How to hire great people 🤩

Hey 👋

Welcome to Neighbourhood Post issue #30 - easy to implement digital marketing ideas straight through your metaphorical letterbox.

You made it to the bank holiday weekend - big congratulations.

This week’s email is a little different. We often get asked for advice and contacts for recruiting. So here are some things we’ve learnt.

👉 By the way, if you’ve missed previous newsletters you’ll find them here.

📩 And if you’ve been forwarded this email you can subscribe here.

How to recruit marketing talent ✨

Last week we had our team days in Eastbourne.

The perfect chance to get some new shots. 📸

Say hi 👋

I love working remotely, but I love team days even more!

Every month we get together to share ideas, stories and great food.

I’m blown away by how lucky we’ve been to find amazing people.

Recruitment has been a real journey for us. We’ve gone from 2 people to 7 in just 18 months, but it hasn’t been easy. We have a high bar and only offer jobs to exceptional people.

And sometimes we struggle to get a good number of applications.

It’s not just us though.

Across the industry, hiring great marketing talent is difficult. It’s not uncommon for us to cover recruitment gaps for clients that start at 3 months and last over a year.

If we’re connected on LinkedIn (if we’re not, we should be) then you’ll have seen me ask for recruitment advice before.

So here’s some of my own, and tips from others too:

#1 - Widen the talent pool

If you’ve struggled to recruit, there are three main areas you’ll need to revisit:

1. Salary - you might have to pay more to attract the right candidates

2. Location - Commutable distance from your office limits your choices

3. Experience - go for someone junior and train them up

Those are big sacrifices to make, but you’ll need to make at least one.

We chose to sacrifice location. Experience is the one we didn’t want to sacrifice on, because we need people to come in and hit the ground running.

#2 - Measure candidates against your values

Most organisations only think about values through the lens of current employees.

We have 5 values, and their most helpful application is in recruitment.

One of them is caring about each other’s lives outside of work. When you’re remote, the lines between work and life are so blurred we think it’s important to know each other professionally and personally.

Now that’s not everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s 100% fine.

But you probably won’t enjoy working with us!

Don’t just measure their experience and skill set, check how suitable of a cultural fit they’ll be for your team.

#3 - Look before you’re ready

Many a year ago, my old boss was recruiting for a very crucial, but niche, role in the organisation.

We all knew the outcome would make or break our short term success.

So he had a post-it note on his wall:

“What one thing can you do today to help with recruitment?”

Every day he would take one small action that would get him closer to finding the right person.

I’ve stolen that concept, we’ve had success with it in the past and we’ll continue to try it in the future too.

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I hope that’s helpful.

If you’re recruiting and want some more advice, reply to this email and let’s grab a coffee. ☕️

And if you need some extra capacity to help you cover a recruitment gap, you know where we are…

See you next week ✌️

What we’re looking at 👀 and listening to 👂

🎧 Checkout two podcasts we’ve been working on that have just launched new seasons: Re-Enchanting and Another Mother. Both amazing hosts and amazing conversations.

Before you go - we’ll never use these newsletters to directly sell you our services, but we’re always here if you need any expertise or support 👍