The New Skill Sets
As these agencies create new models that work at speed, they’re looking for a different breed of talent than the classically trained agency employee.
Kris Tait, chief business officer at Croud, said that though the agency is recruiting holding company talent, it is looking for people with hybrid skills that understand how to translate creative work across social platforms, “not just get the creative and put it in the platforms.”
“We need people that are open to this new world,” he said.
Schireson said Known, which receives up to 4,000 applicants per open role, has a job requirement that every employee—from legal to analytics—uses AI in their daily workflow.
“If you were an analyst spending 80% of your time crunching numbers and 20% thinking strategically, now you get to flip that,” he said.
In addition to embracing new tech, agencies want talent that’s curious and able to work cross-functionally.
“The question is, what is your mindset?” said Schireson. “What is your personal story that demonstrates to us that you have what it takes to engage and collaborate?”
“Nobody knows exactly what’s going to happen over the course of the next five years, but if you…lean into the change and the evolution, you can win,” Quibell added.
What About Junior Talent?
As agencies experiment with automation and prioritize senior and mid-level hires, junior talent are left without as many avenues to break into the industry. To combat that, agencies are broadening their internship programs and recruitment pipelines.
Croud recently expanded its 12-week summer internship program globally, giving underrepresented, early-career talent experience with clients, projects for their portfolios, mentorship, and exposure to agency talent. The agency has also partnered with COOP, a fellowship program that supports first-generation college grads, helping it recruit from schools like Columbia, Emerson, and NYU. And it has dropped degree requirements to broaden its applicant pool.
Other agencies are changing the way they train junior talent once they have broken in. At DEPT, for instance, new hires choose a subject to “major” in and another to “minor” in, allowing them to develop cross-functional expertise from the get-go.
At growing creative agencies, the path to bring in junior talent is less clear.
Cape Agency is in the early stages of hiring junior talent, working to establish a formal internship program through university partnerships. And Nice&Frank, which began with a mostly senior team, is starting to focus more on bringing in and providing support to early-career talent.
“Our youngest employees tend to hit us with the hottest takes that keep us rethinking how we’re growing a new kind of agency,” said Nice&Frank co-founder Graham North.
While these agencies are searching for ways to bring new, young talent into the fold, the reality remains that these roles are shrinking—which could lead to a dried up industry talent pipeline down the road.