Skills shortage? Not at OLIVER. Paul Bonnette, OLIVER Talent Director, was recently interviewed by the Evening Standard about our methods for keeping up with the talent demands of a fast-growing agency.

WHEN Paul Bonnette, talent director of Oliver, was job hunting as a 23-year- old, he went through the traditional formal process of applying for roles, being invited to several interviews and undergoing psychometric testing and assessments. He was even asked that now-ridiculed question: “If you were an animal, what would you be?”

“I can’t remember what I replied, but I do remember that the whole process took months,” he says.

That was more than a decade ago, and now he is the one recruiting in a very different jobs market.  One where employers are increasingly seeking out candidates, often before they even have a vacancy in mind.

OLIVER is a creative agency that has Starbucks, Britvic and Axa as clients and debuted in Campaign’s top 50 agency league at number 28.  It is also ranked as one of Britain’s fastest- growing mid-market private companies, as well as the fastest- growing marketing company over the past year on a financial basis.

“In the past few months we have recruited around 100 people,” says Bonnette. “And we will probably hire another hundred in the next six months. We are recruiting across the entire creative spectrum, from videographers and web developers to print designers and strategic planners.

Many of these roles require skills that are in short supply. It is a very competitive marketplace.

“Real-time marketing also requires rapid hiring.  But while we need to be agile we also need the right fit, as we build dedicated teams around clients. It is a perfect storm.  We need to find the right talent but we also need to find it quickly.”

One step ahead

Oliver’s solution is so-called pipelining. It has a dedicated resource team that just looks for new talent — and not necessarily to fill for any particular job. Referrals, particularly by staff, combined with the use of LinkedIn and networking, enables Oliver to identify potential candidates “before we need them, because we know we will need them”.

“We need such a range of talent from client service to delivery, that we have had to build our own pipeline,” continues Bonnette. “Sometimes we will even bring talented people and prepare them, so they are ready to go when they are needed.”

Read the rest of the article here.

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