The advertising industry has long sought ways to make job postings feel like entertainment, and now Fox One and Indeed have arrived at what may be the logical conclusion of that impulse: a position that is, quite literally, watching television.
The companies are conducting a search for what they are calling a "Chief World Cup Watcher," a title that carries the bureaucratic weight of the C-suite while describing an activity more commonly associated with couches and snack foods. The compensation is $50,000 for six weeks of work, which works out to roughly $8,333 per week, or approximately what a junior copywriter at a midsized agency earns in a month (though typically without the glass enclosure).
The enclosure is, in fact, a central feature of the position. The selected candidate will watch all 39 days of the FIFA World Cup from inside a glass cube, live-streaming the experience for what the companies promise will be "thousands of people" who "will take photos" and "silently evaluate your reaction" to the proceedings on the pitch.
Applicants are instructed to submit a short video explaining their qualifications, which appear to consist primarily of the ability to remain engaged during extra time and, one assumes, a certain comfort with being observed like a specimen in a museum of contemporary marketing.
The search represents a collaboration between Fox, which holds the domestic broadcast rights to the World Cup, and Indeed, the employment platform that is part of Recruit Holdings of Japan. It is the latest entry in a category of promotional employment that includes Heineken's "vacation sponsorship" posts and various other campaigns that blur the line between job and stunt.
Whether the winner will list the position on their résumé afterward remains, perhaps mercifully, unclear.