Copylab

One of the jobs I applied for recently was with Copylab, which has both in-house writers and freelancers. It’s a similar (but larger) set-up to my friend Kyle’s system: provide an outsourcing outlet for financial companies, particularly during quarter end.

I spent all day today, and I mean ALL day, on two tests--an editing test and a writing test. I found it very challenging to verify all the information in the editing test, which explained market performance for the month of April. Each index’s performance was reported in multiple currencies (six index returns included, plus info on the price of oil, copper, interest rates and so on). When I worked at Vanguard, I had access to all kinds of databases. What I found as an outsider was that websites are much more keen to give you performance over the last hour than over the last month. When you could find monthly performance, it was as of the previous day, not as of April 30. And I completely failed to find returns in multiple currencies. It took forever to fact check every sentence. I gave up on some of them. Here’s the first paragraph, as edited, of a 640-word document:

Following a strong rebound in March, stock markets around the globe continued to rise in April. The MSCI All Country World Index rose by 0.8% in local currency terms and 1.5% in U.S. dollars, however it fell by –0.4% in British Sterling due to the strengthening pound. Oil price strength and benign central bank policy direction supported equities. Positive economic data included gross domestic product figures that exceeded forecasts and improved trade figures from both China and the eurozone. However markets also had to absorb poorer-than-expected economic growth figures from the U.S. and the U.K.
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