Senior Editor, Buyer’s Guide/Rankings

Hearst Autos is a division of Hearst Magazines and brings together engaging content, unrivaled data and insights, innovative consumer products, and comprehensive marketing solutions to serve automotive manufacturers, dealers, enthusiasts and buyers. By combining the entire portfolio of Hearst brands, including Car and Driver, Road & Track, Autoweek, and Bring a Trailer, with the extended reach of In-Market partners, Hearst Autos reaches 163 million people every month as the nation’s largest automotive media company.

As a division of Hearst Magazines, we offer the best of both worlds: a nimble, fast-paced entrepreneurial environment coupled with the stability, career development opportunities, and perks of an established company. We have offices in the Bay Area, Michigan and NYC. This role is based in Ann Arbor, MI.

Your Impact:

Car and Driver is seeking an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based writer for a senior editor position within its digital Buyer's Guide team. The successful candidate will display a positive, collaborative attitude and possess a multitude of skills, including knowledge of the automotive industry and the ability to distill complicated technical information into simple and clear terms. The position will also lead our online Rankings initiative that sorts and rates vehicles across Hearst Autos. This position brings with it the expectation that the new staff editor will learn and grow their skills over time.

What You'll Do:

Solid automotive technical knowledge base: Understands basic automotive technical information and jargon and can translate that into plain English for the average in-market car shopper.
Good writing skills: The ability to consistently produce competent, consumer-oriented, Make-Model Page (MMP) stories for Buyer's Guide (BG). These pieces must be consistently well-crafted, capture the Car and Driver voice (Intelligence, Independence, Irreverence) and point of view, incorporate an understanding of our audience, and require only a modest amount of line editing.
Proficiency in editing. Must be able to edit MMPs for clarity, consistency, and voice.
Audience: The editor must quickly cultivate an understanding of the BG audience—in-market non-enthusiasts who are searching for clear and easy-to-understand new-car information.
Work closely with SEO team on selecting and building vehicle Rankings. Collaborates with C/D, R&T, and Autoweek staff to monitor the workflow and quality of the Rankings content.
Willingness to learn and work in our proprietary software interfaces including two different content-management systems, an interactive database of specs and pricing, Chrome CarBook Pro, Microsoft Office, and Adobe Creative Suite. FYI: Hearst and Car and Driver work in MacOS.
Is collaborative, enjoys working with fellow car enthusiasts, is pro-active, and energized to continuously learn and improve BG work product and processes.
Flexible, meets deadlines, will grow their skill set over time to take on a multiplicity of tasks for the wider editorial organization including writing vehicle reviews and news pieces in addition to MMPs.
5-7 years experience preferably in journalism, automotive journalism, or technical writing. Prior experience in at a competitor is a plus.

Buyer’s Guide/Make-Model Page (MMP) Writing:

The senior editor will focus on researching and writing MMPs as required.
Writing duties will extend to Editor’s Choice, BG bookazine content, any other BG-related writing needs such as Consumer/EV/section writing/editing.
Collaboration: communicating and coordinating efforts daily with News and Reviews teams.

Online Rankings:

Oversees, contributes, writes, and builds Rankings content for C/D, R&T, and Autoweek.
Monitors the workflow and quality of Rankings content for C/D by collaborating with C/D editors and technical assistants working on Rankings content.
Updating, assigning, and oversight of “Best” listicles.

MMP Maintenance:

This position will assist the BG managing editor with reviewing and maintaining Buyer’s Guide ratings, rankings, the annual MMP page audit, and collaborate with the BG team on improving/resolving process and workflow issues.

Other C/D Organizational Support:

The senior editor will grow their skill set to the point where they can be available as time and workload permit to write vehicle reviews, news stories, and features.
This includes attending vehicle launches, participating in comparison tests and other C/D organization-wide programs (i.e., 10Best, EV of The Year).

The base salary for this role is between $68,829 and $80,000. The actual base pay offered is dependent upon many factors, such as: transferable skills, work experience, business needs and market demands. The base pay range is subject to change and may be modified in the future.

This is a position covered under the Writers Guild of America, East, Collective Bargaining Agreement.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status.