make better, more informed decisions about important issues affecting their lives.  

EOE STATEMENT

We are an equal employment opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law.  

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