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Article: Lisa Sanders, editor, Hunt-Scanlon

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Lisa Sanders, editor, Hunt-Scanlon

The accomplished Lisa Sanders is the editor in chief of Hunt-Scanlon.  Vault caught up with her to find out about her career experience.

Vault.com: Talk about your past work experience.
Lisa Sanders: I joined Hunt-Scanlon in March 1999.  I came from Crain's New York Business.  I was a beat reporter, covering restaurants, hotels, tourism, and big companies.  [Before that] I was working at Business Week as a staff editor - I split time between the Up Front section and personal business stories.  Before Business Week, I was a reporter at Forbes, and then became deputy chief of reporters, which was an administrative role - hiring and training reporters in addition to reporting.  Prior to that I worked at a magazine called Frequent Flyer.  And prior to that, I was at Conde Nast - I had a job at Vogue, fact checking.  I was also an editorial assistant at Mademoiselle, which was probably the biggest waste of time of my life.

V: So Hunt-Scanlon is your first Internet-related venture?
LS: It is my first Internet-related venture.  I met [founders Christopher Hunt and Scott Scanlon] when I was at Business Week - they were sources for executive recruiting. I knew a bit about staffing in general, because I had worked for my father's temp staffing service during and right after college. One aspect of it that I found fascinating was that finding the right person for the right job truly is a skill. At Business Week, where I covered executive search, I was intrigued by the role of technology in a recruiter's job, but the online recruitment industry was still pretty new then.

V: What brought you to it?
LS: Chris and Scott came to me saying that they were starting a newsletter, and asked if I would be interested in editing it.  That was Online Recruiting Strategist. When we relaunched our company's web site, we found that we really wanted to create greater interactivity, so we started our weekly Newswire. 

~ V: Were you able to do anything to prepare for the Internet side of things?
LS: To be honest, no.  When I started, Hunt-Scanlon wasn't really online - I was just reporting on an industry that was online.

V: Sounds like you pretty much had to learn as you went, having come from a print background.
LS: The job isn't that different except for speed.  I've never worked at a daily, but I think it's probably closest to that.  The only limit is just how much you can do physically, emotionally, and intellectually.

But working in an Internet environment, it was hard at first to get used to just how quickly things can change.  We had to set some guidelines to what we could do - we don't have the sheer time or manpower to do some things. 

V: Was it hard getting up to speed?
LS: There's a huge learning curve intellectually.  You have to become more conversant in the terms and in the industry.  Because the online recruitment industry changes so quickly, everybody's trying to keep up.  At Hunt-Scanlon, becoming more of an Internet-based company definitely required a change for all of us.  What we thought we would do three months ago is not what we're going to do [now].  You really have to be flexible.

V: What other kinds of changes did you have to get used to?
LS: The hours.  These jobs require different hours.  In this company a lot of people are doing a lot of different things.  I'm used to working in larger organizations - it's different coming from a big organization where somebody else is setting deadlines.

V: Talk about your current position.
LS: I'm the Editor-in-Chief of Online Recruiting Strategist, a newsletter that comes out 10 times a year, and the Editor-in-Chief of Executive Search Review.  I also launched Newswire, a weekly roundup of news and trends in the industry, like staffing and executive search.  And I have a role with our market intelligence unit - a separate division of the company that does surveys and reports and uses them to create industry overviews. I also manage another editor in our publishing unit.

~ V: Can you detail the kinds of tasks you handle?
LS: We create all the copy for the site, so there's a lot of reporting, writing, organization, and meeting with sources.  I'm glad I had beat reporting experience [for that work].  I also interact with the art department, making sure everything gets out on time, and interact with the market intelligence group.  That's peer review rather than editing. 

V: What skills does it take to do your job?
LS: That's a tricky one.  Strong reporting and writing skills of course - the skills are not that different from print.  From a journalist's perspective, I'm glad I had a print background - everything I did applies here.  So much information is available now, we must be careful what we put on our web site in terms of accuracy and sourcing.  In print, there's a clear delineation between editorial and [the work of] the marketing team and the sales team.  In the online world?the lines are a little blurrier.

The hardest part, though, is the emotional adjustment to being in an environment where the turnaround time is very quick.  You need to have a tremendous amount of flexibility and a tremendous amount of energy.  Don't get your heart set on the idea that you'll have a set routine.  Every day is going to be a little different.  You might have to rethink a plan you had two weeks ago.

V: The job also requires a great deal of creativity, doesn't it?
LS: Business Week was the largest organization I worked for.  You had to go through three levels of editors to get an idea approved.  You were using your political capital.  That doesn't happen here.  It's incredibly freeing - I can create my own stories or new sections due to the lack of hierarchy.  That's been fun.  I didn't expect it - if I went back to a traditional print [outfit] I would miss that.

V: Do you have to put in a lot of hours?
LS: The summer was OK.  I'd say the fall was pretty heavy, with a lot of weekends and a lot of late nights.  We've hired people though, so we're trying to create a little order in the chaos.

~ I think journalists are an undervalued class (Laughs).  You read what Forrester and GartnerGroup write, and it's not that different from what journalists do, but the difference in pay is incredible.  Leaving traditional print has really opened my eyes.  The ability to ask people the right questions, get them to clarify their answers, and then to write a compelling story from the interview is a valuable skill that many people don't have.

V: What would someone in your line of work do next?
LS: You can do so many things.  I would assume there will be a continued need for people who can write copy fast.  I could continue to be a writer or reporter in a news organization or the recruitment business. Or I could change industries, and maybe go into recruiting or consulting.

V: Do you have any advice for people interested in this industry?
LS: You have to be able to let go of structure.  It's weird to work for a company that changes very quickly.  It changes how you use your time.  (Laughs) I guess I'm a control freak, but one thing that helps me accomplish my goals is that I have authority over projects from start to finish.