Sports Writer Job Description Template

Our company is in need of an enthusiastic sports fan and consummate writer to help us cover the exciting world of sports. Do you want to make a career by reporting on and analyzing the latest developments in the professional sports industry? Then you should join our team.

As a Sports Writer, you will meet a daily quota of well-researched and judiciously edited content on the latest news in [preferred sport(s)]. Working with our editorial staff, you will manage assigned topics and, as needed, pitch articles that you believe would be of value to our readers. When assigned topics, you will exhaustively research their details and draft compelling writing that informs and draws in our readers. You will incorporate all notes and feedback from the editorial team in the review process and produce finalized immaculately composed, and highly informative articles. 

Responsibilities

• Writing and editing content free of spelling, grammar, punctuation, and contextual errors about the sports world on a daily basis
• Staying up to date with the latest news in sports
• Making sure your writing follows our in-house style guide
• Researching your assigned topics in detail and identifying and incorporating relevant sources
• Coordinating with our content team to identify new story ideas 
• Reviewing and incorporating feedback from editors into subsequent written work
• Working within proposed content creation deadlines

Requirements

• Previous experience in professional sports writing
• Diploma in Journalism or English
• 3–5 samples of published work
• Knowledge of Associated Press style
• Enthusiasm for writing
• Engaging writing style that blends information with an interesting tone
• Editing experience is considered a plus

Salary Ranges for Sports Writers

According to Glassdoor, Sports Writers can make anywhere from $28,000–$136,000 in annual wages. Depending on a candidate’s experience level, education, additional skills, location, and many other factors, you may need to offer more. Check out how the salary for Sports Writers varies across the U.S.:

How To Tailor Your Sports Writer Job Description to Your Business Needs

While you may want to just copy and paste our job description for your Sports Writer ad, that won’t make for a very fruitful recruiting process. You want to attract candidates that have the skills and experience needed to do the job well. That’s why you need to modify the template slightly to properly inform the candidates about the exact qualifications you expect. 

In writing your job description, keep in mind that the sports world is massive. You won’t be able to find someone that can write with expertise on both American football and cricket. The more specific you can be about what type of experienced candidates you require, the better candidates you will find. 

Consider the following opportunities to specify your job description:

• Sports field—Identify what sport your publication needs to cover the most, and look for candidates with experience covering it
• Content type—Sports writing can include reporting on major trends, recapping specific games, or analyzing a single player’s performance over the course of a season. Determine what type of content works for your company, and specify it in your job ad

Complementary Roles to Sports Writers

Need to find other writers to produce content for different topics? Feel free to use our other job description templates:

• Nutrition Writer
• Entertainment Writer
• Travel Writer
• Political Writer
• Lifestyle Writer
• Fashion Writer
• Medical Writer
• Arts and Entertainment Writer
• Legal Writer
• Financial Writer

Get More Sports Writer Job Description Inspiration

Keep in mind that a good job description doesn’t just describe the job—it also presents your business as a great place to work. Find out how to position your workplace by reviewing a job description example or two—check out these other job posting websites:

1. Monster
2. Indeed
3. LinkedIn
4. Glassdoor

Learn how to lower your content cost by 50% and hire top talent

Pre-Employment Testing Is Difficult—You Can Make It Easy

With every job listing, you get a bundle of applications from unqualified candidates—with writing positions, the number of such candidates grows exponentially.

It’s difficult to understand how good someone is at writing from their portfolio alone—nobody shares their worst examples and unedited work. You need to introduce pre-hire testing to gauge your candidates’ skill set. If they can’t write a stellar test, how can they create high-quality content?

If you go down this route, you’ll need assistance. Keeping track of hundreds of candidates, sending and collecting tests, taking care of correspondence—it quickly turns into a disaster if you do it manually. Reliable skill assessment software will keep you organized and allow you to focus on other tasks. 

Workello is a high-volume recruiting solution that will help you automate assessments and the hiring process in general. Here’s how it works:

1. Sign up for free and set up your hiring funnel in under 3 minutes
2. Post job ads on your favorite job platforms and add a Workello link
3. Review applications from your dashboard
4. Send tests to filter high-quality writers from bad ones quickly
5. Reject, interview, and hire the best applicants

Hire the Top 1% Fast With Workello’s Pre-Hire Assessments

With Workello, you can assess, test, reject, interview, and hire candidates with a single click—all actions are available on your single-page dashboard. Move candidates through the funnel by changing their application status, and Workello will do the rest.

You can use our platform to send out copywriting, content writing, and technical writing tests automatically. If you’re looking for someone in the SEO department, make sure to test your SEO writers and SEO copywriters. Workello also supports content marketer testing.

Use our free trial and cut your hiring costs in half with an automated hiring funnel.