At YNAB, we build the world’s best budgeting software. But teaching people how to get control of their money and changing lives, one budget at a time, is what gets us up in the morning. Over the years we’ve slowly gained some notoriety (the good kind!) but there are still a whole lot of people who have never heard of us, and it’s a budgeting shame.
We’re looking for a natural storyteller, connector, and media whisperer, with years of public relations experience, to help us raise our profile.
You have experience working with influencers and understand that bigger isn’t always better, but also, that sometimes, it is. You’re flexible like that. In fact, while reading the last two sentences, you began making a mental list of people you’d want to connect with right out of the gate.
You see opportunities all around you and the thought of cold-calling a potential partner and pitching a potential project or campaign sounds thrilling. If you’re thinking, “Where is the challenge in that? I may even get an invite to the wedding!”, you just might be our person.
You understand what makes a great story and what makes something media-worthy. And you love nothing more than packaging it all up and getting it in front of the right person, at the right time.
When you look at all the awesome content the YNAB marketing team produces, you can’t help but think of 14 other ways you would promote it. Don’t be shy—we can’t wait to hear your ideas.
If you are the right person for the job you’ll have the following experience and/or qualities:
- Experience in public relations, influencer marketing, affiliate marketing, referral marketing, and/or partner marketing
- A sense of humor and the ability to think on your feet (this sounds like improv, which isn’t a requirement, but how awesome is improv?!)
- Strong skills as a writer, communicator, and negotiator
- Strategic-minded planner who can execute the details without losing sight of the big picture
- An assertive, proactive personality that is energized at the prospect of building new relationships, partnerships, and programs
- A natural-bridge builder that can’t help but make connections, build consensus, and invite collaboration
- Excellent time management skills which make juggling multiple projects, priorities, and pitches look easy
That gives you a pretty good idea of the job and who we’re looking for, but first, you need to know if you’ll even like working with us. (Spoiler alert: We think you will.)
A Bit About Us
We build the best budgeting software around, YNAB or “You Need a Budget” if you have a lot of extra time on your hands. For more than a decade, people have been buying YNAB and then telling their friends what a difference it has made in their lives. (
Google us, or read some of our
reviews on the app store, and you’ll see what we mean.) We love building something that has a huge positive impact on people’s lives.
We’re profitable, bootstrapped, and growing. YNAB started in 2004 and we haven’t taken any outside funding—we’re in it for the long haul.
We have one overarching requirement when it comes to joining our team: our
Core Value Manifesto has to really
click with you. If you’re nodding emphatically while reading it, you’ll probably fit right in, in which case, we can’t wait to hear from you!
First, let’s talk about life at YNAB and then we’ll go into detail about what we’re looking for.
Who you’d be working with:
Lindsey & The Gang aka the Marketing Team aka just a rag-tag but lovable bunch of underdogs who defy the odds—making budgeting software hilarious, emotional, and accessible—day in and day out. (Disney, are you listening?)
We love musical theater, board games, stand-up comedy, the Enneagram, video games, and art, to varying degrees, depending on who you talk to first. (Oh, and Ryan likes sports.) Our internal Slack channel is so much fun, it has a growing fanbase of its own.
Lindsey, our Chief Marketing Officer, will be the first to delete something very important, but also the first to celebrate your wins—big and small. Ryan, our Digital Marketing Director, will quickly become your lifeline in any type of bracketology-related emergency and even under website-launch-level-stress, he can sneak in the jokes that make you feel like, “if Dad’s OK, we’ll all be OK.”
You’ll collaborate a lot with Rachel, who leads out on the blog, possibly from Hawaii, where she’s working from an AirBnB for a month or two, because she’s cool like that. And Janelle, who is the hilarious brain behind our social media. Of course, there is also Ashley and Hannah, who are growing our YouTube channel, and basically scream “lifestyle partnerships!” with their very existence. And then there are awesome teachers Erin, Ben, and Kelly, who are building out educational content and self-paced courses, that are begging to be discovered by the right verticals and communities… And that’s not even everybody!
It’s a strong, creative, hilarious team that genuinely enjoys each other and their work.
How You’ll Work at YNAB
We work really hard to make working at YNAB an amazing experience. In fact, we were recently recognized as
Fortune's #4 best small company to work for in the United States! We have a team full of truly exceptional people—the kind you’ll be excited to work with. Here’s how we operate:
Live Where You Want
We’re a distributed team, so you can live and work wherever you want. Proximity doesn’t influence productivity. Taylor, our CTO, was traveling who-knows-where for a couple of years before he bought a farm. Up and move to France for a year? Sure, Todd did that. Don’t like France? How about London, where Janelle trotted off to. Tulsa Remote? Can do. Or if you just love LA or Baltimore or Buenos Aires, we’ve got people there, too. Not all of us move around, but the fact that these folks have is totally okay because we’re all adults. Just make sure you have a reliable internet connection.
No Crazy Hours
We rarely work more than 40 hours per week. There have been a few occasions where things got a little crazy and people had to log some extra hours. But then they took some extra time off, so it all balances out. We work hard and smart but we’re in this for the long haul, no need to go crazy on the hours.
Take Vacation (Seriously)
We want you to take vacation. In fact, we have a minimum vacation policy of three weeks per year. Five weeks feels about right (plus two extra weeks for Christmas break). It’s important to get out and do something. We’ll look forward to seeing pictures of your vacation in our Slack channel, creatively named #office_wall.
The YNAB Meetup
We get the teams together once a year to catch up on spreadsheets and powerpoints in a Best Western conference room. Just kidding. So far, we’ve done
Costa Rica, a
gigantic cabin in the mountains, a beach house in the Outer Banks, a ranch in Montana, and most recently,
Laguna Beach. We work together, play together, and reinforce the bonds we’ve made as a team and company. Every year, we leave refreshed, motivated, and excited for the year ahead together.
Up Your Game
We’re serious about helping you improve your craft. We budget for it (hey-o!). Think conferences, Lynda subscriptions, dedicated time away from work to learn something new… it’s really up to you and your manager. But we love to see our people growing.
International is Absolutely Okay
If you are Stateside, we’ll set you up as a W2 employee. If you’re international, you’ll be set up as a contractor. Employee or contractor, it’s all the same to us. You’re part of the team. (We are spread all over the world: Switzerland, Scotland, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Canada, and all over the United States.)
If You’re Stateside…
YNAB offers fantastic health, dental, and vision insurance, where we cover 100% of the premium for you and your family. (No need to check your vision, you read that right, 100%. Although if you did need to check your vision, NBD, we’ve got you covered!)
We also have a Traditional and Roth 401k option. YNAB contributes three percent whether you choose to throw any money in there or not. It vests immediately. (Are you a personal finance junkie like our founder Jesse? He set up YNAB’s 401k to have the lowest fee structure possible, where all plan costs are paid by YNAB, not your retirementnest egg. The investment funds available are fantastic, passively-managed, ultra low-cost index funds. You’re not a PF junkie? Trust us, it’s awesome.)
Other Tidbits
- Once you start, we DEMAND (in a friendly, ALL CAPS IS YELLING way) that you fill out your “Bucket List” spreadsheet with 50 items. (That’s harder than it sounds!)
- The bucket list really helps in deciding what we should give you for your birthday and the holidays.
- We have a bonus plan based on profitability. You’ll be in on that from day one. YNAB wins, you win. That kind of thing.
- We’re all adults. There’s no need to punch a clock, or ask for permission to take off early one afternoon to go see the doctor (health insurance premium 100% covered!). We look at what you accomplish, not how long you sit (have you tried standing?) in front of a computer.
- We want you firing on all cylinders so we’ll set you up with a shiny new computer and replace it every three years.
- Did I mention we make a huge, positive difference in people’s lives? You may not think that matters much, but then a few months down the road you’ll realize it’s made your job really, really enjoyable. Don’t underestimate this one!
If this sounds like your ideal environment, read on because now I want to talk about you. You will play a big, big part in helping YNAB customers achieve success. You will change lives. I’ll only say that six more times.
Now, back to you, our new Public Relations Manager...
Before “content marketing” and “word-of-mouth marketing” were buzzwords, YNAB’s marketing efforts were anchored in content and community. It’s what we do best. But we have a lot of people focused on creating the content, and very few with bandwidth to really focus on promoting the content. This is where you come in.
You are full of ideas. There are influencers to work with, content partnerships to forge, referral strategies to execute, media stories to land!
You see our crazy, loyal fanbase and it gets your wheels spinning—oh, the things you could do with the two families who got YNAB license plates or the couple that threw a YNAB-themed Valentines date!
If we told you that we were getting users to opt-in to share their data anonymously so we could publish an Annual Report full of spending trends and averages, your head might explode with the media coverage potential. (Oh, the potential!!)
You are probably a storyteller in your own right, and although we have content creators, you wouldn’t be shy about diving right in and writing content for a partnership you are working on or an influencer campaign in the works.
You are our ideal candidate if you:
- Have at least 3-5 years of professional experience in public relations,
- Agency experience
- Excel at juggling multiple projects and timelines at any given moment and switching gears keeps you fresh and stimulated.
- Opportunistic and proactive about sourcing, developing, and executing potential partnerships, programs, and/or campaigns
- Energized at the thought of building something from nothing
- Comfortable initiating and maintaining relationships
- Understand how to pitch the right media, the right content, at the right time
- Persistent. Because media.
- Make us laugh.
- Manage your time exceptionally well and are comfortable working remotely.
- Incredibly organized, flexible, and collaborative.
- Never met a deadline you didn’t love.
- Self-motivated and driven by nature, maybe even a little competitive.
- Stay laser-focused on the big picture, without losing sight of every. last. detail.
- Wildly productive and independent, but a team-player at heart.
Bonus Points:
- You already use and love YNAB.
YNAB is an equal opportunity employer. We believe diversity of backgrounds, beliefs, and experiences to be critical to our success and are passionate about creating a welcoming, supportive, and collaborative environment for all employees. All are encouraged to apply as we continue to grow a smart, hard-working, and diverse team who love working together to build something that matters.
How to Apply
-
Apply here (https://ynab.recruiterbox.com/jobs/fk0qmzk) by 11:59PM on March 12th, 2020. Firm. It’s a real deadline. The kind you love.
- Attach a pdf of your cover letter. In your cover letter:
- Introduce yourself and explain why this position is of interest to you, and why you would be a great fit. Please limit this section of the cover letter to 1.5 pages.
- On a separate page of your cover letter, answer the following questions (with each response being about a paragraph in length):
- 1. What attracted you to this position? (This is not about what attracted you to the software.)
- 2. What criteria do you look for when searching for your next company or position?
- 3. What are your favorite and least favorite parts of your current job?
- 4. Tell us about a time when you had to learn something new to excel at your job.
- 5. We recently launched two self-paced video courses and have two more in the works. How would you go about driving people toward those resources?
- 6. Tell us about a campaign or program you built from concept to execution.
- 7. With what you know about our brand and our product, share some influencers or other brands that you think could be strong potential partners, and why.
- If you have a prepared resume, attach it in PDF form. If you don’t have a resume because you aren’t even sure you’re looking to change jobs, that’s fine! An informal list of your work and education history are all we’re looking for.
- Please send all attachments as PDFs.
P.S. If you’re not interested in or available for this position, but know someone who is, we would really appreciate it if you passed this along!