The Hiring Reset: Where the Real Media & Ad Tech Jobs Are in 2026

The hiring market in media and advertising isn’t collapsing. It’s resetting.

In this episode, BIA’s Rick Ducey sits down with Robert Hawthorne, President of Hawthorne Search, to unpack today’s two-track job market: consolidation and headcount discipline in legacy media versus continued expansion across SaaS, data, and ad tech.

They explore where real job growth is happening, how compensation plans are shifting, why Q1 and early fall are prime hiring windows, and what both employers and candidates are getting wrong about today’s process.

You’ll hear why leading organizations are defining roles around 90-day and 6-to-12-month business outcomes instead of resume checklists and how that shift is changing the way talent competes and teams are built.

If you are hiring, planning a move, or trying to understand where the market is truly heading in 2026, this conversation provides a clear, practical roadmap.

To watch the video of the podcast, click here. To connect with Robert Hawthorne, reach him at  Robert@hawthornesearch.com

Transcript

Setting The Stage: Jobs And Media

Rick Ducey 0:35

Hello and welcome to BIA Advisory Services Leading Local Insights Podcast. I'm Rick Ducey, Managing Director of BIA Advisory Services, your source for local media market intelligence, insights, data, and strategies to grow your business. Today we're going to talk about the employment marketplace and the media business specifically. And joining us today, we have Robert Hawthorne, CEO founder of Hawthorne Search, a firm that specializes in executive recruitment for leadership positions at media and tech firms in sales, business development, marketing, e-commerce, and other high company leadership positions. Robert, thank you so much for joining us today.

Robert Hawthorne 1:13

Thanks for having me, Rick.

Rick Ducey 1:14

And uh just um to pin our conversation in time, we were just chatting a little bit beforehand. We'll have come through sort of a weather event that uh overwhelmed DC uh for uh most of two weeks. Uh and we're not very good at dealing with snow and ice and so on. But but you're in a beach town and really unusual to face this kind of a weather event.

Robert Hawthorne 1:36

Yeah, we're down here in Wilmington, North Carolina, which uh for those who are unfamiliar, coastal Michael Jordan's hometown, number one uh area for net migration in to the last three years, but not known for snowstorms. And we had about eight inches uh two weeks ago, and and we have only the salt that you get at a barbecue joint on the table. So we don't have any road salt, and uh plow is is really just not even on the radar screen here. So it was uh a lot of people who don't know how to drive, and all the milk, bread, and eggs uh, of course, disappeared as everyone makes French toast when snow comes, of course.

Weather Metaphor To Labor Market Reality

Rick Ducey 2:15

Well, there's nothing I love more than a torture analogy metaphor or a cliche. So um building on the snowstorm and being unprepared, I mean, that is kind of our employment marketplace right now to a large extent. The recent jobs report that came out um I think was showed a good bump, you know, in the employment economy. But if you dig not very far into that, like most of those jobs are healthcare. Um and you know, what's happening in the media industry? We're seeing uh industries, you know, looking at compressed margins, looking to reduce expenses, or trying to grow themselves out of things with revenues, they're trying to do consolidation. There's a lot of good people kind of on the bench now, um, and uncertainty ahead with tariffs, you know, interest rates, uh, what's the ad spend going to look like? Because that drives a lot of hiring in media and then the tech companies that support the media. There's uh so many different forces going on. I mean, so tell us a bit about about you and in your company and how your positions in this space. And uh I was, you know, we were chatting a bit like I think it's probably been a couple of weeks ago now, where you were actually getting good signals from the market uh from a hiring perspective. So maybe there's um silver cloud, uh silver lining in those snow clouds.

Robert’s Background And Market Pulse

Robert Hawthorne 3:31

So so we've been in the media, ad tech, Martech, uh SaaS, digital marketing sandbox for a long time. You know, we grew up in linear and traditional media, uh, you know, even going back to when you all had some amazing local media conferences uh, you know, in key cities and you know, back in the Yellow Pages days, the traditional newspaper days, and migrated through uh the birth and growth of digital into you know pure play standalone uh ad tech uh companies now. So we've we've seen a lot of transition and a lot of change in the labor market, of course, along the way. You know, we've done over 3,000 placements uh over the last 20 years. We average over 100 a year, and those range from placing heads of revenue and publishers to heads of digital marketing to uh product folks to customer success and populating entire sales teams. So, you know, my team and I on a daily-weekly basis are a pretty good pulse of what's going on in the labor market in your world and my world. So we're talking to both uh millennial Gen Zers as well as established Gen Xers and later career baby boomers. So we're getting tails uh from the battlefield uh across the board. So we're a pretty good pulpit in terms of gathering the information and then having a pretty decent idea of what the trend lines are.

Rick Ducey 4:58

So we're seeing tech companies, um, the um Magnificent 7 and so on, um, making some cuts in areas, but actually then hiring in other areas. So they're sort of rationalizing their sales force or their um uh employment force, um beefing up in AI maybe and uh cutting back in some other areas, some product areas perhaps. Um and in in the media, you know, we're looking at margins and ad spending constricting, maybe, and that drives a lot of hiring and restructuring. And as um many have hoped on the media side that there'd be a friendlier policy environment for consolidation MA, which has had its ups and downs, but maybe we're headed for some ups now in 26. So as companies prepare for MA, they they look to you know clean up their balance sheets and uh the margins, and so that affects people a lot of times. Once those tractions go through, you know, maybe hiring starts up again. But you're seeing some promising signs. I mean, so there's a lot of both you know seasoned executives that can really help lead a company, which is where you specialize, and then like you were saying, some of the younger um professionals that are looking for a place to plug in. So the senior people, when I talk to them, it's like I've got a lot to offer. I just, you know, where do I offer it from now? It's a little bit confusing. And then the younger people, there's no jobs for me. AI's, you know, uh made my future irrelevant. So you work with those people, um, both you know, trying to find positions and uh companies trying to find those people with a good match. What do you see going on there? What where are we and what do you think is going to happen over the over the course of the year?

Two Markets: Legacy Media Vs SaaS

Robert Hawthorne 6:39

Uh you know, it's it's a very interesting time. And I think you if you split things into maybe two buckets, um, you have the traditional media companies, uh, you know, the legacy media companies that have digital or ad tech components, and you have the standalone SaaS data, uh, ad tech more tech companies. So put them in two buckets, right? So if we're looking at the legacy companies, what we've seen over the last 12 to 18 months is consolidation, reduction in headcount, uh, hiring back key individuals who maybe could take on two roles, or eliminating one role and giving the other person more money, but double the responsibility and double the workload, um, looking for key individual contributors on the sales side who bring quote unquote a book of business in a local market environment. Um, a lot of media companies are still willing to hire up in a local market if someone can pay for themselves in short order. So doing um more with less is probably a good way to sum up that sector or that portion of the marketplace. Um, far too many sad stories of really good people in the prime of their career who have been let go, not for performance, not through per you know anything in terms of personality issues with their boss, just consolidation and reduction in headcount. So sometimes you have the highest salary, it doesn't matter if you have the best performance, but companies are just looking to uh, you know, maybe take a little less on the numbers just to get off your salary off their books. Um the standalone companies, shall we we call them, the startups, the growth, the private equity backed companies, uh, you know, they still have some of the same pressures, but we're seeing more ads to staff on that side as opposed to replacements or repla or opposed to reductions in force and consolidating roles. So um, you know, it's it's two different marketplaces within our world. Um, I will say last year, overall our revenue numbers as an organization were up versus 2024, but we did fewer searches. So what we saw was that salaries had crept up, and we can talk about that and what some of the trends lines are there later on, but not more roles. So we were filling, you know, we get paid based on percentage of base salary. So we track what our average you know salary that we place is, and it was up about 20% year over the previous year. Yep. But this year, the good news is Q1, we've seen a very meaningful uptick in new recs coming in, both from existing clients, established clients, and new clients. And a good chunk of those are not replacements, they're not poor performers, they're not even resignations, they're they're new ads to staff. So I'm an optimist by nature. Uh, I'm also a pragmatist, but I I do see more hires this year that are growth higher, shall we call them, than replacement or consolidation hires.

Rick Ducey 9:22

Well, that's good to hear. And yeah, I guess these companies are making a bet on where the marketplace is going to go because um, you know, day to day it changes so much, it gets a bit uh tenuous trying to, you know, place a bet and then see it blow up, you know, the next day, uh, and then come back and be a solid bet two days later. Uh not for the faint of heart. So you're talking about two segments. Um, I've also been hearing about kind of no hire, no fire. Uh companies that maybe aren't part of an acquisition discussion on either end of it, um, but they're just trying to hunker down and get through this period until there's more certainty and they figure out what they want to do. They're maybe the margins are okay, the revenues are okay, they've got um, I don't want to say an unexciting product, but something that, you know, dependably sells and people are gonna keep up with, and they're just trying to keep their heads um low uh to get through a period and then decide, okay, is there an opportunity for us uh to do something now? Can we extend, can we scale? Is that no hire, no fire? Is that kind of a third segment you see, or maybe not?

Robert Hawthorne 10:27

You know, I I think that's one of the things you're gonna have to circle back more towards the spring. Because what some people don't realize is there's a certain amount of seasonality in hiring. You know, we always talk about seasonality in retail and Christmas hiring, but it's in corporate America, uh very few CEOs, presidents, unit leaders go into a new year and say, let's just kind of float as we are. Everyone comes back, you know, there's pressures from private equity, there's pressures from Wall Street. You know, growth is always you know the key, you know, the key thing everyone's pushing towards. So one way to get growth is to hire. So we always see a big up to Q1, uh, new reps, new hires. Then that's where the kind of the wheat and the chaff are separated in the spring and summer. A lot of companies do hunker down, as you say. And then after the summer lulls with vacations and school out, believe it or not, early fall becomes another hot, hot time when companies want to get hires in before you get to the holidays and things completely shut down. So there's two big uh big crests, so to speak. It's usually beginning of Q1, Q1, and then around September, early October. And then, you know, then you can kind of see who's doing well and who's struggling when you get into late spring, early summer. If a company is calling us or we're calling them and they're open at that time, it's usually around positive for first quarter numbers, um, some sort of investment that's given them additional capital. Uh, but then companies that are struggling will tell us we're holding tight until the fall, or maybe even until Q1 and 27. So I think you know, everyone's a wide-eyed optimist in Q1. Um, after the first two touchdowns have been scored against you and you're down 14 points in the second quarter, maybe there's a few less hires that that come in spring and summer.

Rick Ducey 12:18

Man, you're killing me. I'm a Patriots fan. Don't use that metaphor.

Robert Hawthorne 12:23

Six more months and you'll be talking about them again.

Cuts, Consolidation, And Growth Hires

Rick Ducey 12:26

Exactly. I hope. I think so. Um let me let's sort of jump into the maelstrom here a bit. So from the perspective of being in the um hiring, being hired game, um, you know, if you're uh looking to find that person, there's a lot of you know seasoned people out there that have great track records. Um, you know, they're had a high salary. So they got, you know, when you do the sort and excel, it's like, okay, those three people. Uh and uh, you know, other than the salary rewarding career achievements, um, you know, maybe no particular reason. It's just that's the rule of the day. Um, so so those people are good, you know, uh, but they're sidelined, they're on the bench. And then there's a lot of other people that go deeper that maybe aren't as prominent, as easy to find in searches for for firms like yours. Um now when you're a a person looking for position, you know, you're talking probably to an AI bot, um, more so than you know, a person. And if it's a person, it's probably an HR person, not not a person in a functional area. So from a candidate's perspective, you know, companies have trouble, I suppose, finding who is a good crop of candidates for us to look at. And we don't know how to find them. You know, we can do things on LinkedIn or you know, various job boards and use AI to help screen them. But it seems like that creates an opportunity for you, you know, and companies like yours to say, yeah, we can use those tools, but we also know the players, we know the industry. Um, and you know, you you did a post on LinkedIn that thought was really insightful, um, likening this to Battle Royale and um the hiring games, where you know, you know, we've it's like so our our little company, we've looked for people and we've you know done some off streets working with you and LinkedIn and some other platforms, and you know, we we get hundreds of people back. It's like, what are we supposed to do with this? You know, how do we sort through all these people? So talk a bit about that post that you did on the hiring games and you know, how do you get above random selection to just start talking to people and see if there's a match between what they can bring to your company and what you think you need?

Seasonal Hiring Patterns And Q1 Optimism

Robert Hawthorne 14:35

Happy to do. Let me give you an anecdotal example of what a lot of candidates are going through today with AI and all the volume that's out there. So we recently had a director of customer success search for a um a SaaS client of ours. And um, they were looking for someone who could lead uh managers and individual contributors, and it was a growth company and it was an ad staff, and you know, I I'm pretty decent at my writing. And I put a lit ad on LinkedIn and uh went through our database and referrals, and we got about 500 applicants off of LinkedIn, which was an incredibly high number. And usually when we post something on LinkedIn, I'll say 90% of the candidates are not appropriate, right? Some are good for other things, but some are just it's free to apply, right? So why not throw your hat in? You never know. Um, I would say that over half had the requisite skill set to be considered for the job. So um which was it was daunting for us because there was just such volume. And then there was the referrals we were getting and the people in our database and our network and all the different things. So, long story short, you know, I personally interviewed about 15 of the candidates, and then we got about eight of them interviews. And to a person, I always ask, like, how are you finding the job market to good candidates? Because I want to know, I want to hear what their stories are. And all eight of the candidates felt beaten down. These were all good people, mid-career, right amount of skill set, right amount of experience. They were talking about how so much is automated, they don't even get a call, they don't get a personalized email, they fall through the ether in terms of once they have an intake email exchange. Uh, and so for us having one-on-one conversations, preparing them for their interviews, they were just grateful to actually talk to somebody who could give them information about the company and to get them prepared and make them feel uh personalized to a degree. So for anybody who's out there going through this process, um, AI technology is a double-edged sword in almost every part of the business community today. And in terms of job seeking, it's a lot, a lot of downside. And you do become commoditized, and the human element, it has been removed to a large degree, um, which is really the nexus for that article, right? Um for a good person or even a person who doesn't have a great background, it doesn't matter. Um, it feels like a gauntlet, right? Uh you are going through a never-ending uh series of quests to get an elusive job offer. Um, there's ghost jobs out there, which have been highlighted in the Wall Street Journal, where 30 to 40% of all online ads are ghost jobs where companies are just looking to warehouse resumes and profiles in case they get something down the road. So beyond uh an impersonalized uh daunting interview process for real jobs, you've got nearly half of the jobs that are out there that don't even exist. So I wanted to put an article out there that just gave a neat comparison to a movie many of us have watched that talked about a uh a strong woman in survival mode and the game rules constantly changed until she got to the end and the candidates and what they're going through on a daily basis.

AI, Ghost Jobs, And Candidate Fatigue

Rick Ducey 17:48

Yeah, it's tough, boy. And and um I guess we're getting to a point now where it's uh my bot talks to your bot. So the person trying to get hired, it's like, well, I've I've got a little agent script I'm running here in the hiring company, so it's like you know, the the uh the Python scripts talk to each other uh through some sort of AI platform, and maybe they go out to lunch together. I don't know. Um one one of the things that you mentioned in the hiring process, like getting 500, you know, on the one hand, it's like, wow, that's great, you know, what a great pool to potentially pick from. Um I suppose the flip side of the ghost um jobs is probably this ghost resumes. It's like people doing a bunch of, I mean, it could even be competitors, floating things like that to see, you know, uh who's gonna respond to it and you know who's oh my gosh, you know. So my you know, Brand B, my my big competitor, I put I uh um, you know, posted these jobs and um they're they're you know, availability is not trying to hire all these people. So they're growing in this area. We better grow in this area. I suppose that's another way to um get some competitive intelligence. But you also talk about um the elimination mindset. So if you've got if you surface, say, 500 candidates, you somehow have to go through that, you know, with AI tools, um looking for qualifications, credentials, experience, and somehow you have to validate that and then maybe bubble that up to the you know 15 or so candidates that you want to personally interview and you know, have dozen eight you want to pass on to your clients. For the elimination mindset, um when you speak to that notion, that's the idea of we need to go from 500 to 20. Um, so let's just cut a bunch of people out versus um, I guess a little bit the inverse. There's diamonds in a rough or actual diamonds, you know, how do we surface those? So rather than eliminate, we want to you know prioritize and discover um the people most likely to be can be contributors to our company. How do you how do you deal with that elimination mindset?

Robert Hawthorne 19:43

Well, there's two issues at play here, right? First of all, there is the volume. Uh, you know, companies do have to make decisions, and I understand that, and they do have to have processes in place that lead them to culling the list of applicable candidates down to an acceptable number. You don't want your hiring managers and your executives wasting, you know, 20 hours a week interviewing 15 candidates. When if you had five good ones, that would be more than enough to kind of have a good cross-section. So I do understand that there is a goal here, and saving time uh is a big part of it, which is one of our value ads, is that we can save that time for our clients. But there's a broader issue in that some companies, I feel like they um they just look for a reason not to hire someone instead of finding the reason to be attracted to someone. It's uh there's so many parallels to dating, right? Like the dating apps when people who are single and they talk about, oh, you know, I'm on all these dating apps and it's you know, all the no's. And it's like, you know, you can find a reason not to like someone, right? Like that's pretty easy. You can have a list of criteria that is insurmountable for uh mortal man or woman to meet. And and in hiring, it's the same. Some companies put the the barrier so high that roles stay open for three months, six months, you know. God, I've heard 18 months even. It's not a search I've ever done, but I've you know had clients tell me or companies tell me, hey, this role's been open for 15 months. I'm not, I don't want to work on that because there's a reason internally that you haven't found someone, uh, and your process is probably part of it. So, you know, breaking it down, candidates have to understand that companies do have to narrow uh what is sometimes a large list of prospects down to an acceptable number to do first rounds. But the flip side is companies need to, you know, find a reason to be attracted to candidates, get them through the process quickly and efficiently, and make a decision, yes or no.

Rick Ducey 21:36

Yeah, I'd like to pick up on a couple of things on those excellent insights you just shared. Uh finding a reason and then that notion of time, uh the time dimension. Um, so finding a reason is is a hard thing to do uh for some candidates because you have your job description and obviously everyone's gonna uh match it perfectly in their response uh using AI tools and their own imagination. Um but you know, sometimes I imagine um you'll be part of a process where someone will take a dare and answer back and say, I know this is what you're looking for, um, but I can also do this. And the company may say, that's actually interesting. You know, this is not the standard vanilla answer saying you can do everything we asked for. You're actually suggesting something different. We hadn't thought about that. And that adds to the role that we had conceived to hire for. And we want to talk to you, and maybe we'll change the role to accommodate your knowledge, experience. Relationship network. Do you see much of that happening, or is it pretty much, you know, here's eight things we're looking for? Amazing. Those are the eight things I have.

Robert Hawthorne 22:42

Well, it depends on the relationship we have with the company and who it's with, right? Um, the number one question I I try to ask is uh, you know, how can this person move the needle for you? How can this person make an impact six months, 12 months? So if they say this person can come in and hunt new business, uh tier two, tier three agencies, and I find a person who's got a Rolodex of great tier two, three agencies and built it from scratch and has great, you know, that person can move the needle. So even if their background maybe doesn't fit in other areas, I would go back to that client of mine and say, look, you you want somebody who's gonna help you win 20 new agencies in 27. This person did it at their last job without a lot of resources. Their resume may not line up in terms of either location or previous background, or it just doesn't look 100% spot on, but they can do the function that you want the hire to accomplish. So, you know, for me, it's it's the why of the hire. And that then gives me more latitude. But if I'm working with HR and they're very structured in their approach and the must-haves, and you know, and it's a long list, you know, sometimes my hands are tied and I've got to go for the cookie cutter resume. Right.

Beating The Elimination Mindset

Rick Ducey 23:50

Well, uh, I have to say, it sounds like you have the ability to offer a lot of value added by going beneath, you know, kind of the bullet points and seeing the person and what they might bring to it, and then offering console back to your clients, you know, this is the role you've specified. Um, but you know, here are the kind of people that are out there. And given what you're trying to accomplish, you know, are you willing to accommodate a slightly different view of a person that could probably add, you know, potentially more value to your company. So just kind of another value add to get you in the mix um to help people make that good match.

Robert Hawthorne 24:22

Well, from a can't from a candidate perspective, Rick, you know, I I we do our we typically prep almost every candidate for every interview that goes out the door. So it's a lot of one-on-ones. Um, it's part of our secret sauce in what we do, right? And one of the things I always tell a candidate to expect, um, there's two questions you're almost always going to get, regardless of position, regardless of company, right? Like the first question is, what do you know about us? So the the interviewer is trying to make sure you did a little due diligence, a little homework, you can articulate who they are, if nothing else, that you went to the website and and read a few uh tidbits to give a bullet point, right? Then the million-dollar question you get is tell me about yourself, Rick. And what that really means is, and I I equate it to a politician's opening statement where they get two minutes to make that opening statement to the audience before the questions start flying. So I tell candidates that opening statement is your present, your past, and your future. You know, tell me about yourself, Rick. Well, currently I am an executive director of a major consulting firm that focuses in on the media space. You know, we've we've achieved 42% year-over-year increase in viewership. You know, what you're doing today, the past, how you got there, maybe a little bit of a personal narrative of how you got into the industry you're in and how you got to the role. And then the future, what the the the crux is, is how what you're hoping to accomplish personally aligns with the goal of the hire. Well, you know, I'm looking for a high growth media company that values a seasoned uh pontificator like myself to talk about trend lines in the space, uh, you know, in a consultative environment. And I feel like what you all are looking for really lines up with what I'm looking to do. So for any candidate that's going out on an interview, you have to know your path, your present, your past, and your future and how it lines up with the goals of the role that you're interviewing for.

Rick Ducey 26:08

Wow, that sounds really powerful. Really good advice. Um I can see how that would be very impactful for people. Um, let me let me switch a couple of specifics. Um, time and then I guess um compensation, um, what kinds of packages and how they're structured and so on. So for time, you had mentioned um sometimes the hiring process takes a long time. Certainly takes a long time from the perspective of the candidates, uh, but probably also for the companies. I mean, they want to move on. Um, so I mean, typically the higher the position in leadership, I guess the longer it takes to fill and to be hired if you're if you're on the other side of it. Um and I I used to hear, you know, if if you're kind of a senior leader, it may be at least six months. Um if you know, if you leave one position for whatever reason before you find your next position. And if you're a more junior person, depending upon you know where you are, what your skill set is and your experience and so on, and you know, it could be somewhere in a three to six months time frame. Um, but it seems like those timelines are getting longer. Is that is that right, do you think, right now in the market?

Hiring For Impact Over Checklists

Robert Hawthorne 27:11

Uh it depends, would be the best answer, right? So some of that is beholden onto the individual. Um, I tell individuals who are in job search you need to think like a marketer. Um the days of reacting as opposed to being proactive are long gone. You're not waiting for something somewhere uh, you know, on a job board or a microsite to pop up that fits. You are connecting to people in your network, you are finding hiring authorities at companies you would be interested in. Find a hundred companies that might fit your background and outbound message to uh the revenue leaders if you're in revenue, the marketing leaders if you're in marketing, the operations leader if you're in operations. That'll cut your timeline down. Yes, if you're a president, if you're a CRO, if you're a chief digital officer, your timeline is going to be longer than if you're an individual contributor or you're a BDR-SDR where people get hired in a week. Uh, but some of that is up to you, right? It just depends how aggressive you are. If you treat it like a full-time job, you can cut that timeline in half. Uh, you know, obviously there's always extenuating circumstances where you're willing to relocate to. You know, are you open to not work from home? What your salary requirements are. I mean, if you're very rigid, your timeline will be longer, but if you're flexible and you're proactive, certainly you can get back to work much quicker.

Rick Ducey 28:28

And then so you mentioned salary. That was another place I wanted to um touch base on uh if you're in sales or some sort of incentive, you know, driven um um career path, typically uh you know, base, commission, incentives, things like that. Um so I was wondering how compensation structures are evolving and then compensation levels. I mean, we've talked about how, well, let's just take the top five paid people and you know look at those positions. Um, can we do with different salary levels because they're trying to cut our costs? So are people needing to accept smaller salaries at the top levels? And are compensation packages becoming more base plus some sort of incentive or variable component? Do you see changes there? Are they still pretty traditional? Sales, it's maybe base plus commission. If you're not in sales, it's base plus KPIs and you know, bonuses or performance or something.

Timelines, Proactive Search, And Flexibility

Robert Hawthorne 29:25

So I'll I'll split this up into two levels the individual contributors and then leadership, whether that's frontline sales, marketing leadership, or all the way up the uh the org chart. So I've seen a steady increase uh account manager salaries, business development reps, SDRs, local market sellers, um regional sellers, pretty good lift. Um, there's a lot of competition for scrappy hunters who can pay for themselves, and companies have gone up from paying, you know, not that long ago, 50 grand on a base salary to 70, 80, $90,000, even for local market roles with some companies. So there's been a nice lift there, and the hiring remains pretty consistent. I mean, we're not going to see the days like we used to where uh, you know, Yodel rolled out and they put 20 sales reps or City Search at 20 sales reps. I mean, it's a little more targeted and structured and less volume. But if you're getting those jobs, the the base pay, you know, it's 50-50 typically. So if you're coming in at 70 and you hit your numbers, you know, you can make 150 grand your first year once you get through training and you're fully up and running. So uh it's it's been good for people in those roles and pretty consistent. But I think when you get into leadership, especially if you've been doing something for 10, 20 years, you know, you move around a little bit, you get an increase. You stay and you do well and you get an increase. Um, you know, companies we said are looking to do uh more with less, and they're certainly looking to cut costs and cutting um executive sales directors, marketing directors, account management, lead salaries. Uh you know, it's got it's gotten more compressed, right? The days of uh, you know, moving across the street to work for you know a legacy media company and getting a 50% increase. I mean, I don't see that nearly as much. Companies are very cost conscious on their leadership positions, and there are fewer seats than there were even five, six years ago. Right.

Rick Ducey 31:20

Yeah, that makes sense. Um so the so for 26, um, you're kind of optimistic that there'll be more hirings. Um, and some of the people have been kind of sidelined as you're saying, uh it depends on their personal approach, how aggressive they are, and how successful they are at uh positioning themselves from a marketing perspective. Um, but but maybe things will look a little bit better both on the hiring side and the being hired side, so uh in media and tech uh that that that sounds good. Um Do you oh um come coming back to the base comp? I wanted to ask about that. So I I could ask this question um fairly frequently, uh particularly probably in sales, where you say it's typically maybe 50-50 base plus um some sort of incentive commissions or whatever. Um and I can ask the question, are we better off having more sellers that we can afford with a smaller base and more upside? Or do we attract a uh I guess more successful um candidate by paying a bit more base? So in other words, you know, if we pay more in the base, are we gonna get better, more effective sellers? So we maybe have fewer sellers who are paying their base uh higher, but they're gonna drive more overall revenue. So we'll have you know seven sellers instead of ten, but these are better qualified, better experienced, more successful sellers. Do you see that dialogue or that dynamic happening?

Robert Hawthorne 32:45

Yeah, so you almost have to look at it like as an NFL or an MBA salary cap, right? You can't pay everybody on your team all-star money, or you'll be over the salary cap. Uh, but you have a goal, you have a revenue goal. So how do we get there? So I think having done this and seen all kinds of things work and all kinds of things fail, my advice would be to if you could find somebody in your market who has a great track record, who has great relationships, uh, it's worth paying them more, right? Pay that one person more, but then roll the dice on two or three people who come outside of your industry. Um, it doesn't have to be a kid out of school. It could be a somewhat seasoned local market sales rep who's doing consultative sales outside of the media landscape. If you have good product training, training and development, and that person is motivated to make money and knows how to close business and has a track record of hitting quota in some sort of a solution consultative sale that aligns, then take a shot. You know, you're not going to pay that person as much as you're gonna pay your seasoned industry vet. Um, but you don't have to put all your uh eggs in the basket of three kids coming out who have never done sales. So being open, that goes back to the being open to different backgrounds. Um, you know, you maybe have two tiers in terms of your compensation models and you know, invest in an all-star. You know, you get somebody who's proven and hungry still and has president's clubs in their back pocket and isn't quite happy where they are or the current landscape of their company, give them a raise to come over and then make up for it by taking a shot on three or four junior or non-industry people.

Compensation Trends And Role Compression

Rick Ducey 34:19

I like that. That makes a lot of sense. Um, and I'm sure you have experience with that and have seen it work. Um, so I have I feel like I've picked your brain a lot. I really appreciate this um conversation. And is there any other things that you would like to bring up before we close out?

Robert Hawthorne 34:36

Uh to the company's hiring. So uh, you know, candidates will tell us a lot of things that frustrate them uh or please them, right? Um, you know, almost every candidate we talk to and every survey you see, candidates are not happy with interview processes, right? Um among the complaints, too many rounds, uh, too many stakeholders. You know, you you shouldn't have your director of operations uh maybe interviewing for a local market sales rep in Tampa. Like, you know, make it germane to the the the hire, right? Only have the cooks who are going to be in the kitchen serving the dish. Don't have so many people and taking up so much time. Um, and be straightforward with your process, right? Like I one of the questions I ask my clients is how many interviews, how much time, you know, two weeks, three weeks, that's reasonable, three interviews, that's reasonable. Intro interview, follow-up with the manager, a pitch, a presentation of 30, 60, 90, maybe a final fourth interview with the CEO if it's a higher level role. Understandable and manageable. When companies start adding layers, uh, it's like running a hundred-meter hurdle race, and there's a man putting the an extra hurdle in as you're running. I mean, you lose your stride. Um, and good people will have options. So, you know, you it companies sometimes think, oh, this is a complete employer's market. And for some roles it is, for some industries it is, but good people will always have multiple options. And if you find them on your own, some other recruiter found them on their own. If I find them, I know they're typically interviewing other places. So I always try and keep that state of urgency and being transparent with the candidates. But the good news is a lot of candidates will choose a company not strictly on compensation or brand identity, it'll be the warm fuzzies they get through the process. And companies that turn it from strictly an about you process to why you should come to work for us do best, right? You need to figure out if that person fits your needs. But then why would I want to come over to your company? You know, if you have a peer that's really happy to this role that you're hiring, get that person on a Zoom and say, hey, look, this isn't even an interview. This is about us putting you in front of somebody who's in a comparable role. So, you know, it's sales, right? We're all on sales. Like you need to be selling that person on why they should come over versus saying you need to do 10 things to get an offer and you'd be lucky to get it. So there's a mindset there that doesn't cost anything. It's just maybe changing your interview paradigm a little bit and your structure, and it'll net you more acceptances and less turndows, even if you don't have the highest compensation model. So companies that have that right mindset and that warm fuzzies, even a little bit, um, it goes a long way.

Rick Ducey 37:19

That really, I mean, I love that. It really sets up the engagement process to find a better match. I mean, you're going beyond just the topical surface things into is this really a good, I don't know, culture or personality fit? Um, you know, I I want to be there and you want me there. So it's like, okay, we're starting a beautiful relationship here.

Salary Cap Strategy For Sales Teams

Robert Hawthorne 37:39

And along those lines, you you have to think about, and I ask my clients this too like if I'm talking to a great prospect for BIA, what would you want me to tell them about your organization that would get them excited? Right. Like, you know, are you doing innovative research? Are you talking to all these companies that are leaning into AI and gaining amazing insights? I mean, like, what is it that's gonna get someone excited beyond, you know, it pays $125,000, you get three weeks' vacation, and your boss is a good person? Like, you know, like that's a very boilerplate. Like, give me something and the flip, and if you're doing it directly, know what's gonna get somebody excited. So uh if you have that selling mindset, uh it goes a long way.

Rick Ducey 38:21

Absolutely. Robert, I always love our conversations and uh I've loved our association personally and between our companies over the years. Thank you so much for being with us here today. And for our audience, thank you for joining us. Um, we appreciate your being with us. If you have any questions uh for Robert, um um, you know, get back to us uh at BIA. We'll make sure that Robert gets them, or of course go to Robert directly. And what's a good way for people to get in touch with you, Robert?

Robert Hawthorne 38:47

Uh Robert@ hawthornsearch.com or find me on LinkedIn, Robert Hawthorne, President Hawthorne Search.

Rick Ducey 38:54

That's great. Thank you again, everybody. We appreciate your supporting our podcast program. If you have ideas for topics or guests, uh please let us know. We try to keep these interesting and relevant and hopefully helpful on to what you're trying to do day to day in business. Robert, thanks again. Thanks, everybody.

Robert Hawthorne 39:10

Thanks, Rick.