How To Get Your SEO Dream Job W/ Recruiting Pro Josh Peacock

0:00Josh Peacockthere's so many little processes that you need to go into for that. And yeah, I just think a good thing to do is just map out everything.

0:06So even like your culture process. Map out what do you actually want? Like a lot of people don't actually ask themselves the hard questions.

0:14But what some traits of our top performers, right? Our top performers, let's say, Billy. What does Billy do best? Okay. These are the three things we need to find. Okay. Yes. They need to have this X, Y, and Z experience.

0:24But they need to have the traits like Billy. Or we get them to do a disc assessment.

0:28So we can actually see, would they work well with Billy? Or would they work well with whoever would be managing them or likewise.

0:34So again, like recruitment's not an easy read a book type of thing. And then this is it. It's all about trialing and testing.

0:41Crystal WaddellWelcome to the third season of the Simple and Smart SEO Show, the podcast dedicated to empathy driven, brand building SEO. I'm your host, Crystal Waddell. I leverage my obsession with user experience to help business owners just like you optimize your website with confidence.

0:56Thank you so much for being here.

0:58Let's jump into another great episode.

1:00Welcome back to the Simple and Smart SEO Show podcast. Oh, my goodness.

1:04We are in for a treat today because we have Josh Peacock from SEO for Hire. He is the CEO of an agency that places SEOs within teams at different companies.

1:16So we're going to pull back the curtain today on what's going on in the SEO industry.

1:21So Josh, thank you so much for being here.

1:24Josh PeacockThank you so much for having me, Crystal. It was lovely getting to meet you for the first time in San Diego at Brighton SEO.

1:29So we talked about it back then. So it's great to finally jump on this.

1:33Crystal Waddell (2): That was so funny.

1:34It was karaoke time. I think somebody was singing something special from the 80s. So yeah, that was so much fun.

1:40But okay.

1:41Crystal Waddell (2): So can you give us just a little bit of your background, Josh?

1:44Because I know that you are a world traveler and I'm just trying to figure out like, how did you end up as the lead of this company SEO for hire?

1:53How did that begin?

1:54Yeah. So I've actually got a funny story. Like I'd like to say that I was. Deep in the roots of SEO and recruitment.

2:01And then came up with this idea, but that's really not what happened. So I always knew I wanted to own a business. I had no idea what I wanted to do.

2:07All I knew is that I love traveling and when I travel I I just get a lot of ideas.

Building the BusinessFrom Barcelona to Recruitment

2:11Josh PeacockSo I was 22, when we started the company. And basically what happened was I was living in Barcelona at the time.

2:20And met my business partner, Craig. And we met on a beach drinking strawberry daiquiris. And ended up having a lot of things in common. So I've been in recruitment and sales background for years before that.

2:32And what I loved about that was that you could be your own boss and as much work as you put in it shows that how much money you can make and where you can actually bring yourself.

2:39So I always loved that side. Once I met Craig, we started going for runs together. We started going to the gym together and just hanging out and talking about books.

2:47We've read things we've learned. All of this. So we finally came together and he'd been an SEO for about seven to eight years at that time.

2:55And so he got in really young when he was like 15 or 16. And he owned two SEO agencies. So a content company and a link building company. We started talking I wanted to get into recruitment side.

3:05He was like there's nobody doing it in SEO. Just SEO. So we started sitting together brainstorming ideas thinking about what we could do together and we finally came up with a plan to start seo for hire. So what we did is we just reached out to his network as he was already in the seo industry And we reached out to a load of his clients.

3:23Basically, everybody said it was so easy to fluff a CV. They'd had a track record of SEOs coming into their company and leaving within three to six months.

3:32And because they just joked about what they could actually do, but then given the actual tasks, they couldn't do it. So we got a lot of positive feedback from that.

3:40And yeah, we spent about six to eight months researching that, doing as much as we could to actually build the processes until we finally launched SEO for hire.

3:47And now, two and a half years later we're here, and in between, yeah, being able to travel the world and do what I love.

3:54Crystal Waddell (2): That's so exciting.

3:55Crystal Waddell (2): So when you place SEOs in positions, do you specialize like in one country or one geographical area? Or, how global is SEO for hire?

4:07Yes, we've got clients all over the globe. And we've got multiple clients down in Australia We've got quite a lot of our clients in the US, UK, Ireland, all over Europe. We've got some in South America.

4:17So the way we kind of work is that most of our candidate base is either UK or US.

4:22And so basically what it is a client can come towards us, whether that be agency or a big in house company, and they're looking to fill an SEO position.

4:29They just come to us through either our network, or as I mentioned, we're one of the only recruitment companies that just specialize in SEO.

4:35So they see it through socials from that come to us, come with a job description or what and we've got, honestly, Crystal we've had clients that have tried to fill positions for six months up to, I think one of our, one of our clients from Austin was trying to fill an SEO manager role for up to three years.

4:50And we were able to fill it within, I think it was a month and a bit. So yeah, so honestly, Anywhere.

4:56As long as somebody is looking to hire an SEO we can help them.

4:58Crystal Waddell (2): Yeah, I imagine it's difficult to fill these roles.

5:01Crystal Waddell (2): Maybe for one reason that there's not really an SEO degree. Like in terms of What people have on their credentials.

5:10Like I can imagine that experience obviously matters.

5:13But even SEO experience can you know be it could mean something different from place to place agency to agency.

5:21So is that a challenge that you guys have seen because SEO isn't actually like a field of study? Or traditional field of study? Is that does that contribute at all?

5:30Absolutely that. And as well as what you said about that, it could differ from agency to agency.

5:35So you could have somebody that's been five years at one agency that could be one of those agencies where you're just put on minimal tasks.

5:42And you're just Taking them every day, whether somebody else who's been in three or four agencies in, let's say, maybe not three or four, let's say two agencies within three years, but they're in the deep end.

5:52Maybe they're in a startup, maybe they're in a midsize company where they happen to do everything, which inquire somebody to have growth mindset and just grow a lot.

6:01And that's, it's not a problem that I would say we come across, but there's a lot of times where clients come to us and they're like, look, we want somebody with 10 years experience.

6:07And we're like, really that doesn't mean anything because you could have somebody in five years experience that's done double or triple the amount of actual experience in that person that's done the 10 years.

6:17So yeah, so that's what we had to do is, so what we did is we built a vetting process. And our vetting process is mixed with loads of tests, loads of questions. We've got DISC assessments, personality assessments in there as well. But that's basically because in SEO, like it's very easy fluff a CV.

6:32It's very easy to say I've got X, Y, and Z experience. But unless you actually test somebody and put their put their knowledge to the test, then realistically you could just have everybody bluffing themselves.

6:42So that's what we did. We built a vetting process. And what we did is we started the podcast diary of an SEO on the back of that, where we sit down with the people we bring on for about 30 minutes after and get them to go through our vetting process.

6:52So we have a different one for a technical SEO versus an SEO manager and SEO director.

6:57Kind of all the roles, and that's what we love doing at events as well, is chatting to industry leaders and just looking at what way do they hire?

7:03What way do they test their SEOs?

7:05And so yeah, it's a learning process. But it's an ongoing process to try and just build on.

7:09Crystal Waddell (2): It's interesting that you mentioned growth mindset because I used to be a teacher.

7:13I have a master's degree in physical education.

7:15But it's like when I come into like the professional world, when people work for other people, I know that there's this element of, you're just showing up to do your job or whatever.

7:27And as an entrepreneur, you can't look around and. Have somebody else do it. You can't push it off to somebody else.

7:33You just have to get it done.

7:34And so I think entrepreneurship lends itself to growth mindset, just like being an educator lends itself to growth mindset.

7:41And I've noticed that there are several entrepreneurial SEOs in the field.

7:47As I've talked about my background, I've met other former teachers and different things, which is really interesting.

7:52One thing that I want to really understand here, because as entrepreneurs, you talked about like technical SEO and, there's probably content and on page and.

8:03Crystal Waddell (2): And link building and all that type of stuff.

8:05Could you talk us through like the hierarchy of seo positions.

8:09Because I know I see, Senior seo position available.

8:13I'm like, what is that? What do they do? What are they responsible for?

8:16So can you walk us through that, depth chart, I guess?

8:19Yeah I'd like to just say a disclaimer first, right? So we've been doing this for nearly three years.

8:24And honestly, I've heard every title under the sun. There's no fixed hierarchy. I was on a call with a very big agency from Australia last Wednesday.

8:34And he showed us their career roadmap. And honestly, Crystal, there must have been 14 places from junior SEO, the whole way.

8:41I don't know what the last one was. I think it was something like senior SEO director.

8:45Or something, senior strategy, SEO director or something like that. So it's different within every company. And I feel like, yeah, titles or something. I feel like companies play with a lot of ego.

8:55So it's okay, when realistically that could just be, there should just be junior, mid and senior.

9:01Is the way that I look at it, but yeah, look, it depends on what company you're in, what agency you're in.

9:06A lot of companies either have big content teams, big technical teams.

9:09Then they have client facing, and then they have somebody that, that directs all the that.

9:13One thing that we're seeing quite common in a lot of bigger agencies is that they have all small little pods.

9:19So it's like mini agencies within the agency, if that makes sense.

9:22So you could have one content, one tech. One on page, one strategy, one client facing and then somebody that manages all of that.

9:29So honestly, Crystal it depends on what company it is.

9:33There's no Just given hierarchy. But that is something that we're looking at the minute.

9:38The idea of recruitment to me is like vulture recruitment. That they're not really there to benefit the industry.

9:43So it's something that we've tried to change as soon as we started. And that's why we've got clients that come back to us all the time and all that.

9:49So basically what we try and do is we try and give out free resources. So one we did recently was the optimizing onboarding.

9:55Where we brought on Travis Tallent, the VP of SEO at brainBrain Labs the next one we want to do is how to get the best out of your team's structure.

10:02And it's one thing that we've worked with hundreds of agencies where we go in and we've seen every single team structure under the sun, but what one actually works the best.

10:10So what we're going to try and do is we're going to get a lot of people that we call friends, but who are in the network as industry experts.

10:16And just see if they've run an agency for 10 years, what team structure have they got now?

10:20They've obviously tried and tested.

10:21Maybe tens, if not hundreds of different team structures over the last 10 years. And just put it together so that way we will have an answer for you on it.

10:28But right now, it's

10:29everything,

10:30Crystal Waddell (2): and part of that is I just wanted the entrepreneurs who are listening You to know that overwhelm you feel with SEO?

10:38There's a reason for it because it's usually broken down into multiple roles for multiple people.

10:45So I just wanted to, give that layer of comfort to my fellow entrepreneurs out there.

10:49Crystal Waddell (2): The next question that I have though is, at what level, like what size of company do they typically start to hire, More than one person for an SEO department?

11:02Yeah. So again it depends.

11:04Like we've got clients that are massive agencies that are just starting to build out their SEO team.

11:09Or we've got small digital marketing recruit digital marketing agencies that could be less than 10 people that have been using an SEO agency for three, four or five years, and then they want to build their in house team.

11:21Eli Schwartz has got a few articles on this that is great.

11:23But. Yeah, honestly Crystal, it could be from all sizes.

11:27But I think what we see most of the time, it's that a company's been using an agency for X amount of years and then just not seeing the needle move anymore.

11:36So I think in their eyes, if they bring somebody in the house, they'll be working on this all the time.

11:40Without having been an agency working with maybe 10, 15 different clients a month type of thing.

11:45So I guess it's once, the actual SEO channel hits a certain amount of volume or a certain amount of leads.

11:52That you think it's a great strategy to bring in and invest in an in

11:55Crystal Waddell (2): I could imagine when you work with an agency, then they have their own internal structure.

12:00And they have their representatives that are probably churning and burning within that agency.

12:05So after a certain period of time, a company might say, okay, we're comfortable enough with the concept of SEO to bring, that person on our team that will be consistent.

12:15Crystal Waddell (2): But then I'm also wondering, Because so many companies are coming online since 2020.

12:21Is there an industry that you see that like SEO and, SEOs are being recruited more often for that particular industry versus other ones?

12:30I can't say, I can't say I do.

12:33We work with all types of different industries from finance to anything and everything.

12:38Travels one, to be honest, that's quite high in demand right now.

12:41I think maybe that might've just been because it COVID, which Roughly when we started it was just after COVID.

12:47Maybe it's starting to pick up a bit more.

12:49But we've got four clients I can think of my head now that in the last two years have actually turned They've niched down into either travel seo or travel digital pr.

12:59So yeah, that could be one that I think is in high demand right now.

13:02Crystal Waddell (2): Can we go back to like your definitions just like to stick with the junior, the mid, and the senior, that you mentioned?

13:10Can we start with the junior? And understand like what's expected in that particular job title?

13:15And how much do they get paid?

13:17That's a tricky one again, Crystal.

13:19Because we work with companies globally the salaries are different everywhere.

13:23And that's actually one thing that we pitch a lot to our US clients is that they could have a junior role on anywhere from 50 to 60 to 70k usd.

13:33And looking for somebody maybe one to two years experience in an agency.

13:36Whereas in the uk you could find somebody on that salary who's Four or five six years into their career.

13:43So yeah, the salary one.

13:45It's one that everybody always wants to know.

13:47What is the right salary for this? But honestly, it's changing every few weeks at the minute. It's just yeah It's supply and demand is the way that I look at it.

13:56So it's changing honestly every few weeks.

13:58And to answer your question about what's expected of a junior.

14:02Is Again, I'd love to just be able to bullet point.

14:05This is what's expected, but because we work with so many different companies, all so different, Crystal.

14:10So you could have somebody that is a junior that's expected to handle, let's say three or four clients as soon as they go in.

14:18And that's them. And then maybe they're asked to do whatever it is in SEO terms.

14:22But then you could also have a junior that goes into a company and all they have to do is shadow somebody for a year or two.

14:27And then the company just naturally promotes them up.

14:30So that's why we created a thing called the SEO leadership playbook.

14:33Is because we found that there was a lot of SEOs that hadn't actually been taught how to lead properly.

14:39They'd either just been in the agency for long enough that they just felt that they needed to be promoted.

14:44Or they had annual reviews. And it's you've been here for one to two years. This is the next stage.

14:49When realistically, they actually haven't been taught or they haven't actually had the experience to go up to Let's say it's a manager position or a leadership position.

14:57So that's why we built that on this on the back end of that. So honestly, Crystal again.

15:02I'd love to be able to give you an answer in 10 different bullet points.

15:04But it just It changes all the time.

15:06Crystal Waddell (2): It gives me you know an idea ,though.

15:08It's okay.

15:09Obviously that's the entry level point of an SEO or what we could generalize as an entry point.

15:15And then their job roles report to somebody else.

15:18So I'm assuming that the person that they report to is that mid level SEO, right?

15:23Crystal Waddell (2): So is there anything different, Josh, about their job description from that entry level person?

15:30So the way that we, if I look at a broad range of things that we do so basically what you'd have is you'd have the junior SEOs doing a few tasks at a time.

15:38And basically what they're doing most of the time is getting trained and getting up to scratch from what they should be doing. And then eventually they'll be able to handle, let's say a few clients if its agency side.

15:48Then the one above them is normally an SEO manager. So they could be taking care of 10 plus SEOs as well as doing the proper strategy and just making sure everything gets done.

15:58And then the more senior position above that would be more SEO director level.

16:02Which is funny because SEO director or like senior SEO manager, somebody that's at the top end of their career, we bring on loads of them onto our podcast.

16:11And what's funny is that most of them are actually out of the trenches. Yeah. So they're not actually doing SEO every day.

16:17They're more managing the team, finding out the best way to keep shareholders and and the actual C suite executives happy.

16:25Rather than actually doing SEO. Yeah that's just a broad description of it.

16:29But again, You can get an SEO director that's in the trenches every single day who's got one to two people underneath them.

16:35So it just depends from

16:36Crystal Waddell (2): Yeah. And that's what I was thinking. I was like, yeah, that SEO director and a bigger company probably reports to the CEO and the CFO, or at least, on that level and having to communicate like the value of what, the search department's doing.

16:49What is the, since you said, you can't tell us exactly, but like you gave us a starting point for an entry level SEO.

16:57Is there a general salary range for the mid-level and then you know that senior level?

17:03Yeah, so if we look at UK side first the UK side for an entry level is anywhere from 30k to maybe 38k GBP.

17:12For more For a junior manager, it would then start from 38k all the way up to For an experienced SEO manager, you could be looking at 55, 55 K.

17:22And then any way up from that is more senior side.

17:25But again I wish that was just the basics. I wish there was a rule for all companies to be like that.

17:30But you'd be surprised that there's agencies that come to us and they want an SEO manager with five years experience and they want to talk, they want to pay 35 K.

17:37Which isn't enough.

17:38And again, it's say us side as well. It's it's different. Like we had a client recently that was looking for an SEO specialist for six years experience.

17:45And they were wanting 45 K USD and we were like, we're not going to find somebody for that.

17:51And they were like let us go do it by ourselves for a month.

17:53And if we have no luck, we'll come back. They came back and now they've upped it to 80 K. And even 80 K is like, it's great.

17:59But for what they actually want from this SEO, these guys work with eight figure brands. And yeah, we're probably going to have to tell him not up the salary again, because the talent's just not there.

18:10But yeah.

18:10So from entry level on the U S it could be anywhere from 50 to 60 K.

18:16SEO manager or like a senior SEO specialist could be anywhere from 60 to a hundred K.

18:22And then again, but the U S it's crazy though, because I think Salesforce just came out with a. They have an SEO director job for 240 K right now.

18:30I know PayPal had an SEO director role for 280 K.

18:34And there's, there is a job fishing about, I think it's a senior SEO director it's 300 and something K as well.

18:40So again, it just depends on the company and it just depends how much they actually value SEO.

18:44Crystal Waddell (2): It's interesting how you said that one company, said, Hey, we're gonna go take it on for ourselves for a month and see if we can do it. And then they realized like how intricate it probably was.

18:54And how many different things that person was actually going to have to do and manage.

18:58So that's a fun story.

19:00That's the thing, Crystal, like we've got I'm on client calls all the time and discovery calls, and it's either, the thing is with recruitment, especially within SEO.

19:08It's I get it, it's, recruitment's expensive, I get it, but then if you look at the other side of how expensive it is for a bad hire.

19:15But a lot of clients come to us because it's either too late.

19:18There's very few clients that come to us that are like, okay, we've got this targeted for the next six months.

19:23And the next six months, we're probably going to hire another SEO specialist or another two SEO specialists.

19:27It's always okay we just signed another client last week. We need to hire somebody now. And it's all rushed.

19:33Or somebody's trying to do it by themselves.

19:35So it's yeah, I love it when clients come to us and they're like we're going to go see what we can do on our own side.

19:40And we try and give a lot of free resources as well, away, Crystal.

19:43We try and help clients do it.

19:44Because recruitment is not an easy job. I know loads of people think it's just right find somebody put them in and that's it.

19:51But there's so much.

19:52In between there's the tech stack that we use to constantly be nurturing candidates and try and constantly doing things.

19:58We've got the webinars. We've got the podcast. We give out free resources.

20:00We go to events. Like there's so much that happens behind the scenes of that.

20:05I love it when clients come to us and they're like we're going to try for another month.

20:08Because I'll say to the team, I was like we're here for them in a month then.

20:11Because it's very rare for somebody to go out and do it. Unless they've got like a big network and they're in the industry and that type of thing.

20:18Crystal Waddell (2): I think it's neat how you know, because you specialize in SEO.

20:23Like what's going to make a good hire, and what's what people are expecting on each side. Because a lot of companies don't know a lot about SEO.

20:31So they may come to you with unrealistic expectations. And I think it's so neat that you can tell them you're going to have to adjust your budget or your expectations in the role or whatever.

20:40That's great that they have an intermediary like SEO for hire to translate what they're trying to do in terms of hiring the right person.

20:48yeah. Honestly, a few things that we do with that as well is.

20:51We've turned down working with companies before.

20:54We'll find out that they're actually they're not ready to hire an in house team. Maybe one of their friends said, or somebody within the company said, look, you should start hiring an in house team.

21:03We look at them and they were like do you know what, honestly, you'd be better suited at working with an agency.

21:06But maybe the next year until you bring X, Y, and Z up.

21:09And then I think we should revisit it. But that's the, SEO for hire is that I want to be long term partners with companies.

21:16I don't want somebody just to come for me quickly for a transaction.

21:19So if we can help give any value for free. Knowing that they could come back in five, 10, even 15 years time.

21:26Hopefully we'll still be about!

21:27Then we'll do that.

21:28And that's another thing as well, is that like we've turned down working with companies before Crystal because either their salary expectations too low.

21:35Maybe they're asking way too much for an agency or from that SEO.

21:39Once we get somebody in. And we don't want to burn bridges with either the companies or the candidates. Cause I feel like reputation is one of the most important things in the world. But that's one thing we're nearly three years into business and we've only had to give one refund and that was due to a mental health issue that cropped up, not SEO ability.

21:55So it's like, on a client sales call, I always say, I was like, I know it sounds cliche.

21:59But like our ethos is quality over quantity.

22:00Instead of giving you 20 SEOs for the role, that we could do.

22:05We'll give you two or three and we've got in trouble with that before with clients. They're like come on.

22:09You've been working on this for a week, two weeks. You've only been able to showcase two or three candidates?

22:13And I'm like I promise.

22:14Bring them to interview, and you'll want to hire all three of them. That's the way we work. We don't work within volumes.

22:19We work within quality.

22:21Crystal Waddell (2): I think this applies to any business owner.

22:23No matter if you have a brick and mortar or, whatever, any business owner who's listening right now at some point may want to expand their team.

22:30Crystal Waddell (2): So in your experience, like in the, this SEO industry.

22:35How much does it cost to hire the wrong person? Speeding it up just to get somebody in that role?

22:41yeah honestly, it depends on the business.

22:44It depends on how much new business you're bringing on. It depends on how many team members you've currently got.

22:48But I think there's, is it Glassdoor have got a case study?

22:52Where I think it's the wrong hire can cost, is it 130k?

22:56Because you don't just have the recruitment costs.

22:59You've got the actual time, the resource. Everything that goes into it.

23:02But then as well as that, you've got the onboarding, you've got, if somebody stay with you, stays with you for six months, you get all the training into that.

23:08I remember when we first started the company, I hired somebody.

23:13And let's just say they really didn't work out. I know that's bad coming from a recruitment company.

23:17But, it really just didn't work out.

23:19They had all the experience on paper. They passed our tests and stuff.

23:23But basically they came from public sector. We were a startup. So they had 14 years public sector recruitment and HR experience. I thought that ticked all the lists.

23:31They came in. We're a startup. Everything needs to be done yesterday. That we don't have time to do things like that.

23:37And it just didn't work out. And I learned firsthand about how much of my time went into trying to train that person up. Bringing them up to date with the processes, all of that.

23:47And it was like, Those, I think they were with us for maybe five months.

23:50And those five months, not that they were wasted because I don't believe anything's wasted.

23:53Like I learned a lot about that.

23:55But if you're running a big organization, you're spending decent salaries on.

23:59And they're wasting time training somebody up for them to leave within six months. Or to be the wrong hire.

24:03I genuinely think it's one of the most important things.

24:06And I know I probably sound biased.

24:08But even Stephen Bartlett, I'm sure Stephen Bartlett, Diary of a CEO that if he talks about it all the time.

24:13His job is to find the most talented people and build culture with them.

24:18So he doesn't call himself an investor and all of this. When people ask him, he's my whole job is to find the best possible talent I can.

24:25And build a culture that keeps them together and let them thrive.

24:29So I genuinely think, I think recruitment's one of the most important jobs there is.

24:32Crystal Waddell (2): Yeah, I think from my teaching background, there's this saying that it takes a child three years to recover from one bad teacher.

24:40I understand that application even in, your sector because, the ramifications continue to happen down the line of whatever, negative thing happened in the past.

24:51And then the other thing I was thinking about is even my father, he has owned a landscaping company for years.

24:58And from him and other business owners, mainly entrepreneurs, expanding their team has been one of the most difficult thing, like finding good people, finding people who want to work, who want to commit, who are, contributors.

25:12Not just showing up for the paycheck, even though obviously that's the deal, right?

25:17That's the transaction. You come do the work, we'll give you the money. But it's like, how do you see those qualities in a person that you want on your team that's, going to give you a little bit more than just what's on the paper.

25:29Yeah. I think a really important thing to do, Crystal, and one of the things I think is one of the worst ideas for a company owner or a business.

25:37Is to try and recruit or to try and hire Without going into all of the processes.

25:44Okay. Let's say we find somebody tomorrow.

25:46Let's say, or next week, and we don't have an onboarding process that we've properly invested time into.

25:52But then you've done all the work to try and find somebody, and then they're out the door within three months.

25:56Cause the whole onboarding process, like the honeymoon phase. Is what sets up employees for the rest of their company.

26:02And that's how they build that reputation and that brand image.

26:04So if you as well, start to hire, but you don't have all of the hiring process mapped out.

26:10So let's say you put a job up tomorrow and you get 300 applicants and let's just say they're all, let's say half of them are high quality applicants.

26:16Let's say you don't get back to them, Crystal, that's 150 high quality SEOs that wanted to work with your company.

26:23And that now I have a bad image for your company because you haven't replied to anybody.

26:26Do you know what I mean? So it's there's so many little processes that you need to go into for that. And yeah, I just think a good thing to do is just map out everything.

26:33So even like your culture process, map out what do you actually want? Like a lot of people don't actually ask themselves the hard questions.

26:41But what some traits of our top performers, right? Our top performers, let's say, Billy, what does Billy do best? Okay. These are the three things we need to find. Okay. Yes. They need to have this X, Y, and Z experience.

26:51But they need to have the traits like Billy, or we get them to do a disc assessment.

26:55So we can actually see, would they work well with Billy, or would they work well with whoever would be managing them or likewise.

27:01So again, like recruitment's not an easy read a book type of thing. And then this is it. It's all about trialing and testing.

27:08And I think. Yeah I honestly think one of the best ways to hire and recruit and find the team that you want is by going to events.

27:15Go to events that you think that those people will be at.

27:18So Brighton SEO, San Diego, great example of it. There's what hundreds, if not thousands of great SEO there.

27:25Business owners. Isn't that a fantastic place to go and build your team? So if you don't want to put the budget to recruitment, fly to San Diego, Brighton SEO.

27:33Stand there, be like this is what we want. And again, month, two months before, map out what you actually want.

27:38So you have leaflets or whatever it is.

27:41And just go around and talk to the room. Is there anybody here looking for a job? Because when I was there, there was hundreds of people that were looking for a job.

27:47Crystal Waddell (2): It's so interesting how the process of recruitment and these suggestions that you're making are, parallel to SEO.

27:53Because you can have the greatest SEO in the world, but if your user experience is terrible.

27:59Or your product is terrible. Or any of the customer service experiences are terrible.

28:05It undoes everything that your SEO works so hard to get you.

28:11We've talked about that before on the show of the importance of having a checklist.

28:15Of just writing down your processes.

28:18Because a lot of times, things are in the head of the business owner.

28:22Or, the people who've been there since the beginning

28:24and so you just take for granted that when people come on, they're just going to assimilate that knowledge.

28:30But it's an unrealistic expectation. And it can be easily solved by, like you said, a little preparation and having, something on paper that somebody could follow and know what to expect.

28:41I think that's a behavioral science thing too, just being able to understand what to expect, calms the nervous system.

28:48Yeah.

28:48I've got two things on that. So, again we use a ClickUp as our project management tool.

28:53And before I had anybody else in the team it was just me using that. Craig would come in every now and then my business partner and look at it, but it was built for me.

29:01And when I hired the team, I thought that it had everything in there, but the team couldn't understand it because it wasn't built for them.

29:08It was built for me. So I basically had to go

29:09into it, refine it, update it and change it.

29:12Last week I had a call with quite a big SAAS company in the Netherlands. That again, they've been using an agency, an SEO agency for four years now. And they want to build their in house team.

29:21But company culture is such an important thing to these guys.

29:25And what they want is they want somebody to come in and develop the processes and basically tell the people, the company that like this isn't the right way of doing it.

29:33And they know that it's not the right way of doing it. They want somebody to do that.

29:36And they thought that would be challenging. And I was like, I actually don't think that is challenging.

29:40I think that there's a lot of SEOs that have been doing like mundane tasks, mundane jobs that would love to come in and just have the whole ownership of this is my SEO department.

29:50These are now the processes I'm going to start building. And stuff like that.

29:52So anyway, we're in talks with them at the minute, but again. It's about building on that culture, building up the processes and finding the right fit.

29:59Crystal Waddell (2): Yeah. I guess it's both the dream job and also a scary opportunity.

30:03Because you're building it from ground up.

30:05So it's if it fails then you know that's on you, but if it succeeds, that's also on you.

30:10So that's a fun part of it.

30:12Crystal Waddell (2): What about all of the changes that have happened over the last couple of years with technology, large language models like chat GPT? And, all of the Google updates and those things?

30:23Like how is the role of the SEO and the availability of SEO roles?

30:29How have they changed over the last couple of years?

30:32Yeah. It hasn't been good for the job market.

30:34Like if we're being honest, I think we're all seeing in the last year, especially.

30:39But I think it's a positive overall.

30:40Those low hanging fruit jobs. They're being replaced.

30:44One SEO that knows how to adopt a load of AI. And use it to their advantage.

30:49Is as good as maybe five SEOs, two, three years ago.

30:52At the bottom end, I'm talking about.

30:54But on a positive note, I think what we're seeing is we're seeing a lot of more companies want more Strategists.

31:00So SEOs to come in and do more strategy work.

31:03Across the board that we're seeing a lot more like growth advisor, SEO roles. Growth strategist.

31:08So I think what we're seeing is yeah, there's a big change in it.

31:13But I think those that are actually adopting AI and that are working as a with it as a friend.

31:19Are going into those higher salary, more growth side roles. Which is great.

31:23Crystal Waddell (2): Do you think for the future that's the way it's going to continue to grow? Or do you anticipate any other changes in the future?

31:32Yeah, I'd love to say that SEO is going to be around in about 10 years time.

31:35But I think it's going to be extremely different to what it is today.

31:38We only started about two and a half, three years ago. From then it's already changed so much.

31:43As I mentioned, our vetting process that we try and update as much as we can, You'd laugh at what our questions and tests were.

31:49I'd love to think that SEO will still be about, I hope it is.

31:53But the way that everything's changed so much in these updates that are coming out. Yeah, I don't know if SEO changes into a hybrid between digital PR or what it does.

32:01Crystal Waddell (2): Yeah, I,

32:01want to know the crystal ball. I thought you had the Crystal ball. So I wanted you to look into it and

32:06I don't have the Crystal ball.

32:08Crystal Waddell (2): Okay. So I guess probably the last question I wanted to ask is just in terms of future proofing our careers as SEOs.

32:16You mentioned, getting knowledgeable in AI.

32:19But is there anything specific within technology that SEOs really could, be growing in? So that they make themselves more marketable in the future?

32:28yeah, absolutely. And I don't think it lies within AI. I think actually lies within communication styles.

32:33One thing that is probably the biggest pain point of the most of our clients right now is that they can't find SEOs that are able to communicate effectively with C suite or business owners.

32:44So those that are able to talk within revenue and bottom line.

32:49And be able to actually what's the word? Comfort clients? Or get the point across better to clients. Rather than going in with technical terms.

32:57And again, I've got one of my great friends is on a very well paying SEO job. I was chatting to him last week and he was asking for promotion and he was asking for advice on it.

33:05So I went on a, an hour call with him and we mapped out this whole way about how he could get a promotion.

33:10He's handling half a million pounds worth of SEO.

33:13All of this. At a great company.

33:16And the biggest thing that they turned around and said was that his communication wasn't there. He was, he's too technical jargon and all of that.

33:24So I think the biggest thing that SEOs can do to make themselves more attractive for companies hired is learn how to communicate effectively.

33:32A great resource on that is, Eli Schwartz has got a thing called the Rice Method. R I C E.

33:37On the podcast with us that he was on, he talked about how there was a company, he works with some of the biggest companies in the world.

33:42And there was a company owner who just didn't get SEO.

33:47Didn't want to get it, and they were completely closed to it.

33:49So he came in, put a presentation of a gif of a basketball player passing a ball to somebody.

33:55And then them shooting it in. And he just played it over and over and over again. And just kept quiet.

34:02And he just seeing everybody looking at it and confused.

34:04And he goes, This is what seo is.

34:06The assist to everything else that goes in. Seo isn't going to be the one that just moves the needle by itself.

34:12It's everything else. And he finally got the point across to the company owner and Whatever it did a lot of work with them.

34:18So, I think about learning about different ways you can communicate.

34:21Like as simple as that is I'm sure people listening to that would be like, Oh, I wish I thought of something like that. It's very simple, but yeah, I think the technical jargon needs to be left behind.

34:30Crystal Waddell (2): Yeah, I think analogies are so good, with SEO. And it's seen as such a technical practice, in general.

34:37And I know that a lot of new SEOs make that mistake of thinking that the technical is where it's at.

34:44When, like you said. It's really the strategy. And understanding like where you can optimize for profit, right?

34:51It's it's not just about the analytics that you can measure, with numbers on a chart.

34:57But it's about how it impacts the brand itself.

35:00I think we should link to that show in the show notes.

35:03So I'll definitely get that from you.

35:05And I read Eli's book. I remember that. I used to be a basketball player, so it resonated. I was like, I get it. Yeah.

35:11Crystal Waddell (2): So tell us how someone can get a hold of you. And who should reach out to your company?

35:16Is it the SEO themselves or is it companies that are looking to hire an SEO?

35:21Yeah. So anybody, if you're looking for an SEO job, just give us a search.

35:26On LinkedIn is probably the best place. Just Josh Peacock.

35:28Or you can email hello at seoforhire. co and my team will get in touch. But yeah, if you're a company looking to hire, go on our website, www. seoforhire. co.

35:38We've got loads of Calendly links in there.

35:39You can book a call with me.

35:41Or again, if you want to go through my LinkedIn.

35:43But yeah, that's probably the best way is to reach me. But even if you just want to chat about maybe anything I said on this, or if you don't agree with anything I said, please. Let's debate. But yeah, that's the best way to get me.

35:53Crystal Waddell (2): This is awesome.

35:53Josh, thank you so much for kind of pulling the curtain back on what it means to be a search engine optimizer at any level.

36:01I wanted to ask questions like these for at least a year.

36:05So I'm just so grateful that you came on the show to break it down.

36:08No problem.

36:09Thank you for having me. Crystal.

36:10Crystal Waddell (2): See you next time!

36:11​