writer under beautiful arches hidden from view from potted plants

Copywriting is supposed to be this magical job that allows us to live a life on our own terms and solve all of our workplace woes. If you have a great portfolio and resume but still can’t get any traction, it might be because of the job market itself. Stick around to find out what you’re up against.

As a career services specialist, I crawl job boards all the time. And I am constantly disappointed at the low-quality jobs that are filling the boards because there are several disturbing trends. I want to quickly highlight these so you are aware of them and know what to avoid. We are not going to dwell, though, because we will segue into helpful tips to optimize your job search for copywriting roles and, honestly, a lot of these tips apply to much more than just copywriting so, grab a pen…

Here is what new and upwardly mobile copywriters are up against:

Ghost jobs

These are jobs that are posted by companies but don’t represent real open roles. You’ll waste time and potentially lose out on real opportunities by spending time applying to these.

Illegal or sketchy jobs

Aka…jobs that violate Labor Laws and hope you won’t notice. Check out this internship requiring the unpaid intern to produce work like written deliverables and fundraising goals. An unpaid intern can’t displace work that would be done by paid employees.

Delusional expectations

These are jobs with unrealistic requirements and skills lists. They can be a hodge-podge of 2 or 3 roles, stuffed into one, require 8 years of niche experience for an entry-level role, or require a Masters for a starting position. These long lists make it super hard to meet the requirements, even when you are skilled and experienced. It can be a red flag that the workplace is going to expect the moon when they only have enough money to rock up to the gas station.

Layoffs

As of the end of 2023, there were over 240,000 layoffs in the tech sector alone from household names and industry-leading companies like Deloitte, Pixar, Google, Amazon, Twitch, Intel, Etsy, LinkedIn, and the list goes on. This means that professionals with pedigrees are now on the hunt for their next role, likely rising quickly to the top of the applicant pile due to their brag-worthy experience.

In other words, that makes it harder for people without fancy employers to break through the noise. Some openings have hundreds to thousands of applicants within a week or two of going live. Check out this one and this one.

If you want a deeper dive into these disturbing trends, then you can check out the blog where I have screenshots of some offenders and more details about how to get around these obstacles in the wild.

Unexplored Territory With AI

In 2023, companies literally wrote the handbooks on how their teams would use and apply AI, defining do’s and dont’s, integrating it into workflows, and right-sizing their workforces around these new efficiencies. Any companies that haven’t yet integrated AI are doing this in 2024. I believe that while they were figuring all of this out, they hit pause on hiring.

That could also mean that brands will be introducing new AI-focused creative roles in 2024. Something like an AI prompt engineer and copywriter, fused into one role. That’s my prediction: we are going to see an urgent need for AI-savvy content and copywriters this year. Stay tuned and keep your eye out for that coming to a job board near you.

All 5 of these are largely outside of your control, but the next one is something you can do something about. And how you address it can be an obstacle or a route towards your ultimate goal of becoming a paid writer.

Skills Gap

Making a career transition is a daunting road and it can easily make you feel like you’re constantly playing an impossible game of catchup. I had a client ask me recently, “Would you tell me if you feel like a career transition is unrealistic?”

It definitely made me pause to think…I have never encountered a situation where I felt like the career transition was unrealistic. Brian May, the guitarist for Queen, became an astrophysicist, earning his Ph.D. in 2007 and helped NASA land on an asteroid. No background or personal history needs to dictate your future. What I think my client may have been worried about was if he had enough skills and experience currently on his resume to make the leap. And it’s a fair concern. May didn’t just walk off the stage an into a lab.

1. Understand that there is probably a skills gap…and that’s okay

Here’s the thing: career transitioners inherently have some level of skills gap. You have an untraditional background compared to the typical candidate. But your non-traditional background also means you bring diversity to your new role, a value with immeasurable benefits. It’s up to you to figure out that value so you can leverage your difference as an advantage.

2. Assess your skills

How do you stack up to the role requirements of your ideal future role? This exercise will show you how aligned you currently are for this position by identifying what you already have and what you need to work on.

There are a few ways to figure out what the core competencies and skills are for your desired role, but leveraging AI is likely the fastest way to gain some insight.

ChatGPT can function as your career strategist if you prompt it correctly. For this step, you are looking for the key skills, job requirements, and core competencies associated with your target job title.

If you want these prompts so you can just copy and paste them into ChatGPT, download Roadmap to Writer. They are in there…page 5. Link below.

Once you have a list of all the required skills, list them on a piece of paper or Google Doc and mark them “Got it” or “Not yet.”]

Roadmap to Writer ChatGPT prompts for skills gap and skill assessment

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3. Design your upskill plan

Now that you understand the skills you already have and need to add, you can design your upskill plan. Write down all of the skills you don’t have yet but need in order to be a contender for that role. Now assign a target due date to each one. Make it realistic. Consider your schedule and make sure not to be too aggressive. Setting and missing an unrealistic goal can kill your momentum.

4. Develop your portfolio

I wish I’d realized that starting any portfolio was better than no portfolio. I spent 9 years thinking that the next project I did would finally be worthy of a portfolio. If only I’d realized that demo work was an option... Students and certificate earners build their first portfolio this way.

copywriting portfolio skills gap — This is content from my *real,* first-ever copywriting portfolio. If you look closely, I didn’t write this for a fancy client. I wrote it for my own blog. Remember, your first portfolio doesn’t have to be fancy—you don’t even have to be paid. You just have to prove you can write.

You can find writing inspiration just about anywhere with a little imagination. You need to:

Pick a brand or company (a real one is fine, just note that it is “Demo” work in the description).
Choose the type of content you’ll write.
Define the project parameters (this is called a content brief).
Write the thing.

Or, if you prefer a pre-packed and ready-to-write assignment, your first demo content project is in Roadmap to Writer for the fictitious company Thrown Ceramics. They’re adorable. You’ll love them.

roadmap to writer skills gap skills assessment — Omg, *what is that?* It’s your first writing project!

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5. Slow and steady wins the race…

While you’re actively hunting for that perfect role, be sure that you are taking actionable steps that close any skill gaps that could be preventing the transition. For me, what that looked like was me applying to writing jobs while I learned about writing and marketing and built my portfolio. It pattern went: work, write, apply, repeat. Eventually, that gap in my experience closed and I became a paid writer.

If you’re squeezing in upskilling or learning something new into a packed schedule, be sure that it will bring you closer to your ultimate goal by running a skill self-assessment and creating your tailored upskill plan.

I tried to find such a resource. I scoured every corner of Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube to find something specifically designed for industry outsiders transitioning into professional copywriting roles. But it didn’t exist. I had to duct tape pieces of courses and resources together to achieve my goals. That’s ultimately what drove me to found CHU and why I created the Roadmap to Writer—that resource I’ve been mentioning throughout this video.

I want your transition is short, sure-footed, and relatively painless. You need something specific that illuminates every milestone and checkpoint from now to hired without the fluff or irrelevant details.

What’s Inside Roadmap to Writer:

Starts with a career goal-setting step so you have a dialed-in destination (making all your following actions effective)
Helps you assess where you land on the skills required for that role (so you know what you still need to work on)
Develop a customized Upskill Plan so you can take real steps toward becoming that professional
Followed by milestones like: Revamping your Resume, Landing Interviews, and Achieving your dream job

Roadmap to Writer The only roadmap designed for industry outsiders and non-traditional writers to go from struggling to proven and in-demand