Copywriting inside the box

What do freelance copywriters do? I’m not sure anymore, especially after getting a phone call from a headhunter yesterday. He said he didn’t specialise in creative people but a client had asked him to find a freelance copywriter and somehow he'd found me.

So I sent him my CV with a link to my online portfolio and he quickly got back to me.

“So you’re a copywriter, yes?” he said.

I agreed.

“But there’s not that much writing on your website.”

“That’s because it’s mostly about ideas.”

“But you’re a copywriter.”

“Well yes, but I’m also jointly responsible for the visual ideas in an execution.”

“So you’re a designer too?”

“Well no, I’m not actually a designer, but at the end of the day we often can’t remember who came up with the design and who came up with the headline.”

“So you do do design?”

“It depends on the job. I don’t execute design but sometimes the art director or I come up with the visual idea together, sometimes I come up with the visual idea on my own and brief the designer, and sometimes the designer comes up with the visual idea and briefs me on the copy.”

“So you do write copy?”

I decided not to tell him about the strategic planning, IA and project management sides of my copywriting life.

Don't suppose I’ll hear from him again though.