Content Lead, Online Communities EMEA

Hi, I’m Anum, Head of Content & U.S. Community here at Ashby. I joined Ashby in 2023 to develop and lead our content marketing strategy. From producing endless content formats in the pre-IPO days of HubSpot to running (and later selling) my own media startup, my 12+ years in the industry have been filled with opportunities to push the needle of how content should evolve within an organization. I’m fortunate to be at a company where leadership is fully bought into the value of content and where written communication skills are a requirement for everyone who joins the marketing team. This allows me to avoid the gloom of a service-oriented content team that is simply shipping blindly and managing copywriting requests to instead building a one-of-kind strategic team that owns key content pillars including our Offer Accepted podcast, senior talent leader courses on Hiring Excellence and AI, and all sessions for our Ashby One conference.

One of the most important elements of our entire marketing strategy is our investment in Community. Rather than sitting in one team, Community is spread across every marketer’s scope of work in some form. Expanding the Ashby Community was one of the callouts in our Series D fundraise. To help us further strengthen this muscle, we’re looking for a Content Lead to take ownership of Online Communities, which is currently owned across the team. As the director of the team, I have owned LinkedIn monitoring to date (which may surprise some, but shows how we think of this channel as a strategic investment vs a “channel to monitor”). Shannon Ogborn has brought our RecOps Community to an incredible state ready for further exploring as she doubles down on in-person Community initiatives. And so many conversations are emerging organically about Ashby, which means the way in which we help show up for the people showing up for us needs to advance.

This role isn’t just a digital moderator, it’s someone who will champion our strongest advocates and build needed resources for the industry that are largely absent today. We’re looking for someone interested in exploring how AI can help you unlock more productivity in a traditionally manual role, become a trusted voice in talent and recruiting circles, and help surface insights that get embedded across our Marketing team strategy.

You may be curious as to why this role sits on a Content team. We believe Content is the core of what makes a great Community experience: The resources, communication, and conversation all come from excellent written and verbal skills. We believe the work threads nicely and allows you to do interesting and exciting work as your career at Ashby evolves.

In true startup fashion, my 2.5 years at Ashby has seen a range of projects outside the traditional content role, from developing our annual company Keynote to leading PR for our Series C&D raise. I share this to reflect the special team we’re building at Ashby: one filled with people who are just as passionate about untangling big, complex challenges as they are about rolling up their sleeves to do the critical foundational work that enables us to stand out in our space. I promise to be right in the weeds with you to solve projects big and small together.

What you’ll be responsible for in this role

Shape Ashby’s organic Reddit presence.
You’ll build and own Ashby’s strategy for how we show up in recruiting-focused Reddit communities — defining our engagement tone, managing the u/Ashby account, launching the r/Ashby subreddit, and ensuring our voice is consistent, credible, and transparent. You’ll monitor mentions and trends with AI tools, respond thoughtfully to misinformation, and foster authentic discussion around topics that matter to recruiters and recruiting ops professionals.

Grow and energize our Recruiting Operations Slack Community.
You’ll evolve our existing RecOps Slack group from a quietly growing space into a vibrant hub of discussion, knowledge-sharing, and connection. From conversation prompts and AMAs to collaborative workshops, you’ll shape how members engage and find value while always ensuring the community remains practitioner-first and non-promotional.

Translate conversation into insight.
You’ll synthesize what you hear across Reddit, Slack, and Linkedin to surface patterns, feedback, and sentiment shifts that inform Ashby’s marketing, product, and brand strategies. You’ll turn these learnings into concise internal reports that help the business stay attuned to the real conversations shaping the talent industry.

Keep a pulse on Ashby’s LinkedIn community.
You’ll monitor engagement and conversations happening across Ashby’s LinkedIn page and the broader network of posts mentioning us. You’ll thoughtfully track when it’s best for individuals versus the brand to respond, surface insights about what’s resonating with the talent audience, and flag opportunities for us to join or amplify conversations that align with our voice and values. This is a high value pillar of the company (as the Director of Content, I have owned it to date!) vs a tedious role to check off a list.

Build frameworks that scale.
You’ll create playbooks for community engagement: tone guidelines, moderation standards, escalation paths, and reporting cadences, ensuring Ashby’s participation in these spaces is sustainable, compliant, and consistent as we grow.

Champion conversation as a brand pillar.
You’ll help Ashby become known not just for the content we publish, but for the conversations we shape. Whether it’s sparking peer-to-peer exchanges in Slack or joining nuanced industry debates online, you’ll bring Ashby’s expertise and humility to the table.

Find new opportunities for community and conversation.
You’ll explore where else Ashby should meaningfully show up, whether that’s launching a new space for additional ICPs or collaborating with existing communities. You’ll design thoughtful frameworks for how we own and nurture multiple “homes” over time, ensuring each space remains active, purposeful, and aligned to Ashby’s values.

You will probably love this role if

• You’re motivated by building something foundational. You see a Slack community not as a moderation project but as a signature brand pillar that you’ll shape, grow, and evolve.

• You’re equally comfortable with big-picture strategy and end-to-end ownership, setting vision, defining cadence, and also rolling up your sleeves to bring it to life.

• You get energy from people, bringing a real human spirit to every interaction whether 1:many in a forum or 1:1 in a close community group.

• You have strong instincts for tone and timing. You know when a moment calls for transparency, humor, or restraint, and can represent Ashby with credibility in nuanced public conversations.

• You’re naturally curious about what makes online communities tick; you don’t just participate, you analyze why something resonated, who influenced it, and how we can learn from it. This includes the desire to explore new ways community is evolving through AI productivity, AEO/GEO-influence, and evolving strategy.

• You can translate patterns into stories. When you notice a recurring Reddit critique or a new Slack trend, your instinct is to turn it into insight that shapes how Marketing and Product show up next.

• You see the devil in the details. This role will require keeping a sharp eye on community application reviews, LinkedIn mentions, Slack conversations, Reddit threads, and more.

• You can navigate chaos with clarity and organization. Unlike many other aspects of Marketing, Community tooling is still catching up in helping operationalize workflows and unlock insights. While AI enables some interesting opportunities, there is still an area of this work that is connecting the dots between documents and manual email and getting creative with how we measure engagement and activity.

• You find fulfillment in subtle wins: the well-placed comment, the thoughtful follow-up, the post that sparks 50 replies instead of 500 likes.

This role is not for you if

• You’re looking for a traditional community role where the work is primarily moderating and flagging content behind a brand name; this is about being an active, visible representative of Ashby and building genuine relationships with people in talent and recruiting.

• You prefer to follow established playbooks rather than inventing new and unchartered ways to educate, distribute, and engage an audience.

• You’re uncomfortable navigating skepticism or debate. Reddit and professional communities require thoughtful engagement and emotional maturity.

• You shy away from writing. Even though this isn’t a copywriting role, success depends on strong, concise, and conversational writing across posts, comments, and community communications.

• You’re uncomfortable with autonomy or struggle to work independently. Our team thrives in a low-meeting, high-ownership culture where you drive your own deadlines and direction.

• You’d rather focus on narrow functional expertise. This role requires end-to-end ownership: strategy, moderation, content.

• You are not interested in learning SaaS products. While we do not expect you to be a product expert, consistently learning about the Ashby platform and its unique differentiations to weave seamlessly into your work will be key to being successful on this time. You are expected to learn our product well enough to do a sales demo confidently and have had enough experience in B2B to flex in here.

• You operate solely off specific KPIs. While our team sets goals and holds ourselves accountable to a high standard, we do not set arbitrary traffic or activity goals as the driving force of success. We develop the best content in the space and let our demand gen partners in marketing to have the best content for any need.

Interview Plan

At Ashby, our team and interview process want to help you show your best self. We’ll dive into past projects and simulate working together via project working sessions. Our interview process is:

1. 30-minute intro call (Recruiter Screen)

2. 45-minute interview with Anum Hussain (Hiring Manager)

3. 30-minute interview with Harriet Johnston (VP, Marketing)

4. A take home assignment which you’ll have 30 mins to discuss with the hiring team

5. A virtual on-site of 45 mins with a panel of interviewers – this will be with Shannon Ogborn, Community Lead, and Euphonia Xu, Director of Demand Generation

6. 30-minute interview with Benji (CEO)

Benefits

• Competitive salary and equity.

• Opportunity to work with a talented and passionate team.

• 10-year exercise window for stock options. You shouldn’t feel pressure to purchase stock options if you leave Ashby —do it when you feel financially comfortable.

• Unlimited PTO with four weeks recommended per year. Expect “Vacation?” in our one-on-one agenda until you start taking it 😅.

• Twelve weeks of fully paid family leave in the US. We plan to expand this to employees in other countries as situations arise.

• Generous equipment, software, and office furniture budget. Get what you need to be happy and productive!

• $100/month education budget with more expensive items (like conferences) covered with manager approval.

• If you’re in the US, top-notch health insurance for you and your dependents with all premiums covered by us, and a 401k match.

Ashby’s success hinges on hiring great people and creating an environment where we can be happy, feel challenged, and do our best work. We’re being deliberate about building that environment from the ground up. I hope that excites you enough to apply.

Ashby provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetics, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. We are committed to a diverse and inclusive workforce and welcome people from all backgrounds, experiences, perspectives, and abilities.