Thursday, September 21, 2017

Over Time

I'm pretty sure that if I scoured this blog, I would find at least one other job posting from the company Geonetric, which has its headquarters in Cedar Rapids. I am also pretty sure that I have applied for a job at the company, but my resume has never made it to the point where I was asked to come in for an interview. Thus, I am, apparently, not a good fit for the company. I know of one technical writer, who lives in North Liberty, who used to work at Geonetric. I'm not making a judgment about any of the following:
  1. the company is a good place to work or not
  2. the company valued his role in the company or not
The fact is simply that he left the company and now works at the U of I, as a writer. I talked to him through LinkedIn after he joined the U of I.

All that said, whenever I read a job description for a position at Geonetric, I read pretty much the same text:

  • Self-organized. There are no managers at Geonetric. You’ll be a part of a self-organizing team, with no one “supervising” you. You should naturally get a lot of high quality work done to completion without outside pressure.
  • A doer. You need to be capable of identifying and resolving obstacles, using strong reasoning skills and creative thinking to get things done. You need to have a strong attention to detail, a drive for quality, and a willingness to see things through to completion.
  • Flexible. You need to be able to work in an environment in which there is substantial ambiguity; things change rapidly and often, and you need to adapt to new ways of thinking.
  • Self-aware. You need to be able to see yourself and your own behaviors from the perspective of others – and understand how your behaviors affect those of your peers on your self-organizing team.
  • Driven to improve. You need to have a strong desire to be better tomorrow than you are today. You are constantly seeking ways to improve your own work. You’re passionate about your discipline.
  • A solid communicator. You need to be able to take input from many sources, think through that information, and present concise, clear recommendations to technical and non-technical people.

As I said, I have no insight about what working at Geonetric is like on a daily basis because I've never worked there. I can say I do like those bullet points and, if the job description is accurate and the culture is as described above, I think it would be an awesome place to work.

That said, I am not applying for the job as I am VERY happy where I am working.

Proposal Writer
Geonetric - Cedar Rapids, IA 52401

Summary


As a Proposal Writer your product is the proposal. You’ll manage all aspects of proposal management from maintaining proposal software to writing proposals to evaluating results. You’ll work across Geonetric teams to stay on top of all Geonetric products and services. You’ll translate technical into marketable and by understanding your audience and key competitors. You’ll tell the Geonetric story through compelling executive summaries. And, you’ll do this all on time and flawlessly. As a Proposal Writer, you are an integral piece of the sales process, making sure the proposal is consistent with other sales documents.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities


While you might get to work on just about anything at Geonetric, you’ll primarily:
  • Manage the overall proposal product and process with the goal of moving the product forward and responding to RFPs in a comprehensive and urgent manner
  • Collaborate with multiple teams, including engineering, digital marketing, sales and implementation in order to create a custom proposal for prospective clients
  • Create, update, and maintain templates for proposals, ensuring accuracy, persuasiveness, quality, readability, consistency, and proper tone and voice
  • Stay on top of current Geonetric products and services and incorporate changes and enhancements into proposal language ensuring current specifications are reflected
  • Ensure all proposal content aligns with marketing guidelines and brand specifications
  • Review other sales materials to ensure consistency with all touchpoints in the sales process
  • Customize proposals for the target audience by altering language and tone and tailoring the executive summary
  • Meet proposal deadlines by establishing priorities and target dates for information gathering, writing, review, and approval
  • Measure the success of the proposal process by establishing metrics, monitoring results and recommending improvements
  • Continually reassess proposal and process by understanding market trends, positioning against competitor’s offerings, and monitoring feedback from prospects and clients. Maintain, optimize and leverage proposal software
  • Collaborate with sales and marketing to create other sales and marketing materials, as needed

Education and Experience

  • Bachelor’s degree in Business, Marketing, Finance, English or related field required
  • 5+ years of previous related experience required

Professional Skills

  • Strong storytelling skills required
  • Ability to synthesize large volumes of information and express them clearly in writing required
  • Excellent proofreading and grammatical skills required
  • Exceptional written and oral communication skills required
  • Strong analytical skills required
  • Knowledge of healthcare and software industries preferred
  • Ability to understand technical language preferred

Other Skills and Abilities


In addition to being an amazing Proposal Writer, you’ll need to fit into our unique culture and be:
Editor's Note: The bullets listed in this section in the job ad are the same as the bullets quoted above - do you need to read them twice?


    No comments: