Episode #20: How to Land a Marketing Job with the Help of a Recruiter with Special Guest Heidi Parsont
In this episode, we talk with Heidi Parsont, the founder of Torchlight Hire, a recruitment agency that places candidates in marketing, advertising, communications and creative roles. Heidi provides job candidates with advice on how to make your resume and LinkedIn profile stand out using personal branding. She also provides valuable insights into today’s job market, the top marketing skills that employers value right now, and tips for young marketing professionals starting out.
You can find out more about Heidi and her offers at www.torchlighthire.com.
How to Land a Marketing Job with the Help of a Recruiter with Special Guest Heidi Parsont Episode Recap
In this episode of the Two Marketing Moms Podcast, Kelly welcomes Heidi Parsont, the founder of Torchlight Hire, a recruiting agency that specializes in placing candidates in marketing, communications, and creative roles in the DC metro area. Heidi shares her personal journey into the recruiting profession, describing how her early career experiences led her to discover her passion for recruiting.
After working in the recruiting industry for a while, Heidi decided to take a leap and start her own recruiting firm, Torchlight Hire. She built the company with a focus on flexibility and quality of life, as she wanted to spend more time with her family while still doing what she loved. Through her efforts, she created a company culture centered around employee engagement and personal growth, earning Torchlight Hire accolades like being voted one of Washington Business Journal’s Best Places to Work.
The conversation then shifts to the hiring trends in the marketing and advertising industry, particularly in the post-COVID job market. Heidi emphasizes that it is currently a job seeker’s market, with salaries increasing and employers struggling to find suitable candidates. Digital skills, marketing automation, and analytics are some of the top skills that employers are seeking.
For young marketing professionals starting out, Heidi advises finding mentors, pursuing roles in industries they are interested in, and being active on LinkedIn to build their personal brand. During interviews, candidates are encouraged to be well-prepared, articulate their value proposition clearly, and show excitement about the job and company.
The podcast concludes with a discussion on how being a mom has influenced Heidi’s approach to business, teaching her valuable lessons about letting go of control, embracing flexibility, and trusting her team to handle responsibilities. She draws parallels between parenting and managing a company, highlighting the importance of adaptability and understanding that mistakes are part of the learning process.
Episode Transcript:
Kelly
Welcome to the Two Marketing Moms Podcast. Today’s episode is called How to Land a Marketing Job with the Help of a Recruiter. And our special guest today is Heidi Parsont.
I’m going to give a quick bio for you, Heidi so everyone knows who you are and what you do. You are the founder of Torchlight Hire, a recruiting agency that places candidates in marketing, communications and creative roles in the DC metro area. You’ve had a 30 year career; you’ve worked on a range of industries. You founded Torchlight Hire in 2012 and have grown the company over 10 years to a $7 million plus organization with 15 plus full time staff. You’ve also won many awards, including the Washington Business Journal’s Best Places to Work. I want to spend some time talking about that. You are a mom of two teenagers who are currently now at camp for six weeks. I don’t know how you did that. But I want to hear all about it because I need the name of that camp. Welcome, Heidi.
Heidi
Thank you. Thank you for that introduction.
Kelly
We love to talk a little bit about your personal journey. How did you know you wanted to be a recruiter? At what point in your career or your life — did you know as early as high school or college? When did you know that that’s what you were going to do?
Heidi
It’s so funny. I think like so many people who end up in this profession, it’s not really where they aim to go. But sometimes they just fall into it. But when I look at sort of who I was, as in my early stage career, when I was working with people, I worked for a legal assistant trying to help families adopt kids. And then I was a meeting planner. And then I was in business development. All of those things require you to be a good listener and to actually talk to people and be patient, to listen to what’s going on, and really understand and react. And so, when I landed in my first recruiting role, I was like, aha, I actually found my home, I found my passion. I was really lucky. Because people search sometimes for years trying to find their passion. And I was lucky I just fell into it.
Kelly
And how did you move from that transition of working full time for a recruiting firm, and then starting your own firm on your own, which is always a big leap and a big challenge to become an entrepreneur?
Heidi
Sure. I’m the sole breadwinner for my family. So, there was a lot on my shoulders and making the leap. But fortunately, my husband was very supportive. And I had two young kids at the time, who I felt like I wasn’t spending enough time with and who I want to be around more, but I was, busy at work, I didn’t have a lot of flexibility. And I felt like I needed to make a change. But I loved what I was doing. And it made me really sad to think about leaving it. So, I decided to take the leap. And I built a company based on flexibility and quality of life, which were the two drivers really for me. Obviously, I needed to make a living as the sole breadwinner. But I was hopeful and fortunate that that though that came with those two pieces, because at the end of the day, those were the things that were most important for me.
Kelly
Well, not only important for you, but important to your employees too. And that’s how you were able to be voted Best Places to Work, correct?
Heidi
So yeah, early on, all of the employees that join Torchlight were moms and they fully appreciated the flexibility and the ability to work sort of non-traditional hours if needed. But it actually expanded to realizing that actually, a lot of people wanted that flexibility, not just moms. And so, I was very lucky as my first hire to have Julie Lowe, our Chief Culture Officer join us. And together we’ve really built a company upon which culture is the most important. Employee engagement is something that we measure — that we look at all the time. And we want to make sure that people are happy in what their roles are. And if they’re not, then we help them find something new either with us or outside the company, if that’s preferred.
Kelly
Wonderful. And you also somehow made time to move to France for a year. How did that work out?
Heidi
Well, if it hadn’t been for COVID, it would have worked out a lot better. But yeah, the good news is that because the company was 100% virtual from the start, I knew that it would be relatively easy for me to be anywhere in the world as long as I could maintain U.S. hours or the DC hours. And for the most part, it’s sort of funny to think back now, but I was using zoom a lot to have meetings. And now I think it’s sort of laughable to think about that. People didn’t know where I was, I just said I couldn’t meet in person. And now of course, zoom has become our world. So, a little bit different a couple of years later…
Kelly
Well, you can also say you blazed a trail and you knew…
Heidi
Right, there you go, right. We were on trend, a virtual company, we were one of the companies that didn’t have to do a whole lot when the world shut down, because we were already virtual.
Kelly
All right, well, let’s take a step back and talk a little bit about your main job as a recruiter and as a new employee coming in to visit with you and talk with you, whether they contact through you through the website or through LinkedIn, or call you — what are you looking for first and foremost in a resume? And then I want to move into your first phone call, and even into LinkedIn and how you use all those various tools and how they’re different from each other.
Heidi
So, in terms of a resume, we’re always looking for a clear and concise resume. So, we’ve seen resumes from one page, completely smushed together with 20 years of experience on one page to five or six pages of stuff that I don’t even know what they’re talking about. So as a marketer, communicator, I think it’s important that you be able to articulate your own value proposition clearly. So, we’re always looking for that. And, a lot of our clients are also looking for anything that shows metrics or results. I think regardless of what you do, it’s important to be able to demonstrate that and articulate that, depending upon the level, you might go to two pages. If you’re starting out, you definitely want to keep that to one page,
Kelly
Photo or no photo on the resume?
Heidi
My vote is no photo.
Kelly
Why?
Heidi
Yeah, so there’s a lot of discrimination in the world, right. And so, we don’t want people making decisions based on what you look like. We want them making decisions based on what you’ve done, and what you can do for them. And it doesn’t matter who you are, what your gender is, what you look like. It’s all about what your accomplishments are and what your skillset is.
Kelly
And so, once you’ve made that initial contact digitally, and you start to chat with someone on the phone, what are you looking for then?
Heidi
I’m looking for, first and foremost for them to be able to articulate who they are and their story. So that if we put them in front of their client, of our client, we know that they’re going to be able to sell themselves. I mean, let’s face it as a job seeker, there’s a sales component, and you need to be able to convince somebody why they need to hire you. But of course, it’s not. It’s not just the personality, it’s also being able to demonstrate and articulate what you’ve done. Going into an interview where they asked you about, the latest campaign you might have put together and being able to demonstrate that what your role was on it and that you actually know what you’re doing and that you did you played a role in it. So sometimes people say “we”, and so we have to dig in a little bit on whether that’s an “I” or a “we”.
Kelly
Ah, that’s a really good point. Our team, my team did XYZ. And then what about for people who are just out of college? How do they differentiate themselves? And can you talk a little bit about personal branding?
Heidi
I think with anybody coming out of college, regardless of industry, I think it’s important that you start to connect with as many people as you can learn as much as you can. And if you know that you want to go into marketing or digital or social, that you really get a sense of what that means. I think that sometimes there’s sort of this glorified notion of what it means. And so, getting either an internship or being open to doing lots of different things so that you can get your first experience, that first job can be hard, especially if you don’t have internships. Even if you didn’t do an internship during college, try to get an internship when you graduate, and really use that. The other thing is that it’s it is still a bit of the networking and who you know. So, talking to people about what their openings are trying to get people to give you a chance is always going to be the way the best way to find a job whether you’re new to the job market or you’re an experienced person.
Kelly
Let’s talk LinkedIn.
Heidi
LinkedIn is a great tool. And I think it’s a much underutilized tool. At least for now. And you know, things may change over time. But LinkedIn is the number one place that recruiters go to look for candidates. And so, you can assist a recruiter and finding you by doing a couple of things. The first thing is that being active on LinkedIn, when you’re active on LinkedIn, you’re going to come up higher in searches than if you’re not active on LinkedIn. Being active on LinkedIn could be something as simple as just sharing a bunch of content from other people. But it also could be actually creating your own content and creating your own brand. That brand can be a personal brand, maybe you have an interest in a particular subject. Maybe you have a kid who has special needs, and you’re want to advocate on behalf of autism, or some other cause. Or maybe it’s professional and you really love something in a digital channel, and you just want to keep pursuing SEO or for paid search. It could be anything. There’s no sort of written rules as far as what it means to create your own personal brand. It’s about you, right? What are your passions. And LinkedIn really allows you to do that because of the ability to post so much content. The other piece of that, though, is making sure that your profile behind the scenes, lets people know that you’re interested in in a job. So, in looking for a new job, there’s a button that says “Open to Work”. And if you put click on that button, it moves you to one side to say you are or you’re not. And then when recruiters are conducting searches, it allows you to pull up a search that has people who are actually looking for a job, it also allows you to specify what kind of job you’re looking for. If you’re looking to change geographies, you can state that. And it also can say if you’re looking for contract or full time, or just one of those.
Kelly
Now, I’ve seen a lot of people with that little “open to work” thing on their profile. And you can look at it in two ways. Do you encourage people to actually put that little part on their picture?
Heidi
If you’re still employed, I would not encourage you to put that on your picture. There is a behind the scenes button that you can use. So, I would encourage if you’re still working so that your employer doesn’t actually know that you’re looking unless you’ve been completely transparent, then feel free. But the open to work really lets people know that you’re ready to work immediately — you are unemployed or underemployed. And that your goal is to find something immediately. And so, depending upon the role, sometimes those are people that are even more likely to be contacted, because especially when we have contract roles, we need people who can start tomorrow, not two or four weeks from now. So, it really does depend on what you’re looking for.
Kelly
That’s true. I hadn’t I hadn’t thought of that in terms of contract work. Well, what are you seeing in the marketplace today? I mean, we are how many months into COVID, post COVID? A year and a half post — we’re not really even post COVID –some of the states only have a 50% rate I think the state of Virginia is getting higher than that. DC is at 70%. What are you seeing in terms of trends in hiring specifically in the marketing and advertising industry? And then I’ll ask some more questions from there.
Heidi
I have, in my 17 years of doing this never seen such a good job seeker market. It is really tough out there for employers right now. And while 2019 was looking like it was difficult, this makes that look like a piece of cake. We have been reached out to by so many people by so many employers looking for help sourcing candidates, because they’re just not out there. There’s a number of reasons for that, with people dropping out of the workforce, geographic shifts, people wanting to work remotely, and some employers wanting people to come back in the office. So, all I can say is that if you’re an employer and you’re looking to hire, the things that you can do are really to help your case is really about culture, people are really focused at least right now. Your competitive advantage can be in a remote workforce and providing certain kinds of benefits that might be important to an employee. And when I say that, I also caveat that to say you need to ask right what is it that for an employee that is going to get them over the hump and it’s hard it’s hard to know without asking. So, for some people it might be they want high you want them back in full time and actually just getting them two days, a week might actually get them then there.
I had one search I was working on where I had a candidate who said, absolutely not, I am not going to the office and the hiring manager said, I need somebody here two days a week and I went to the hiring manager, I said, okay, this person’s interested, but only if the person can work 100% remotely. And the hiring manager said, okay, well, I’ll at least talk, talk to the candidate. And then I had somebody else who was like, I just don’t want to work full time in the office. So, it just, it depends, and you have to find out but flexibility right now is key, many people are not ready to go back to the office full time. And that’s going to be I think, over the next couple months, at least, in the marketing space, going to be the driver.
Kelly
Yeah, I’m hearing September, where a lot of offices are saying, assuming the trends go as they are now in terms of vaccination rates, that they’re going to start to open up in September, including ourselves a couple days a week, and from there who knows.
Heidi
Exactly. And I do think that there’s some cautions that come with it too. And we want to make sure that as a manager, or as a head of an organization, that we are inclusive in our approach that if somebody does want to stay remote, that how do we make sure that they’re included, that they’re mentored, that they have an opportunity for growth? Because otherwise you risk losing them? Not necessarily today, but you might lose them in a couple years, when they don’t have the things that other people in the office are having. And I know the Wall Street Journal just did an article about that yesterday, and about some of the things that can happen and that a company can intentionally do to make sure that people are it’s a more inclusive environment.
Kelly
Well, that’s very helpful. So, in terms of other trends from employers, what are you seeing as the top skills that employers are wanting in the marketing and advertising space? I’m guessing analytics?
Heidi
Analyzing and reporting will always be up there. But so is marketing automation, and email and CRM. And so is any form of digital, it’s just everybody. It’s digital all the time. And so, people that have really good digital skills are getting snapped up. And, and they might not make it a year. So that’s also a struggle for some employers is how do you keep somebody engaged? Some of the salaries are going through the roof, because they’re unique talent.
Kelly
And certifications are important, correct? I mean, Google Analytics, Facebook certifications, are you seeing those as mandatory?
Heidi
In most cases, not necessarily mandatory, but certainly helpful. I think that right now, employers are relenting on some of the certifications, because they just want bodies in the door. And so, they’re willing to work with people who have experience. I mean, this is as I said, the best job seeker market I’ve ever seen in my career. And so, if you don’t have all of the boxes that are checked on a job, I still encourage you to apply, because they may hire you, because they may have to, quote unquote, settle for not having all of the pieces.
Kelly
I also heard that salaries have increased anywhere from 10 to 20% over the last year, is that correct?
Heidi
Yeah, we’re definitely seeing an increase, in some cases, more than 10% to 20%. Depends on the skill set. But we’re also seeing candidates get multiple offers. And as a recruiter, we’re trying to prevent a bidding war from happening, because that doesn’t serve anybody’s purpose. If we just have somebody choose a job because of the highest bid the highest salary work, we’re trying to help people look at the whole package, and also look at environment because at the end of the day, an environment is why somebody stays not because of salary.
Kelly
Absolutely. Well, that’s helpful to hear about that. What advice would you give to young marketing professionals starting out? The reason why we started this podcast was really to kind of guide either those high school students or college students or people who just started in the job market, who didn’t know where to start, they started the big company, should they start a small company? Should they specialize? Should they generalize? Should they start on the client side? Should they start on the agency side? All those sort of things? What kind of kind of guidance would you would you give for people just starting out?
Heidi
Yes, yes, then yes. I think that’s where it’s important to look at what your interests are. I always think it’s, it’s great to try to pursue let’s say you’re interested in health, try to look at wellness companies or health companies or companies that are of interest to you, where you might like want to work ultimately, sometimes you know, if you go into marketing internship for a product or service that you have absolutely no interest in, it could be brutal. And you might learn some skills, but you really might not want to stay so I would encourage anybody looking to get into marketing or who is just starting out in marketing to find mentors, people who do what you think you want to do, and maybe ultimately, that’s not what you do, or it’s not what you do for a very long time, but at least then you’re pursuing things you’re interested in. And I think it’s important, especially in today’s world, so look at the things that make you excited, because then you’ll want to follow that and stay in that company.
Kelly
When you prep an employee to do an interview with the client, whether on zoom or face to face, do you have a list of interview tips that you have them go in with?
Heidi
Yes, of course. Most of them have been by zoom. So, we’ll start with zoom. So, one of the first things that we always talk about is background, make sure that your background doesn’t sort of show anything that it shouldn’t show. So, if you have some controversial signs or things on your wall, or, or you just have a mess of a room, just put a background, so that no one makes a judgement about you based on your room. And make sure the lighting is good, so that they can see your face and see your expression. You know, zoom is definitely challenging in certain ways, because you, you have to sort of keep looking at the screen just like I am now. And you can’t really turn away because then it looks like you’re distracted or something’s happening. So being putting a smile on can make you feel just better to start. And it can be more inviting for a potential hiring manager to talk to you. The other piece is that because zoom is a little awkward, have some questions that are ready to go. That in case you get stuck, or you need to, you know, you don’t really know what to say you have those questions available. But in general, they are only seeing your neck up. So, make sure you’re dressed professionally, that you look professionally, at least from the waist up. And most you know and then just have fun. It’s everyone’s used to it. Everyone accepts the fact that bar dogs may bark, kids may walk in. I think they’re also making a judgement. If you have a kid walk in on your interview. How do you handle that? Keep in mind that that’s a judgment point, or that’s an evaluation point. It’s okay. Everyone accepts that now. So how you handle it is important as well.
So, in person, a lot of that applies other than, of course, the background, which is less important, then you actually have to be dressed up. But I would also caution that so many companies, especially as they go back to work are going to be very casual. So, if you’re concerned or you don’t know how to dress, it’s okay to ask, I’d rather you ask and make a mistake, then make a mistake and go in in a suit and have everybody in shorts. So, because then you’ll feel awkward for the whole interview. The other thing is to do your research, whether it’s a zoom or in person, you need to know who you’re meeting, you need to understand their backgrounds. And see if you can find common ground that you can thread through your interview. and be prepared. We’ve had people go into interviews, and they didn’t even know the first thing about the company. Well, that’s not going to work so well. So, make sure if you’re really interested in the job or the role that you actually express that and show that in ways other than I love this company, show them what you’ve the research you’ve done, and make sure they know that you’re excited about it.
Kelly
I like that. You talked a couple minutes ago about kids being in the background, and you have two teenagers. How old are your kids now? 13 and 14, a boy and a girl? And how do you think being a mom makes you better at business?
Heidi
Well, it certainly makes you tolerate things a lot easier, because nothing ever goes the way you want it to go. Because they have minds of their own. And also, you have to let go of control because you can’t — when kids are three and four you can control what they wear and how they dress. You know how they dress, what they do to some extent where they go. For teenagers, you don’t have that kind of control anymore. They have minds of their own, they have opinions of their own. They want to wear what they want to wear; they want to do what they want to do. They want to talk to you in the way that they want to talk to you so that that part’s not so not so good, but in general, it teaches you to just let go and I think running a business that has been one of the best lessons I’ve learned and thanks to my colleague Julie, for bearing with me as I as I went through that especially early on. I can’t do everything. I can’t be everywhere. And the ability to sort of let people take on things. That’s why we hire people who are competent and can do those things, is a really important skill. And it’s completely transferable to home from home to professional life. And it’s important lesson for all of us.
Kelly
It is it’s funny, I should start asking that question based on the age of the children because you’re right, being a parent teaches you different things at different ages. And that teenage years is completely different than the younger years in terms of letting them make their own mistakes, and the same sort of things that you sometimes need to do with your employees.
Heidi
That’s right. And I think when you they’re three and four, when I started, it was, you know, juggling was more important than the ability to sort of handle so many different things as balls in the air when you’re also juggling kids’ stuff. So, it does it changes over time. And I’m sure as they go into later High School, the needs will change.
Kelly
How can people get ahold of you if they want to work with you, if they want to talk to you, if they want to get your advice, if they want to connect, if they want to try and help source a job for a potential employee?
Heidi
So, our website is www.torchlighthire.com. And we’d love to hear from you and feel free to connect on LinkedIn as well.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/torchlight-hire-llc/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidiparsont/
Kelly
Thanks, Heidi, for being a part of the Two Marketing Moms Podcast and we appreciate you being here today.
