How to Manage a Content Team (Part 2: Hiring)

Jimmy Daly

July 13, 2021

Hiring is a marketing problem. Like content, you can either build inbound interest over time or resort to cold outreach when the need arises.

This same conundrum pops up in much of our work as marketers. It’s hard to flip a switch and get results in any domain. It’s easier to distribute content when your channels are well-developed. It’s easier to grow search traffic when your domain authority is high. And it’s much easier to hire when your employer brand is strong.

This post is about hiring, not employer branding, but I lead with it because it’s the most overlooked and best way to attract great people to your company. So many of the job ads I read are transactional: “We give you ‘x,’, you give us ‘y’.” We can do better and make our lives easier in the process.

Content marketers have a nice advantage when it comes to hiring—your team’s work is mostly public, which means it can attract customers but also new content talent. If you want to hire the best people, put out the best work. It won’t necessarily help your hiring today or tomorrow (although it certainly could), but it will next year and the one after. Good work compounds in many ways, not just traffic and trials.

Let’s assume that you’re working to establish an employer brand by publishing the best possible content and working with your people ops or HR team to improve the career page, the recruiting process, and your diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) framework. You still need to hire someone in the next month or two, not in two years. What else can do you?

Well, a lot of things! And we’ll cover as many of them as possible in this post.