Marketing agencies see 1414% increase in vacancies

5 mins

Marketing agencies were hit hard by the pandemic – in Q2 of 2020 a huge number of network an...

By Amy Halls

Senior Marketing & Talent Manager

Marketing agencies were hit hard by the pandemic – in Q2 of 2020 a huge number of network and independent agencies had to put a pause on recruitment, pause activity for their clients and make a number of redundancies.


As the world has slowly started to wake up, agencies are back! Clients are back to pre-pandemic budget spend and need the people back in those previously redundant roles. One example of this was Omnicom's worldwide revenue for the first six months of the year reaching $6.9bn, a 12.7% increase on last year’s figures (The Drum, July 22, 2021). 
The increase in spend has also caused a huge number of extra roles to become open to continue to grow accounts. Roles across PPC, SEO & Paid Social are at an all-time high! We recorded a significant 1414% increase in roles between June 2020 and June 2021. 


Revenue taken by Facebook, Linkedin and other social media platforms is predicted to be over $50bn this year, according to research from TradingPlatforms.com and Statista. Their report claims revenue from display advertising alone will grow 16.7% this year, compared to 2020. (The Drum, July 22, 2021).


Whether you're hiring, looking for a new role or progressing at your current company... we want to hear from you! Have your say on flexible working, interviewing in 2021 and mental health: fill in our survey (it takes a few minutes to complete) so we can write a report on the changes in the job market.
Increase in vacancies photo

Impact on interview processes 

Due to the huge number of roles available at the moment, the limited pool of candidates that are available tend to have 5-10 processes happening at one time. This means that agencies need to speed up their interview processes and keep them to a maximum of 2 stages, taking no longer than a week.

58% of 47,606 people surveyed by us in June 2021 said that 2 interviews were the maximum number of interviews they would expect before accepting a role. 
The slower the process, the larger likelihood of the candidate accepting a role elsewhere, we have to move fast at the moment to secure talent! 


Staying competitive in a busy market 
Businesses need to work as quickly as they can: quick CV feedback, book in candidates for 1st stages ASAP, fast feedback on interviews and fast decisions.

Businesses need to be able to sell in their business and the opportunity to the interviewee. With 80% of the 32,052 people we surveyed in June 2021 stating they're actively looking for a new opportunity, now is a great time to go find a brilliant candidate... the caveat(?), there's also a significant rise in opporunities. Therefore, interviews must be treated as a 2-way-street and we need candidates to be sold in otherwise they will just look elsewhere – they have all the choice in the world at the moment.

Salaries... try and be as competitive as you can with salaries, your competitors will be!
graph on interview poll

What does the busy job market mean for candidates? 

It is very easy to become overwhelmed and unorganised with the amount of roles in the agency market at the moment. Aim to have a clear idea of what it is you are looking for, keep your diary organised with what interviews you have and when.

Communicate with your recruiter – it always helps to talk things through and we're here to help! 

Please reach out to me directly if you have any questions or need any support with hiring or your job search. 

Stephanie Levinson

Deputy Manager
Email - stephanie@spherelondon.co.uk

Sphere Digital Recruitment 2022
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