Freelance writers often struggle with how to list their experience on a resume. While that topic is too large for this single article, what I did want to do was cover the topic of so called “content mills”.
These are online brokers who have people write out topics for any number of businesses. The writers are paid a small amount of money and the brokers then sell these pieces to businesses and online marketers who use it to build websites and promote companies.
In the world of recruiting, any sort of freelance or online work is considered suspicious. However, when you’re recruiting for writers and digital marketers, you are bound to see this on resumes.
I’ve handled several large scale hiring efforts for digital marketers and content writers for firms I’ve consulted with in the past. And I’ve seen more than a few CVs come in with all sorts of strange jobs listed on them.
What I want to do here is give some tips on how to best list a content mill on your resume. Because there are ways to do it, and then there are ways to not do it.
Can you Make a Living For Content Mills?
So, one of the reasons that listing a content mill on your resume is a bit of a red flag is that you can’t really make a living working for a content mill. As the name suggests, these places are built to outsource labor. They pay well below a living wage and it’s often used as supplemental income for people who have a hard to finding full time work.
Recruiters and hiring managers don’t tend to like to see work from home jobs of this sort on resumes.
Part of the reason is that it’s not a salaried role, but it more of a pay per task based business.
And there’s nothing wrong with working for a content mill, as it affords people leisure to work on their own schedule. However, that’s not what employers like to see. They want people who will be at their beck and call. Even remote workers and people who work full time from home are responsible for answering emails, jumping on zoom conferences, and attending to business at all hours.
So, the content mill is not considered a real job in the eyes of employers who want to hire an employee. Simply because of the two things mentioned: you can’t make a full time living at it, and you create your own schedule.
What Do Recruiters Think of Content Mills?
Most recruiters don’t even know what a content mill is. Really no one outside of the specialized industry of online digital marketing knows, or the freelance writers who write for them.
Some recruiters who work in digital marketing hiring will know, but the average recruiter won’t know.
That’s actually a good thing. It means that you can list the company and not be worried that the recruiter will think it’s a cheap content mill. Because they won’t have ever heard of it.
So that means that you have an opportunity to finesse your resume anyway you want. The recruiter doesn’t know that the content mill is a content mill. So, use the formal name of the place: be it Textbroker, CrowdContent, Constent Content, Scripted, or whatever other content mill you are working for.
The odds are that your average recruiter will have no idea what a content mill is, let alone be familiar with the name of the company.
When you add in that the concept of digital marketing is not well understood by most even in the field, it’s not an issue to list it on your resume.
90 percent recruiters will have never heard of the term content mill, perhaps an even higher number if you’re working with recruiters who have never worked in digital marketing.
How Do You List a Content Mill on Your Resume?
Because the recruiters haven’t heard about this sort of work, then you can basically create your own profile for the job.
Here is where you will be able to make the role sound less “work at home jobs” and more “content creation” jobs.
The approach that I suggest you take is to make sure that you phrase your work as a content writer, a digital marketer, a copy editor, or anything that aligns with traditional work and traditional roles.
I also think that you need to make sure that your resume is crafted to fit in with the firms goals. There are a ton of tweaks that you can make with your resume to make sure that it’s exactly what the hiring manager is looking for.
Make it seem like it was a legitimate job, and not some work from home content mill. Even if the recruiter happens to google the company, most of the content mill sites are not going to say outright that they are paying low prices for content for cheap web services.
You never want to alert the hiring team that you worked for a content mill, so try and make it seem like a big digital marketing firm where you wrote copy. The odds are that the recruiter won’t know the difference.
You should try and avoid any discussion of a work from home company that pays people per task.
These are not considered real jobs by companies. They are talked about online as “beer money” jobs, or jobs for WAHM (work at home moms) or other terms, but they are not professional work.
Now, don’t get upset if you happen to work for a content company. They pay you for doing a task, which is all that’s expected.
However, you should know that hiring managers for companies that have salaried employees see these roles as not “real” jobs, so you should do your best to present the job as a legitimate company.
Employers and recruiters are looking for people who have a proven ability to work for a company. Unfortunately when you work for a content mill writing copy for their clients online, it doesn't prove that you know how to be a productive full time employee.
Here's some takeaways:
- Content Mills are not "real jobs" in the eyes of an employer
- Avoid terms like: Work From Home Content Writer
- Tailor Your Resume for The Job
- Make Your Job Sound Official
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