Editorial Articles

Despite the recent economic woes, the digital market exploded in 2009 and arguably was one of the few sectors that weathered the recession. From a hiring perspective, the first quarter of 2010 has seen a huge upturn in vacancy levels and we expect this to continue throughout the year as organisations constantly look at the return on investment on their marketing campaigns.

On a general level, there is huge demand for digital specialists across the board ranging from web developers and designers through to digital media experts who understand direct marketing in a cross-channel environment. For those organisations who have really bought into digital tools such as social media, hiring specialists to help them understand how consumers interact with content, and then building relevant, meaningful relationships with them, is crucial. The music industry is a prime example of this – all the major record labels are investing heavily in social and community media marketing channels as they look for new revenue streams in a rapidly evolving market that can no longer just be about track downloads.

In terms of specific skill sets, social media and search is high up on employers’ wish lists as is expertise in front end web development and design. Additionally, experience of search engine optimisation, accessibility and information architecture is highly valued. As more organisations seek to measure the impact of this new generation of marketing tools, experience of and expertise in analytics and measuring return on investment is in high demand.

However, from a staff perspective, the market, despite its rapid growth is still immature with a limited talent pool, particularly in the community/social media arena. And it’s a pool that has historically been dominated by the agency side. We are however seeing increasing numbers of client side organisations wanting to lessen their total reliance on agencies and who now have the appetite for hiring their own in house expertise to maximise the revenue generating potential of these new channels - and at the same time increase the ownership and accountability of their own marketing efforts. There’s a big emphasis on integration and the agency side is responding to this by developing special units that focus on integrated strategy. And while there is no doubt that the agency side has flourished and has experienced exponentially high growth rates for its services, there is now a danger that the feeding frenzy for talent and the immaturity of the market may lead to the agency side becoming victims of a brain drain.

The other major issue is that the talent pool is dominated by Generation Y who are motivated by a variety of different things and will move jobs regularly to get what they want – whether that’s money, lifestyle, working hours, culture, benefits or location. Consequently employers have to be far more innovative with retention strategies and smarter about the way they structure reward packages if they are to attract and retain the best talent. Flexibility is also important. While the talent pool is small – it is also very diverse in term of skill sets and job titles. The digital marketing mix covers a wide range of areas – and is an ever evolving market - covering not only social media but affiliate marketing, CRM, SEO and online PR. Consequently, it may not be immediately obvious from someone’s job title that they have the key skill sets that an employer may be looking for. In a candidate short market that means organisations could be missing out on the very talent that they need.

Sophie Waterhouse 
Manager, Digital & Technology Division, Handle Recruitment