Where to find employees for SEO business

[Ninja Commerce]

Hi guys. This may or may not be the right forum to post in, I'm not sure, but it's SEO related at least.

Does anyone have experience with hiring new members of staff?

I run an SEO agency, and at the moment I have more work than I can handle (nice problem to have!) I don't really want to go down the outsourcing route as I think that affects quality, so I am thinking about hiring an employee.

Anybody have any suggestions about the best place to find employees for SEO? It's pretty niche, so I wasn't sure if regular jobs boards would be a good fit.

The position will most likely be entry level, with training provided, I am pretty flexible on the details, I just need someone who is enthusiastic about SEO (and to an extent web dev).

I am based in Frome, Somerset by the way.

Any advice appreciated!
Cheers, Alex.

 

[antp__]

I guess it also depends on whether these are going to be commuting to an office or if they work from home 3/5 days etc.

 

[Scott@KarmaContent]

Have you thought about contacting your local college/training provider and going down the apprenticeship route?

 

[Jason L]

There are some more niche job sites that might be suitable:

e.g. http://www.onlydigitaljobs.com/jobs/digital-search/south-west-england/#browsing

https://jobs.econsultancy.com/

 

[MilesWeb]

Hi Alex,

You may get more options if you allow the candidate to work from home. This should also save the office expense.

 

[Mystro]

That is a nice problem to have,

If its a training position put an ad in local college as mentioned, or even look for at a university graduate, local jobs boards will inundate you with people who don't really want the job but have to apply because they have been told to, but don't rule that out also reach out to apprenticeships as they could have some decent people on their books and wont cost you too much whilst you get a feel for what they are like.

also advertise on your website with a "were hiring page" you never know it may help

 

[Naheem]

Well you could sign up with indeed website for hiring employee.

 

[pcproblems]

Would it be worth contacting any local freelance SEO people to see if they would take on any work. Maybe they could take on the on-page side atleast.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

I would advise against home work as I assume there is so much to learn between working in close proximity in such a ever changing area

Maybe contact local university or colleges and advertise there where you may find the lateral thinkers

 

[Karimbo]

I would advise against home work as I assume there is so much to learn between working in close proximity in such a ever changing area

Maybe contact local university or colleges and advertise there where you may find the lateral thinkers

they could easily subcontract the work out if homeworking. Which goes back to the original quality control issue.

I worked in SEO/PPC for a while, most of the time as a freelancer, but for a few years as an employee. The turnover of staff while I was working a 9-5 was unbelievable. There is a severe shortage of SEO/PPC people and staff and always switching between employers for better pay. Also there is a sort of glass ceiling with PPC/SEO where it's difficult to move up - which causes people to jump ship.

 

[colour24]

I love taking on young people and training them up. The trouble is, if you are a one man band, how long before you reep the rewards of their training? Whilst you are training them your work load will actually increase without business revenues rising.

 

[Mystro]

I love taking on young people and training them up. The trouble is, if you are a one man band, how long before you reep the rewards of their training? Whilst you are training them your work load will actually increase without business revenues rising.

I am doing this right now, its killing me both emotionally and financially, that said getting over these 6 weeks and if all works to plan will be worth it, just hope he don't leave before his skills payback the effort involved

 

[Michael Nguyen]

I am doing this right now, its killing me both emotionally and financially, that said getting over these 6 weeks and if all works to plan will be worth it, just hope he don't leave before his skills payback the effort involved

It sounds like with this problem, the idea is to grow faster to build the team/moral before they jump ship. At the same time, you gotta sell the dream of why working with this company is the best for career development over the long term...

 

[Ninja Commerce]

Thanks for all of the advice guys, I have a lot to think over clearly.

 

[webgeek]

Interns, interns, interns. If you want affordable, motivated, onshore, that's one possible route. I've received dozens of them wanting an internship and haven't gone down that route recently, because I'd like to retain any staff I've trained, not have them go off and work somewhere else after they've done their internship.

The other alternative is using another agency who you sub the work out to. The risk is that they, despite best efforts, somehow reveal they are white labeling / their primary company affiliation, thus possibly poaching customers.

If you haven't got enough trust to get by that worry, then you have to question why hire them or anyone in the first place. A good non-compete/non-solicitation is worth considering, as is getting a word of mouth referral so you have some trust right off the bat.

Of all the SEO's you know, or know of, how many would you hire, assuming you could afford them? For most, the number is quite small.

Trying to grow one, from scratch? Best of luck!

 

[astrolabium]

Have you tried LinkedIn?

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Another route is to go to America or Argentina, go inland to a cattle ranch and hire anyone who sits on a horse

 

[Paul Featherstone]

Depends on level of seniority, try university recruitment or job fairs. You can always train existing staff SEO skills too perhaps?

 

[abellina]

You must try linkedin, xing and other social media websites from there you surely get a good response.

 

[altonroot]

In SEO, one must check the guy whether he is illiterate about some part of SEO or have lot of misconceptions about many of things. The first one can be trained but latter one is dangerous I guess. So be carefully, I would get blank slat instead of wrong written because it will require erasing work first.

 

[Jeff Nev]

Intern is a way forward - Set up a scheme with a graduation process, if they do well after 3-6 months hire them full time with a salary.

Interns are motivated and keen to learn.

 

[InternetMarketingPlatinum]

Use an agency and find people who really can do SEO...with a proven track record.

 

[ukbf0001]

It will take too long and too much effort to teach someone SEO from scratch - I think, then when you do that - what is to stop them buggering off and setting up on their own ?

Unless of course it is real noddy type work - and then you may not get the quality you want.
At least if you go down the freelance root - you can reject the work etc - just my 2p worth.
nice problem to have though

 

[CraigGriffiths]

How about an apprentice? Someone that already has an interest in computing and/or marketing and potentially already has a bit of experience. You could contact local colleges? This is what i was thinking of doing, anyway!

It's tough, because honestly...i wouldn't trust most people with the title "SEO Specialist" to work alongside me doing SEO. But that's a story for another day

This is due to the amount of times I hear "we already have a marketing team with SEO specialists in it", for me to then check their site over, find a ton of server error codes being returned, URL canonicalization (and IP) issues, no alt tags for images, poor URL structure and titles with 1000000 characters. If they have been hired as "SEO Specialists", how hard will it be to dig through someone to find someone with TECHNICAL SEO skills?

I'm assuming most of these companies have a different idea of what an "SEO Specialist" is? Maybe now people just think it's someone who can write a bit of nice content? To me that's a content writer, not an SEO specialist. Technical SEO FTW!

(Though a nice mixture of both is best)

 

[boring-friday]

you tried blackhatworld? If you don't mind people out of the country I use a outsourcing company that only charge me $400 for 1 employee full time per month. Decent English etc, have knowledge of making web 2.0s etc and building links. (not sure you'd go down well on bhw as a seo who doesn't seem to like link building based on seeing some of your other posts )

 

[CraigGriffiths]

you tried blackhatworld? If you don't mind people out of the country I use a outsourcing company that only charge me $400 for 1 employee full time per month. Decent English etc, have knowledge of making web 2.0s etc and building links. (not sure you'd go down well on bhw as a seo who doesn't seem to like link building based on seeing some of your other posts )

If you're not building links you aren't ranking anything competitive. Be it via Outreach (still link-building) or Content Marketing (yet again, still link building).

 

[GoldenLeads]

Every SEO company has their own methods and "doing things" their own way, a person with experience in one company could be virtually useless in another one. It takes at least few months to teach someone what and how to do, the same goes for people with SEO experience and for people with zero SEO experience.

 

[StevePoster]

Does anyone have experience with hiring new members of staff?
I run an SEO agency, and at the moment I have more work than I can handle (nice problem to have!) I don't really want to go down the outsourcing route as I think that affects quality, so I am thinking about hiring an employee.

When it comes to hiring an employee, You must be meticulous in choosing the right person/s for the right job, which means if she/he capable of handling the specific task. A test before hiring the person/s will be the best way to determine the right candidate for your company.

 

[samtaylorseo]

I would recommend LinkedIn because you can target those already in SEO/Digital Marketing roles. Plus, it's worth trying jobsinsearchmarketing .com/.

 

[myfairworld]

I love taking on young people and training them up. The trouble is, if you are a one man band, how long before you reep the rewards of their training? Whilst you are training them your work load will actually increase without business revenues rising.

Mmmm well choose a young person with potential (potential is rather different from academically great or even from academically adequate) and they may well be useful in small ways pretty much from the end of day 1. Yes a lot of time has to go into training them but on the other hand this gives you the luxury of training them up in the way that you personally want them to go. There seems to be quite a lot of evidence that apprentices in particular tend to be loyal to the businesses where they got their training especially if they can see some ongoing way forwards for them in that business.

 

[Granulr]

Why not get someone straight out of Uni? Usually they will know most of the basics, and a little training will be required, but they are usually quick at learning and pick up things and get on with it.... From my experience anyway.