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

In this episode of the Simple and Smart SEO Show, I interview Josh Peacock, CEO of SEO for Hire. 

I get to ask him all sorts of questions about SEO recruitment, so you get an inside look at what the recruiting process looks like!

Want to know the expectations of different SEO jobs and how much they make? (ME TOO!)

We also talk about how the changes in technology and search may impact availability of SEO roles in the future. 

SEO Recruitment Tips For Businesses:

• Map out the recruitment process for SEO roles. 
• Identify the traits of top performers. 
• Utilize DISC assessments (if legal in your country) to determine compatibility with existing team members. 
• Develop a thorough vetting process to sniff out SEO experience bluffs.
• Avoid rushing recruitment; this results in bad hires at a high cost.

SEO Recruitment Tips For Job Searchers:

• A growth mindset is essential for success in the industry.
• There's no fixed hierarchy in SEO roles. 
• Titles and responsibilities varying widely between companies. 
• SEO for travel is one in-demand industry.
• Salary ranges for SEO roles is all over the place.

More Insights For SEO Job Searchers:

• A senior SEO director role is highly valued, with salaries up to 300K.
• Josh suggested that the future of SEO roles lies in strategy and growth advising, rather than technical tasks. 
• Build your communication skills to talk with C-suite executives.

Connect with Josh Peacock
LinkedIn
Website

Use Code CRYSTAL50 to save 50% on SEO For Hire's SEO Leadership Playbook!

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Chapters

• 0:00 Want to Work in SEO? With Josh
• 0:41 Introduction to the Simple and Smart SEO Show
• 1:04 Meet Josh Peacock from SEO for Hire
• 1:41 The Beginnings of SEO for Hire
• 2:11 Building the Business: From Barcelona to Recruitment
• 3:23 Challenges in the SEO Industry
• 3:55 Global Reach of SEO for Hire
• 5:01 The Complexity of SEO Roles
• 6:17 Vetting Process for SEOs
• 7:09 The Importance of Growth Mindset
• 8:03 Understanding SEO Hierarchies
• 9:06 Team Structures in SEO Agencies
• 10:49 When to Hire In-House SEOs
• 12:15 Industry Demand for SEOs
• 13:25 Expectations for Junior SEOs
• 15:46 Mid-Level and Senior SEO Roles
• 22:53 The Cost of a Bad Hire
• 30:35 Future of SEO Roles
• 32:56 Effective Communication in SEO
• 35:34 How to Reach SEO for Hire
• 36:16 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Transcript

[00:00:00] Josh Peacock: 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. 

[00:00:06] So 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.

[00:00:14] But 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. 

[00:00:24] But they need to have the traits like Billy. Or we get them to do a disc assessment. 

[00:00:28] So we can actually see, would they work well with Billy? Or would they work well with whoever would be managing them or likewise.

[00:00:34] So 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. 

Introduction to the Simple and Smart SEO Show

[00:00:41] Crystal Waddell: Welcome 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. 

[00:00:56] Thank you so much for being here.

[00:00:58] Let's jump into another great episode. 

[00:01:00] Welcome back to the Simple and Smart SEO Show podcast. Oh, my goodness. 

Meet Josh Peacock from SEO for Hire

[00:01:04] Crystal Waddell: We 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.

[00:01:16] So we're going to pull back the curtain today on what's going on in the SEO industry. 

[00:01:21] So Josh, thank you so much for being here.

[00:01:24] Josh Peacock: Thank you so much for having me, Crystal. It was lovely getting to meet you for the first time in San Diego at Brighton SEO. 

[00:01:29] So we talked about it back then. So it's great to finally jump on this.

[00:01:33] Crystal Waddell (2): That was so funny. 

[00:01:34] It was karaoke time. I think somebody was singing something special from the 80s. So yeah, that was so much fun. 

[00:01:40] But okay. 

The Beginnings of SEO for Hire

[00:01:41] Crystal Waddell (2): So can you give us just a little bit of your background, Josh? 

[00:01:44] Because 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?

[00:01:53] How did that begin?

[00:01:54] Josh Peacock: Yeah. 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. 

[00:02:01] And 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. 

[00:02:07] All I knew is that I love traveling and when I travel I I just get a lot of ideas.

Building the Business: From Barcelona to Recruitment

[00:02:11] Josh Peacock: So I was 22, when we started the company. And basically what happened was I was living in Barcelona at the time. 

[00:02:20] And 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.

[00:02:32] And 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. 

[00:02:39] So 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.

[00:02:47] We'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. 

[00:02:55] And 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.

[00:03:05] He 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.

Challenges in the SEO Industry

[00:03:23] Josh Peacock: Basically, 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. 

[00:03:32] And 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.

[00:03:40] And 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. 

[00:03:47] And 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. 

[00:03:54] Crystal Waddell (2): That's so exciting. 

Global Reach of SEO for Hire

[00:03:55] Crystal 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?

[00:04:07] Josh Peacock: Yes, 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. 

[00:04:17] So the way we kind of work is that most of our candidate base is either UK or US. 

[00:04:22] And 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. 

[00:04:29] They 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.

[00:04:35] So 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.

[00:04:50] And we were able to fill it within, I think it was a month and a bit. So yeah, so honestly, Anywhere.

[00:04:56] As long as somebody is looking to hire an SEO we can help them.

[00:04:58] Crystal Waddell (2): Yeah, I imagine it's difficult to fill these roles. 

The Complexity of SEO Roles

[00:05:01] Crystal Waddell (2): Maybe for one reason that there's not really an SEO degree. Like in terms of What people have on their credentials. 

[00:05:10] Like I can imagine that experience obviously matters. 

[00:05:13] But even SEO experience can you know be it could mean something different from place to place agency to agency. 

[00:05:21] So 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?

[00:05:30] Josh Peacock: Absolutely that. And as well as what you said about that, it could differ from agency to agency. 

[00:05:35] So 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.

[00:05:42] And 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.

[00:05:52] Maybe 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. 

[00:06:01] And 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.

[00:06:07] And 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. 

Vetting Process for SEOs

[00:06:17] Josh Peacock: So 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. 

[00:06:32] It'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.

[00:06:42] So 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. 

[00:06:52] So we have a different one for a technical SEO versus an SEO manager and SEO director.

[00:06:57] Kind 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? 

[00:07:03] What way do they test their SEOs? 

[00:07:05] And so yeah, it's a learning process. But it's an ongoing process to try and just build on.

The Importance of Growth Mindset

[00:07:09] Crystal Waddell (2): It's interesting that you mentioned growth mindset because I used to be a teacher. 

[00:07:13] I have a master's degree in physical education. 

[00:07:15] But 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.

[00:07:27] And as an entrepreneur, you can't look around and. Have somebody else do it. You can't push it off to somebody else. 

[00:07:33] You just have to get it done. 

[00:07:34] And so I think entrepreneurship lends itself to growth mindset, just like being an educator lends itself to growth mindset.

[00:07:41] And I've noticed that there are several entrepreneurial SEOs in the field. 

[00:07:47] As I've talked about my background, I've met other former teachers and different things, which is really interesting. 

[00:07:52] One 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.

Understanding SEO Hierarchies

[00:08:03] Crystal Waddell (2): And link building and all that type of stuff. 

[00:08:05] Could you talk us through like the hierarchy of seo positions. 

[00:08:09] Because I know I see, Senior seo position available. 

[00:08:13] I'm like, what is that? What do they do? What are they responsible for? 

[00:08:16] So can you walk us through that, depth chart, I guess?

[00:08:19] Josh Peacock: Yeah I'd like to just say a disclaimer first, right? So we've been doing this for nearly three years. 

[00:08:24] And 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. 

[00:08:34] And he showed us their career roadmap. And honestly, Crystal, there must have been 14 places from junior SEO, the whole way.

[00:08:41] I don't know what the last one was. I think it was something like senior SEO director. 

[00:08:45] Or 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. 

[00:08:55] So it's okay, when realistically that could just be, there should just be junior, mid and senior.

[00:09:01] Is the way that I look at it, but yeah, look, it depends on what company you're in, what agency you're in. 

Team Structures in SEO Agencies

[00:09:06] Josh Peacock: A lot of companies either have big content teams, big technical teams. 

[00:09:09] Then they have client facing, and then they have somebody that, that directs all the that. 

[00:09:13] One thing that we're seeing quite common in a lot of bigger agencies is that they have all small little pods.

[00:09:19] So it's like mini agencies within the agency, if that makes sense. 

[00:09:22] So you could have one content, one tech. One on page, one strategy, one client facing and then somebody that manages all of that. 

[00:09:29] So honestly, Crystal it depends on what company it is. 

[00:09:33] There's no Just given hierarchy. But that is something that we're looking at the minute. 

[00:09:38] The idea of recruitment to me is like vulture recruitment. That they're not really there to benefit the industry.

[00:09:43] So 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. 

[00:09:49] So basically what we try and do is we try and give out free resources. So one we did recently was the optimizing onboarding. 

[00:09:55] Where 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. 

[00:10:02] And 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. 

[00:10:10] So 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. 

[00:10:16] And just see if they've run an agency for 10 years, what team structure have they got now?

[00:10:20] They've obviously tried and tested. 

[00:10:21] Maybe 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. 

[00:10:28] But right now, it's

[00:10:29] everything, 

[00:10:30] Crystal Waddell (2): and part of that is I just wanted the entrepreneurs who are listening You to know that overwhelm you feel with SEO? 

[00:10:38] There's a reason for it because it's usually broken down into multiple roles for multiple people. 

[00:10:45] So I just wanted to, give that layer of comfort to my fellow entrepreneurs out there.

When to Hire In-House SEOs

[00:10:49] Crystal 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?

[00:11:02] Josh Peacock: Yeah. So again it depends. 

[00:11:04] Like we've got clients that are massive agencies that are just starting to build out their SEO team. 

[00:11:09] Or 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.

[00:11:21] Eli Schwartz has got a few articles on this that is great. 

[00:11:23] But. Yeah, honestly Crystal, it could be from all sizes. 

[00:11:27] But 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. 

[00:11:36] So I think in their eyes, if they bring somebody in the house, they'll be working on this all the time. 

[00:11:40] Without having been an agency working with maybe 10, 15 different clients a month type of thing.

[00:11:45] So I guess it's once, the actual SEO channel hits a certain amount of volume or a certain amount of leads. 

[00:11:52] That you think it's a great strategy to bring in and invest in an in

[00:11:55] Crystal Waddell (2): I could imagine when you work with an agency, then they have their own internal structure. 

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

[00:12:05] So 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.

Industry Demand for SEOs

[00:12:15] Crystal Waddell (2): But then I'm also wondering, Because so many companies are coming online since 2020. 

[00:12:21] Is there an industry that you see that like SEO and, SEOs are being recruited more often for that particular industry versus other ones?

[00:12:30] Josh Peacock: I can't say, I can't say I do. 

[00:12:33] We work with all types of different industries from finance to anything and everything. 

[00:12:38] Travels one, to be honest, that's quite high in demand right now. 

[00:12:41] I think maybe that might've just been because it COVID, which Roughly when we started it was just after COVID.

[00:12:47] Maybe it's starting to pick up a bit more. 

[00:12:49] But 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. 

[00:12:59] So yeah, that could be one that I think is in high demand right now. 

Expectations for Junior SEOs

[00:13:02] Crystal 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? 

[00:13:10] Can we start with the junior? And understand like what's expected in that particular job title?

[00:13:15] And how much do they get paid?

[00:13:17] Josh Peacock: That's a tricky one again, Crystal.

[00:13:19] Because we work with companies globally the salaries are different everywhere. 

[00:13:23] And 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. 

[00:13:33] And looking for somebody maybe one to two years experience in an agency. 

[00:13:36] Whereas in the uk you could find somebody on that salary who's Four or five six years into their career. 

[00:13:43] So yeah, the salary one. 

[00:13:45] It's one that everybody always wants to know. 

[00:13:47] What 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. 

[00:13:56] So it's changing honestly every few weeks. 

[00:13:58] And to answer your question about what's expected of a junior. 

[00:14:02] Is Again, I'd love to just be able to bullet point.

[00:14:05] This is what's expected, but because we work with so many different companies, all so different, Crystal. 

[00:14:10] So 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. 

[00:14:18] And that's them. And then maybe they're asked to do whatever it is in SEO terms.

[00:14:22] But 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. 

[00:14:27] And then the company just naturally promotes them up. 

[00:14:30] So that's why we created a thing called the SEO leadership playbook. 

[00:14:33] Is because we found that there was a lot of SEOs that hadn't actually been taught how to lead properly.

[00:14:39] They'd either just been in the agency for long enough that they just felt that they needed to be promoted. 

[00:14:44] Or they had annual reviews. And it's you've been here for one to two years. This is the next stage. 

[00:14:49] When 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. 

[00:14:57] So that's why we built that on this on the back end of that. So honestly, Crystal again. 

[00:15:02] I'd love to be able to give you an answer in 10 different bullet points. 

[00:15:04] But it just It changes all the time.

[00:15:06] Crystal Waddell (2): It gives me you know an idea ,though. 

[00:15:08] It's okay. 

[00:15:09] Obviously that's the entry level point of an SEO or what we could generalize as an entry point. 

[00:15:15] And then their job roles report to somebody else.

[00:15:18] So I'm assuming that the person that they report to is that mid level SEO, right? 

Mid-Level and Senior SEO Roles

[00:15:23] Crystal Waddell (2): So is there anything different, Josh, about their job description from that entry level person?

[00:15:30] Josh Peacock: So 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. 

[00:15:38] And 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.

[00:15:48] Then 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. 

[00:15:58] And then the more senior position above that would be more SEO director level. 

[00:16:02] Which 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.

[00:16:11] And what's funny is that most of them are actually out of the trenches. Yeah. So they're not actually doing SEO every day. 

[00:16:17] They're more managing the team, finding out the best way to keep shareholders and and the actual C suite executives happy. 

[00:16:25] Rather than actually doing SEO. Yeah that's just a broad description of it.

[00:16:29] But again, You can get an SEO director that's in the trenches every single day who's got one to two people underneath them. 

[00:16:35] So it just depends from

[00:16:36] Crystal 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. 

[00:16:49] What is the, since you said, you can't tell us exactly, but like you gave us a starting point for an entry level SEO.

[00:16:57] Is there a general salary range for the mid-level and then you know that senior level?

[00:17:03] Josh Peacock: Yeah, so if we look at UK side first the UK side for an entry level is anywhere from 30k to maybe 38k GBP. 

[00:17:12] For 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. 

[00:17:22] And then any way up from that is more senior side.

[00:17:25] But again I wish that was just the basics. I wish there was a rule for all companies to be like that. 

[00:17:30] But 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. 

[00:17:37] Which isn't enough.

[00:17:38] And 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. 

[00:17:45] And they were wanting 45 K USD and we were like, we're not going to find somebody for that. 

[00:17:51] And they were like let us go do it by ourselves for a month.

[00:17:53] And 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. 

[00:17:59] But 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.

[00:18:10] But yeah. 

[00:18:10] So from entry level on the U S it could be anywhere from 50 to 60 K. 

[00:18:16] SEO manager or like a senior SEO specialist could be anywhere from 60 to a hundred K. 

[00:18:22] And 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.

[00:18:30] I know PayPal had an SEO director role for 280 K. 

[00:18:34] And there's, there is a job fishing about, I think it's a senior SEO director it's 300 and something K as well. 

[00:18:40] So again, it just depends on the company and it just depends how much they actually value SEO.

[00:18:44] Crystal 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. 

[00:18:54] And how many different things that person was actually going to have to do and manage.

[00:18:58] So that's a fun story.

[00:19:00] Josh Peacock: That'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. 

[00:19:08] It'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. 

[00:19:15] But a lot of clients come to us because it's either too late. 

[00:19:18] There's very few clients that come to us that are like, okay, we've got this targeted for the next six months.

[00:19:23] And the next six months, we're probably going to hire another SEO specialist or another two SEO specialists. 

[00:19:27] It's always okay we just signed another client last week. We need to hire somebody now. And it's all rushed. 

[00:19:33] Or somebody's trying to do it by themselves. 

[00:19:35] So 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.

[00:19:40] And we try and give a lot of free resources as well, away, Crystal. 

[00:19:43] We try and help clients do it. 

[00:19:44] Because 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. 

[00:19:51] But there's so much. 

[00:19:52] In between there's the tech stack that we use to constantly be nurturing candidates and try and constantly doing things.

[00:19:58] We've got the webinars. We've got the podcast. We give out free resources. 

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

[00:20:05] I love it when clients come to us and they're like we're going to try for another month. 

[00:20:08] Because I'll say to the team, I was like we're here for them in a month then. 

[00:20:11] Because 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.

[00:20:18] Crystal Waddell (2): I think it's neat how you know, because you specialize in SEO. 

[00:20:23] Like 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.

[00:20:31] So 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. 

[00:20:40] That'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.

[00:20:48] Josh Peacock: yeah. Honestly, a few things that we do with that as well is. 

[00:20:51] We've turned down working with companies before. 

[00:20:54] We'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.

[00:21:03] We look at them and they were like do you know what, honestly, you'd be better suited at working with an agency. 

[00:21:06] But maybe the next year until you bring X, Y, and Z up. 

[00:21:09] And 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. 

[00:21:16] I don't want somebody just to come for me quickly for a transaction.

[00:21:19] So if we can help give any value for free. Knowing that they could come back in five, 10, even 15 years time.

[00:21:26] Hopefully we'll still be about!

[00:21:27] Then we'll do that. 

[00:21:28] And 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. 

[00:21:35] Maybe they're asking way too much for an agency or from that SEO.

[00:21:39] Once 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.

[00:21:55] So it's like, on a client sales call, I always say, I was like, I know it sounds cliche. 

[00:21:59] But like our ethos is quality over quantity. 

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

[00:22:05] We'll give you two or three and we've got in trouble with that before with clients. They're like come on.

[00:22:09] You've been working on this for a week, two weeks. You've only been able to showcase two or three candidates?

[00:22:13] And I'm like I promise. 

[00:22:14] Bring 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. 

[00:22:19] We work within quality.

[00:22:21] Crystal Waddell (2): I think this applies to any business owner. 

[00:22:23] No 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. 

The Cost of a Bad Hire

[00:22:30] Crystal Waddell (2): So in your experience, like in the, this SEO industry. 

[00:22:35] How much does it cost to hire the wrong person? Speeding it up just to get somebody in that role?

[00:22:41] Josh Peacock: yeah honestly, it depends on the business. 

[00:22:44] It depends on how much new business you're bringing on. It depends on how many team members you've currently got. 

[00:22:48] But I think there's, is it Glassdoor have got a case study? 

[00:22:52] Where I think it's the wrong hire can cost, is it 130k? 

[00:22:56] Because you don't just have the recruitment costs. 

[00:22:59] You've got the actual time, the resource. Everything that goes into it.

[00:23:02] But 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. 

[00:23:08] I remember when we first started the company, I hired somebody. 

[00:23:13] And let's just say they really didn't work out. I know that's bad coming from a recruitment company. 

[00:23:17] But, it really just didn't work out.

[00:23:19] They had all the experience on paper. They passed our tests and stuff. 

[00:23:23] But 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. 

[00:23:31] They came in. We're a startup. Everything needs to be done yesterday. That we don't have time to do things like that.

[00:23:37] And 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. 

[00:23:47] And it was like, Those, I think they were with us for maybe five months. 

[00:23:50] And those five months, not that they were wasted because I don't believe anything's wasted.

[00:23:53] Like I learned a lot about that. 

[00:23:55] But if you're running a big organization, you're spending decent salaries on. 

[00:23:59] And they're wasting time training somebody up for them to leave within six months. Or to be the wrong hire. 

[00:24:03] I genuinely think it's one of the most important things.

[00:24:06] And I know I probably sound biased. 

[00:24:08] But even Stephen Bartlett, I'm sure Stephen Bartlett, Diary of a CEO that if he talks about it all the time. 

[00:24:13] His job is to find the most talented people and build culture with them. 

[00:24:18] So 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. 

[00:24:25] And build a culture that keeps them together and let them thrive.

[00:24:29] So I genuinely think, I think recruitment's one of the most important jobs there is.

[00:24:32] Crystal 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. 

[00:24:40] I understand that application even in, your sector because, the ramifications continue to happen down the line of whatever, negative thing happened in the past.

[00:24:51] And then the other thing I was thinking about is even my father, he has owned a landscaping company for years. 

[00:24:58] And 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. 

[00:25:12] Not just showing up for the paycheck, even though obviously that's the deal, right?

[00:25:17] That'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.

[00:25:29] Josh Peacock: Yeah. 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. 

[00:25:37] Is to try and recruit or to try and hire Without going into all of the processes. 

[00:25:44] Okay. Let's say we find somebody tomorrow. 

[00:25:46] Let's say, or next week, and we don't have an onboarding process that we've properly invested time into. 

[00:25:52] But then you've done all the work to try and find somebody, and then they're out the door within three months.

[00:25:56] Cause the whole onboarding process, like the honeymoon phase. Is what sets up employees for the rest of their company. 

[00:26:02] And that's how they build that reputation and that brand image. 

[00:26:04] So if you as well, start to hire, but you don't have all of the hiring process mapped out.

[00:26:10] So 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. 

[00:26:16] Let's say you don't get back to them, Crystal, that's 150 high quality SEOs that wanted to work with your company. 

[00:26:23] And that now I have a bad image for your company because you haven't replied to anybody.

[00:26:26] Do 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. 

[00:26:33] So 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.

[00:26:41] But 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. 

[00:26:51] But they need to have the traits like Billy, or we get them to do a disc assessment. 

[00:26:55] So we can actually see, would they work well with Billy, or would they work well with whoever would be managing them or likewise.

[00:27:01] So 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. 

[00:27:08] And 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. 

[00:27:15] Go to events that you think that those people will be at.

[00:27:18] So Brighton SEO, San Diego, great example of it. There's what hundreds, if not thousands of great SEO there. 

[00:27:25] Josh Peacock: Business 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.

[00:27:33] Stand there, be like this is what we want. And again, month, two months before, map out what you actually want. 

[00:27:38] So you have leaflets or whatever it is. 

[00:27:41] And 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.

[00:27:47] Crystal Waddell (2): It's so interesting how the process of recruitment and these suggestions that you're making are, parallel to SEO. 

[00:27:53] Because you can have the greatest SEO in the world, but if your user experience is terrible. 

[00:27:59] Or your product is terrible. Or any of the customer service experiences are terrible.

[00:28:05] It undoes everything that your SEO works so hard to get you. 

[00:28:11] We've talked about that before on the show of the importance of having a checklist. 

[00:28:15] Of just writing down your processes. 

[00:28:18] Because a lot of times, things are in the head of the business owner.

[00:28:22] Or, the people who've been there since the beginning

[00:28:24] and so you just take for granted that when people come on, they're just going to assimilate that knowledge. 

[00:28:30] But 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.

[00:28:41] I think that's a behavioral science thing too, just being able to understand what to expect, calms the nervous system.

[00:28:48] Josh Peacock: Yeah.

[00:28:48] I've got two things on that. So, again we use a ClickUp as our project management tool. 

[00:28:53] And 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. 

[00:29:01] And 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.

[00:29:08] It was built for me. So I basically had to go 

[00:29:09] into it, refine it, update it and change it. 

[00:29:12] Last 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.

[00:29:21] But company culture is such an important thing to these guys. 

[00:29:25] And 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. 

[00:29:33] And they know that it's not the right way of doing it. They want somebody to do that.

[00:29:36] And they thought that would be challenging. And I was like, I actually don't think that is challenging. 

[00:29:40] I 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. 

[00:29:50] These are now the processes I'm going to start building. And stuff like that.

[00:29:52] So 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.

[00:29:59] Crystal Waddell (2): Yeah. I guess it's both the dream job and also a scary opportunity. 

[00:30:03] Because you're building it from ground up. 

[00:30:05] So it's if it fails then you know that's on you, but if it succeeds, that's also on you. 

[00:30:10] So that's a fun part of it. 

Future of SEO Roles

[00:30:12] Crystal 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? 

[00:30:23] Like how is the role of the SEO and the availability of SEO roles?

[00:30:29] How have they changed over the last couple of years?

[00:30:32] Josh Peacock: Yeah. It hasn't been good for the job market. 

[00:30:34] Like if we're being honest, I think we're all seeing in the last year, especially. 

[00:30:39] But I think it's a positive overall. 

[00:30:40] Those low hanging fruit jobs. They're being replaced. 

[00:30:44] One SEO that knows how to adopt a load of AI. And use it to their advantage. 

[00:30:49] Is as good as maybe five SEOs, two, three years ago. 

[00:30:52] At the bottom end, I'm talking about.

[00:30:54] But on a positive note, I think what we're seeing is we're seeing a lot of more companies want more Strategists. 

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

[00:31:03] Across the board that we're seeing a lot more like growth advisor, SEO roles. Growth strategist.

[00:31:08] So I think what we're seeing is yeah, there's a big change in it. 

[00:31:13] But I think those that are actually adopting AI and that are working as a with it as a friend. 

[00:31:19] Are going into those higher salary, more growth side roles. Which is great.

[00:31:23] Crystal 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?

[00:31:32] Josh Peacock: Yeah, I'd love to say that SEO is going to be around in about 10 years time. 

[00:31:35] But I think it's going to be extremely different to what it is today. 

[00:31:38] We only started about two and a half, three years ago. From then it's already changed so much.

[00:31:43] As 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.

[00:31:49] I'd love to think that SEO will still be about, I hope it is. 

[00:31:53] But 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.

[00:32:01] Crystal Waddell (2): Yeah, I,

[00:32:01] want to know the crystal ball. I thought you had the Crystal ball. So I wanted you to look into it and 

[00:32:06] Josh Peacock: I don't have the Crystal ball.

[00:32:08] Crystal 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. 

[00:32:16] You mentioned, getting knowledgeable in AI. 

[00:32:19] But is there anything specific within technology that SEOs really could, be growing in? So that they make themselves more marketable in the future?

[00:32:28] Josh Peacock: yeah, absolutely. And I don't think it lies within AI. I think actually lies within communication styles. 

Effective Communication in SEO

[00:32:33] Josh Peacock: One 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. 

[00:32:44] So those that are able to talk within revenue and bottom line. 

[00:32:49] And 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.

[00:32:57] And 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. 

[00:33:05] So I went on a, an hour call with him and we mapped out this whole way about how he could get a promotion. 

[00:33:10] He's handling half a million pounds worth of SEO.

[00:33:13] All of this. At a great company. 

[00:33:16] And 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. 

[00:33:24] So I think the biggest thing that SEOs can do to make themselves more attractive for companies hired is learn how to communicate effectively.

[00:33:32] A great resource on that is, Eli Schwartz has got a thing called the Rice Method. R I C E. 

[00:33:37] On 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. 

[00:33:42] And there was a company owner who just didn't get SEO.

[00:33:47] Didn't want to get it, and they were completely closed to it.

[00:33:49] So he came in, put a presentation of a gif of a basketball player passing a ball to somebody. 

[00:33:55] And then them shooting it in. And he just played it over and over and over again. And just kept quiet. 

[00:34:02] And he just seeing everybody looking at it and confused. 

[00:34:04] And he goes, This is what seo is. 

[00:34:06] The assist to everything else that goes in. Seo isn't going to be the one that just moves the needle by itself. 

[00:34:12] It's everything else. And he finally got the point across to the company owner and Whatever it did a lot of work with them.

[00:34:18] So, I think about learning about different ways you can communicate. 

[00:34:21] Like 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. 

[00:34:30] Crystal Waddell (2): Yeah, I think analogies are so good, with SEO. And it's seen as such a technical practice, in general. 

[00:34:37] And I know that a lot of new SEOs make that mistake of thinking that the technical is where it's at. 

[00:34:44] When, like you said. It's really the strategy. And understanding like where you can optimize for profit, right? 

[00:34:51] It's it's not just about the analytics that you can measure, with numbers on a chart. 

[00:34:57] But it's about how it impacts the brand itself. 

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

[00:35:03] So I'll definitely get that from you. 

[00:35:05] And 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. 

How to Reach SEO for Hire

[00:35:11] Crystal Waddell (2): So tell us how someone can get a hold of you. And who should reach out to your company?

[00:35:16] Is it the SEO themselves or is it companies that are looking to hire an SEO?

[00:35:21] Josh Peacock: Yeah. So anybody, if you're looking for an SEO job, just give us a search. 

[00:35:26] On LinkedIn is probably the best place. Just Josh Peacock. 

[00:35:28] Or 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. 

[00:35:38] We've got loads of Calendly links in there.

[00:35:39] You can book a call with me. 

[00:35:41] Or again, if you want to go through my LinkedIn. 

[00:35:43] But 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.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

[00:35:53] Crystal Waddell (2): This is awesome. 

[00:35:53] Josh, thank you so much for kind of pulling the curtain back on what it means to be a search engine optimizer at any level. 

[00:36:01] I wanted to ask questions like these for at least a year. 

[00:36:05] So I'm just so grateful that you came on the show to break it down.

[00:36:08] Josh Peacock: No problem. 

[00:36:09] Thank you for having me. Crystal.

[00:36:10] Crystal Waddell (2): See you next time!

[00:36:11] ​