Copy editor, part of the editorial team - Bracknell, United Kingdom - Westminster Forum Projects

Description

Job Description

Westminster Forum Projects is a market leader in organising senior-level seminars on public policy in media, telecoms, education, nutrition, health, energy, transport, the environment, legal and business policy, media and telecoms and many other areas. We enjoy considerable support from senior figures within Parliament and government, in industry and amongst interest groups who depend on our conferences to support policy formulation and implementation.

We are recruiting for a senior copy editor to assist the editorial director in making ready marketing communications, agendas and other written material for publication to our thousands of contacts.

This is a central role requiring experience and the highest levels of editorial judgment and diplomacy, crafting and helping shape text that clearly communicates the value of our conferences to the policymakers and stakeholders who are invited to attend.

Job description:

• Working up delegate invitations for each event at an early stage - either from scratch based on notes from and iteration with researchers, or refining their drafts
• Checking any marketing literature where the speaker and/or delegate acquisition is not as we would hope (as well as spot checks) - improving clarity, order, the way selling points are conveyed, and ringing changes to refresh the copy
• Final checks on the accuracy of the way things are expressed, and use of terminology
• Ensuring clarity - working with the deputy editor and authors to produce text that is true to and brings out their intention as established through their research
• Mentoring/educating all authors so that they develop their abilities, and so that material from them is progressively received in a more ready-to-use way
• Watching out for issues that could erode our brand such as assumptions or wording which could be interpreted as partiality or bias, misuse of terminology, inaccuracy including published document names, wrong forms of address or spelling of names
• Sharpening and drawing out the way that the value of the conference is expressed in the delegate invites and ensuring that all the elements of the company's accumulated knowledge and new techniques that support the persuasiveness of our communications is utilised in published material
• Maintaining the brand capital of our unique voice and how people are accustomed to us expressing ourselves, as well as helping develop our style over time
• Other duties as assigned by the Editorial Director or their nominee, which may include:
• Helping check speaker invites to make sure that are as compelling as possible, convey selling points, are error-free
• Working on producing sensitive, diplomatic responses to stakeholder queries/challenges/misconceptions

Requirements:

• We are looking for experienced candidates for this role - in a news, current affairs or public affairs consultancy environment. Headline-writing experience would be ideal.
• Professional-standard command of the English language with razor-sharp editing, proofreading, writing, and communication skills. With a picky eye for detail.
• Check out the breadth of our conferences. You will need to demonstrate ability to work with specialists over a wide range of subjects areas.
• We are super busy. You will need to be experienced and capable in handling a high volume of work, in time management, and in delivering output to business-critical deadlines.
• However experienced you are, we need you to be able to roll your sleeves up, be eager to learn, and be able to readily adapt to and adhere to house style. Once you are firmly in the saddle you'll be expected to help its continuing development. We're learning all the time.
• When you are up to speed we would want you not to need close supervision, but help and support is always on hand.
• Fluency with Microsoft Office is essential, and experience of other specialist software would be an advantage - for instance for social media, images and web editing.
• You will be working up text either from raw notes or copy submitted by researchers with varying levels of writing skill. The copy that leaves you will be formatted by sub-editors in our coms team, and given a final safety check for literals etc before publication.
• Interest and experience in web design and copywriting from scratch is desirable as the successful candidate develops in the role .

This is an exciting permanent role in a thriving organisation, and there is plenty of scope for career growth for the right candidate. It's full time, Monday-Friday 9am-5pm with an hour for lunch.

All of the company's staff, numbering ~85, work from home.

To apply please email your CV and covering letter indicating your current salary and why you believe you would be suitable for the role to