Blogs

We are very excited to introduce Steven Lord. A marketing manager @ Digital Next – a digital marketing agency making making marketing simple for businesses. We love innovative businesses so we met with Steven over a delicious coffee to understand his way of thinking when it comes to seeking new opportunities and finding candidates! This is why we love what we do! We want to bring you different perspectives to help your journey.

Shall we get started, Steven? “Let’s do it! I love doing things like this! It gets me thinking…”

Let’s start off with a simple, yet difficult question!

What does ‘Happiness at work’ mean to you?
“Honesty, I think for me, I’m someone that genuinely feels I need to have an impact. If I feel like my work is not having any impact on colleagues, the business, I would never find happiness. I’m the type of person who would never want things to be handed to me. I want to earn my place within a business by contributing and continuing to add value. The work culture plays a huge factor, too. Having great colleagues and friends is what makes working enjoyable”

When looking for a new opportunity, what are the most important factors you consider before accepting a role?

“Definitely, the progressiveness of the business. A business needs to show that they are exploring new things and being innovative. Something important to me is working with likeminded people in a comfortable and enjoyable environment.”

Everyone has settled at some point in their life. Why have you ‘settled’ for a role that is less than what you deserve?
“I think for me it’s fear. The fear of losing comfortability. No matter where I work, I feel like I can earn more when considering salary because of the value I add. A lot of the time, I think about taking the easy way out, but that’s just not me. I have worked in so many places where people earn more than me but don’t contribute anywhere near as much me. We all think we deserve better but it’s really about proving it and never giving up. I think a big issue is, I don’t think we are educated enough in exploring our inner self to find out what we are truly passionate about. These days people are stuck in a system lead by one lane. For example, you go to university to study law, therefore, you need to become a lawyer. That’s just not the case. We need to focus more on what we want.”

 ““Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. – Steven Jobs”

 

How long would you spend researching a business before applying for a position?
“I generally spend a number of hours researching a business. I believe businesses that invest in their own image are businesses I want to work for. I spend time looking at their website and what they’re all about. I also do what most people would do which is to check reviews using such platforms as glassdoor to see what the culture is like and see if it a good fit.”

Does a business’s values impact your decision to join them?
“If they have super strong values, than yes I think it would. Honestly, I feel every business has values that don’t actually mean anything. To be very honest, I wouldn’t even look at a business’s values. They’re generally just for marketing purposes.”

Dream job or dream company?
“Dream job. With my dream job, I would have some form of contribution when it comes to making decisions where I can then have an impact and turn it into the dream company. I think the way I’m wired, the dream company for me is my own company.”

Pay or Culture?

“Culture. Culture drives pay. If you have a good culture, the business will perform better than having a bad culture.

Is there an amount of money that would make you choose to pay over culture?

“There is no set amount of money that can alter my decision. Culture will also prevail”

What does your ideal leader look like?
“I’ve genuinely never had a leader. I’ve worked for businesses that are structured in a way where leaders never exist, and I do consider a leader to be above me, position-wise. A leader for me would have to be someone who is far more technically advanced. Someone who allows me to be autonomous but is readily available to check in with whenever required.

Have you ever looked up to someone you’ve worked with?

Honestly, no. I have not been fortunate to be surrounded by great examples of leaders.”

Now we’ve had a deep and meaning conversation to get to know you. This brings me to our final question from a candidate perspective.

Have you ever had a deep and meaningful conversation with recruiters with regards to your values and beliefs when looking for a new opportunity?
“No. And with my experience when it comes to hiring staff, I don’t see anyone having a deep and meaning conversation with a recruiter.”

It’s so great to see your perspective on what matters when looking for a new opportunity. Now, I know you’ve done quite the hiring in the past. Shall we get to know what type of hirer you are? I think so…

“Engaging the hearts, minds, and hands of talent is the most sustainable source of competitive advantage. – Greg Harris”

What’s your hiring approach when you need staff?

“We actually have two different approaches depending on what role we are hiring for. For a junior role, we constantly advertise for digital marketing specialists, so at any given point we have a pool of candidates to choose from when a role comes up. For our junior roles, we typically use cost-free platforms or our network to find people. We don’t have unlimited resources.”

For a senior role, our process is a bit different. Typically, we would advertise on SEEK, then see what happens from there. We typically receive quite a lot of applications, many not suitable. If we are unsuccessful, we would consider using a recruitment agency, but this is an obsolete last resort and something we try to steer clear from. Usually, we would try to utilize our network to find suitable candidates.

How long do you spend looking at a resume before deciding to move forward with a candidate?
“When we advertise on SEEK, we get upwards of 75 applications but out of those, we usually only use 20 or so that may be suitable for the position. For me, resumes are dead. Being in the digital space, if we are looking for a freelancer, they should have their own website to showcase themselves and their capabilities. If someone in the digital marketing space, doesn’t have a LinkedIn profile, we won’t consider them.

What makes someone stand out to you on a resume?
I was going to asked this question, but given your previous response… let’s move on!

Do you research potential candidates via social media?
“Considering the industry I’m in, I definitely look at people’s LinkedIn profiles. It’s quite a concern if a candidate didn’t have LinkedIn. If I’m looking for a freelancer than ideally, they should have their own website to demonstrate their capabilities but also express themselves”

Do you go a step further and research a candidate via facebook?
“It’s extremely rare should I go to facebook to do more research on a candidate. The only reason I would do this is if I had a bad feeling about a candidate and needed convincing.

How do you conduct your interviews? Do you do anything differently?
“We don’t do the typical interview. One thing we certainly don’t do is interview during working hours or in the office. It’s generally an awkward experience and we’ve received such positive feedback about our interview structure, we felt there isn’t a need to change it. We usually take candidates out to either a pub or café to truly get to know them. It is very important to put them in a comfortable environment, so they are open and honest, but more importantly, themselves. How long they usually go for? Well, that depends on how well the conversation is going!

“There’s no magic formula for great company culture. The key is just to treat your staff how you would like to be treated. – Richard Branson”

What are your priorities when assessing a candidate? Skills or cultural fit?
“Personally, I really like people who drive the conversation rather than wait for questions. Obviously, likeability is important but someone who has similar interests is always positive. Presentability is something I always look for, but not a suit and tie. Someone who can communicate and hold a good conversation. We have discussions about capability, projects and their work but it’s more about them being a cultural fit. We can teach skills, we can’t attitude, commitment, work ethics, etc.”

In an event that a candidate is unsuccessful, how do you deliver the news?
“I just have an open and honest conversation with them. I do my best to always provide feedback as to why they are not successful instead of the typical response saying they’re not suitable for the role. Not only that, we get many applications for specific roles where the candidates are actually not suitable, but we never just ignore them. We even try to provide them feedback and help guide them.

How do you decide on the salary of a position?
“We are notoriously bad at this because our salaries are far less than other agencies. We don’t necessarily have large budgets but we offer far more than a salary and that’s an experience. When deciding a salary, we look at the average salary for that given role but at the end of the day, we have a budget. We focus more on giving people the opportunity to grow quite quickly. That doesn’t mean there are no negotiations. If a candidate can prove to me that they should be earning more than the advertised salary, I am more than happy to pay them based on the value they can bring to the business. They just need to prove it.

“Acquiring the right talent is the most important key to growth. Hiring was – and still is – the most important thing we do. – Marc Bennioff”

What is one of the biggest lessons you’ve learned over the years of hiring?
“ There’s a couple to be honest which is really around doing more research on candidates. We never call references. Whether that’s a good or bad thing, each to their own. We do our best to provide an environment where we like to think candidates and open and honest, to really get to know them but we have certainly made some mistakes in the past.

“Something we usually don’t do is make candidates complete a technical exercise to really understand their skill level. You can establish someone’s skill through projects they’ve worked on but that is difficult when hiring for less accountable roles. But definitely, more research.”

What an insight from a hiring managing perspective in the digital marketing world. It’s amazing how different many of our perspectives are and approach to hiring and finding the right person for your business.

This is amazing, Steven.

On behalf of ConnektUs, thank you so much for taking the time to answer these questions.

We appreciate you sharing your perspectives!