#29 Bad Hiring, Burnout, and Building a Career You Love with Lauren Spearman

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Louise:
If you work in marketing and spend any time on TikTok or LinkedIn, chances are that you’ve come across our guest today, Lauren Spearman. With an impressive career spanning top brands like Benefit Cosmetics and Made.com, Lauren has made a name for herself, not just as a marketing expert, but as a passionate advocate for fair hiring practices and better workplace treatment for employees. Today, we’re thrilled to have her join us on the podcast to dive into these important topics. Let’s get started.

Steve:
We’re going to start with a little caveat, a little peek behind the curtain, because for the first time ever recording the Digital PR Podcast, we had some technical difficulties in the first recording with you, Lauren, that we couldn’t overcome. There was a complete dropout of Wi-Fi, and it was like two questions before the end. So for those watching, on the visual recording. You’ll notice we’ve changed our clothes, which is normal because it’s three days after the first recording. So just wanted to let you know why that was so no one freaked out. Welcome to the podcast, Lauren. It’s such a pleasure to have you on. Thank you so much for joining us. Hi. I’m sure plenty of our listeners will have, but for those that might not have seen you on TikTok or LinkedIn, could you give us a little overview of your career to date, what you do, the content you put out on your socials? Just give us a lovely overview of who you are.

Lauren:
Yes, of course. So I guess I’ve been in the game for quite a while. I started my career back in 2007 working at Sky. So I was approached by a recruiter who was like, Sky, I’ve got some roles. I was like, there’s no way I’m selling like satellite TV. That’s not for me. But actually it was in selling TV sponsorships. So I started there, I worked at Sky for three years in ad sales, so moved from TV sponsorship over to digital. Yeah, this is aging me, but I remember at the time, I was told to get into digital, it’s the new thing. And I was like, I don’t even know what it is. I moved over, so I sold advertising on sites like Sky News, Sky Sports, and I was there three years, really great company to work for, and yeah, really kind of nice start to my career. And then I moved from a huge big corporate to a startup, a startup selling advertising on fashion and beauty blogs. So this was back in 2010. So I was having to go to brands and explain what a blogger was and then why they should spend money with us. So it feels like so alien now, you know, given the size of the influencer marketing industry. But yeah, I was a sales manager selling advertising on fashion and beauty blogs. I then moved over to parenting. So I’ve had quite a squiggly career already in terms of different industries. And I was sales manager at Netmums, the parenting website. So I’d worked with them a little bit when I was at Sky. Their advertising was previously sold as a third party through Sky. And then they went in-house and I joined my old boss there to oversee sales for Netmums. Loved it, like such a lovely company to work for. Again, small business, but they really kind of cared and nurtured us. And then eventually, I think I kept going to clients and I was like, I want to sit your side of the table. And I was speaking to loads of brand managers and all different variety of roles across various brands. And I was like, I’m always really interested in what their job was. So I think I’d got to the point in my career where I never really felt a natural salesperson. I always felt like I was just waiting to get found out and I thought maybe a working brand side could be interesting for me. So I wrote a list of brands that I enjoyed as a customer and Benefit Cosmetics was one of them. My role there was predominantly overseeing paid social. At the time Benefit had just started gifting influencers and I was like, because I think I’d had a little dabble in that previously, I took a real shine to it. So I ended up overseeing the influencer strategy at Benefit Cosmetics I focus primarily on the commercial area. Again, I think because of my sales background, I bloody love a negotiation. So I would always see, you know, what was the best deal that we could get when we were working with creators, especially for like long-term partnerships. So one kind of standout moment, I guess, was we essentially paid for four creators to kind of sponsor their eyebrows for a year. So we had exclusive eyebrows. It sounds so ridiculous, but yeah, that was my job. And then after about three years of talking about eyebrows, I was like, I think I’m done and loved the business, but I think it was time to move on. So I just bought my first flat and with anyone that, you know, whenever you move house, you get obsessed with Pinterest boards and interiors and all sorts of stuff. So Made.com were on my radar. And I kind of used the technique of trying to get network into the business first before there was a role that was available. So I pitched to Made that Made and Benefit Cosmetics should do a collaboration of making furniture, like dressing room furniture. So lots of, you know, mirrors, dressing tables, all of that kind of jazz. This was, you know, at real time where Millennial Pink was of its moment. So that got me an in to Made and then they had a role for head of PR, which I went for having no PR experience. And funnily enough, I didn’t get that job. But at least I got contact with HR. And then about six weeks later, Head of Influencer Marketing role came up that I went for and I joined Made as Head of Influencer Marketing. Then I got promoted and also took on the social team. And then another six months later, I then took on the PR team as well. So I ended up, yeah, overseeing three teams in total at Made. Really enjoyed it. But I think naturally it came to a point where I wanted to change and I wanted to test myself to see if I was a good marketer or I just worked for good brands. So I went to a pet insurance startup, which I don’t really talk about loads because I was actually only there six months, but I joined the business. I was like, as a marketer, I knew that no one cares about insurance, but they do care about their pets and they’ve got all that emotion that comes with owning a pet. So I thought from a marketing perspective this is just like gold dust. But I think very quickly realised that role wasn’t quite right for me and I handed in my notice after three months left after six and what embarked I guess I naively was like I’ve got all this experience I’ll find a job and it’ll be fine and very quickly had a reality check that that was not the case. I think obviously the more senior you get the less roles there are available anyway but on top of that I think having only been in the market six to nine months prior, the market had really changed and it was very much an employer’s market, less jobs available because of things like redundancies, more senior people going for maybe perhaps more junior roles than they had been before. I was going for interviews and I was getting ghosted or I was getting no feedback on application. I was experiencing like multiple stage interview processes. Like one place I interviewed at, I had eight interviews and then got ghosted. And I just, about three months into that process, turned to TikTok and just made a video about how I’d pulled out of a job interview process because they wanted me to write an entire year-long marketing strategy and all sorts of other bits and pieces. And I just felt like that felt unjust. And then that video got a couple of hundred thousand views and I thought, okay, maybe I’m not alone in this. I think that I had experienced lots of feelings of loneliness and quite embarrassed. And then what unraveled, and this was about 15 months ago now, was just me starting to document more and more of my search. And what ended up transpiring was I went self-employed and I now consult predominantly with brands in-house in their social teams. So looking at social strategy, implementation, creative processes, work, workflows, resources, all of that like lovely juicy stuff. But on the side I also make content about careers so yeah I guess what came out of my process was I just don’t want people to go through what I went through because it emotionally was quite draining and there’s so much shit that happens in our lives looking for a job shouldn’t be one of them and I wanted to I guess I’ve become I’ve got this really weird passion of like, yeah, really advocating for better hiring processes. And someone said to me the other day, if you’d said people would be watching someone like look at job descriptions, how boring does that sound? But you know, 52,000 followers later, I must be doing something okay. So I now, I guess I probably spend 50 to 60% of my time in my day job as a consultant. And then the rest of the time working with brands, making content online, I do a lot of public speaking, I really, on a one-woman mission to improve hiring practices within the marketing industry.

Louise:
Yeah. Well, it’s fascinating and I’ve been following you for a long, long time, so have been watching you in all those kind of beginning videos of working out the job market. And it’s lovely to see what has come of it. It’s incredible. I mean, there’s so many successful stories when it comes to TikTok, but it’s really lovely that obviously it’s successful for you, but you’re also doing things that are going to make work a better place for other people as well. So it’s using social media in such a positive way. It’s great. I was going to ask you in just a few words, because obviously the whole podcast is going to be talking about what you just discussed, like hiring processes and employees and, you know, finding the right jobs for them and things like that. But in just a few words, what do you think the marketing job market is like currently?

Lauren:
I think at the moment we’re in danger of dumbing down the entire industry one job listing at a time. I’m seeing more and more that we’re seeing job listings go live and they are multiple roles in one, marketing director on 25 grand, you know, just absolutely ridiculous things that I just think if you are hiring the most senior person in marketing at 25 grand, which is, you know, from April, it’s minimum wage, what that means, like, you’re not setting up someone for success, you’re not going to get the best work. I think we are probably all aware that, you know, outside of the industry, marketing scene is a bit fun and silly. And, you know, all that kind of, it’s not real job and all that shit. And I don’t think we do ourselves kind of good service on that some of the time. And I think, yeah, increasingly, I mean, I literally, this is so embarrassing. I get into bed and I’m like, I look on LinkedIn and like search through job roles. I try and share really good roles because I want people to see what a good job listing looks like. And I don’t think I’ve shared one in about three months because I really struggled to find them. So yeah, I think we’re in danger of, it’s a bit extreme to say, but I do think we kind of dumbed down the industry when we don’t put time and effort into how we recruit.

Steve:
Why do you think that’s happening? Like can you kind of think of a reason why it’s maybe dumbing down and you haven’t shared a good job listing in three months? Because you’re obviously like right there at the forefront like looking a lot and seeing a lot. Yeah, be interested to hear your take on why.

Lauren:
There’s no research apart from my own brain that’s gone into this. But I would say, I wonder if, because we’re seeing the rise of, you know, within marketing there’s always new things that are coming out and, you know, it was press and then it was TV and, you know, digital and now it’s social and whatever the new thing is. And I think more and more people are sharing what they’re up to. And especially, I mean, I look at my area specifically of social media. It’s a really, it can be a really fun job. And I think when people are seen to be having fun at work, that must mean that they’re not doing work. I think there’s definitely a correlation with that. And I, whenever I speak about working in social media, the commentary online is, it’s not a real job. You just play to look on TikTok all day, all that bollocks. So I wonder if more and more people sharing in their work, actually the kind of correlation between having fun and not working makes it seem that marketing is just a bit of fun and people don’t see the value in it. Therefore, when people are hiring for those roles, they go, oh, it’s just like a nice to have. And I think there’s probably more that, and I include myself in this, more that can be done to show the value of marketing.

Steve:
Yeah, I would totally agree. It’s insane that people would think, obviously there’s reasons for it, but that, you know, it’s just like a nice to have and they’re just having fun. I mean, even, you know, I’ve been working in digital PR and PR more broadly beyond that for like, wow, like getting on for 20 years, which is slightly upsetting, but kind of good. But even when I describe it to my parents, family, friends, It’s seen as, you know, I know teachers and doctors and things like that, and it’s not seen as a serious thing, even though I described the impact that the work is having. It’s like we sold loads more holidays or loads more of these, and that’s kind of what I do. So, absolutely crazy. COVID’s a turning point though, right, Lou? You can ask about that.

Louise:
Yes, because I think you kind of touched on it about when you left the pet insurance role, going into it thinking, right, what next? And I can’t quite remember what time of when that was, which year it was. But I know post-COVID time, there was a bit of a boom. I don’t know if everyone had their kind of furlough money, so companies had more money going through them. It was an employee’s market. People were negotiating higher and higher salaries. It was just such a boom. But then now there’s been this shift where it is just not as rosy and it is an employer’s market for a lot of complex reasons. I was just curious to know whether, in your opinion, you felt that pre-Covid was better than where we are now after going through that big high to now what feels like a really deep low.

Lauren:
It’s hard to not sound so negative, but I definitely think things have seemingly got worse. And I think for all the reasons that you have absolutely just shared, we saw such a booming in COVID where we couldn’t hire quick enough. And I was at Made.com at the time during lockdown. And, you know, what a great company to work for when everyone’s stuck at home and you’re all of a sudden you’re looking at the same four walls going, OK, well, now we’re going to if we’re going to be in the house 23 hours a day, let’s get the new sofa and all of that. But yeah, ultimately, I guess what goes up must come down. And I think what has happened is that the over hiring because the demand was there has now meant there’s much more redundancies. There’s also, you know, on a macro level, looking at the economy, there’s much more kind of caution for people, not even, not necessarily just to make redundancies, but also just not to hire in the first place. And I think this is where we’re seeing a lot of people’s roles being stretched. And I kind of touched on it earlier about when people roles are being hired, It’s your social and your PR and your digital marketing and your this and your that, rather than see them as their own disciplines. And I even, I remember when I worked at Made, when I left, I was interviewing for roles that were like social and PR. And I was like, I can absolutely oversee both, but they are very different disciplines. We’ve definitely seen a kind of downshift, but I do remain optimistic that that will change. And I think it’s, is probably why I am so passionate about trying to kind of empower and up skill people about what makes a good job listing so that we don’t tolerate the five jobs in one and the completely underpaying just because, you know, there are 500 people applying for every job. I’m actually just on that. I think when we go on LinkedIn and we see all 500 people have applied and all of that stuff, which actually that just means they’ve clicked the link. But yes, we are seeing more and more people apply for roles, but I would encourage people not to be put off from that because they might not be within the salary range. They might not have the experience. Like often, I’m sure both of you will have recruited before. There’s a lot of shit to sift through.

Louise:
The LinkedIn way of applying for jobs, I do think is, it’s not a question we have written down to go through, but it actually is an interesting point because me and Steve have put job listings on there. And I must admit, I would say 80 to 90% of the applications we get via LinkedIn are not relevant in any way. There are some gems in there, but for the most part. And I don’t know if it’s that quick apply button that just means that.

Lauren:
I’m not a fan of easy apply, mainly because I, from my own personal experience or anyone I’ve known, I don’t know anyone that’s gone through an easy apply and then got an interview off the back of it. And actually from a hiring manager perspective, actually having a couple of qualifying questions or sharing a cover letter or something that is just beyond the CV, I think is really helpful. And the easy apply is great for quantity, but not necessarily quality. Yeah, for sure.

Steve:
You’ve touched on a few of the common themes you’re seeing in hiring at the moment, but I just wanted to explore that a little bit more. Are there any others that we haven’t discussed as yet from both the sort of the hiring side and the applicant side? What are you seeing happening?

Lauren:
Yeah, so two main ones I’m seeing, I think one of them we’ve touched on, which is kind of multiple jobs in one and really, you know, cramming lots in, which I don’t think is setting someone up for success. I think there are lots of people that are generalists and can absolutely stretch across different disciplines. But the reality is in a 40-hour week, you can only do so much. So that’s one of them. And then the second one I’m seeing is a rise in multiple, multiple stage interview processes. And again, it’s so hard not to sound like I’m an old fart, but whenever I have been interviewing before, it’s always been one, maybe two interviews. And obviously the more senior you get, the more interview stages or the more complex those interviews would be. But I’m seeing entry-level roles where it’s a four-stage interview. And I’m also seeing a really alarming rise on people being asked to do a task to apply for a role. And I just think that is, I think it’s so immoral. I think it’s people taking advantage of, you know, being an employer’s market. And I also just think if you’ve got 500 people that are all creating a piece of content for you, for example, Are you going to go through every single one of those pieces of content and evaluate it? No. And I think, again, it comes back to something like social media, not seeing the value in it when people go, oh, just create a two minute video about this, this and this. And it’s like, it’s two minutes in length doesn’t mean it takes two minutes to make it. So, yeah, I think the rise of multiple stage interview processes and tasks and application, I think is quite alarming. One thing I’d really encourage hiring managers to do is up skill yourself when it comes to interviewing. There’s a really great quote from James Clear and he says, “The beginner chases the right answers and the master chases the right questions.” And I really love that quote because I think when it comes to interviewing and hopefully you’ll agree with me that the best interviews I’ve had are when people ask really smart questions so that they get the right answer from you. I think when they try to, they don’t really know what they’re asking or they spend so long asking the question that you get to it and you’re like, What have they just asked me? I think that can be quite confusing for people. So I, yeah, I always encourage anyone that’s, you know, interviewing to try and get some advice, whether it’s externally, from colleagues, from HR teams, to be really clear on what it is you’re asking and how to interview well. And I think actually the best interviews I’ve ever had are ones where they just feel like conversations.

Louise:
Yeah.

Lauren:
I think there’s like this, like, I wouldn’t say a myth, but like, there’s almost this assumption that interviews should be really hard and be a test. Yeah. Yeah, actually, it should be just a chance for you to shine and share your experiences and your achievements. I don’t think they should be this, like, endurance test.

Louise:
I always think, like, when I was first starting out in my, like, you know, post-uni career, I always thought that people would be asking you questions to test you and to catch you out. And it was kind of like there was, like, a trick to it. I mean, like, the classic one is, like, you know, what do you feel is your biggest flaw? And it’s like, oh, I’m just too perfect or whatever and it’s like this kind of, you’re not actually answering the truth, you’re just answering what you think is the best thing to say. But yeah, I would agree, like me and Steve have done like plenty of interviews over the years now and it’s actually, I find it a really enjoyable thing because you get, it’s just like meeting, it’s kind of like doing a podcast in a way, it’s asking some questions, getting some interesting answers back and learning about a person. It can be a nice, enjoyable experience.

Steve:
Yeah, but I’m already learning a lot from chatting to you, Lauren, because what’s resonated with me is that we think about the questions, of course, and try and make it a conversation. We’ve never had any training on it. We’ve never really thought that deeply about it. And that’s true. There could be something there that you kind of go, okay, how do we make this the best interview possible beyond just being nice people and asking nice questions? Because there is more to it.

Lauren:
Yeah and I think that observation I think that’s probably true for so many people and I think you know I would say myself included when I first started hiring when I first started managing teams and hiring people I was like well how do I know what to do because I haven’t done it before and I remember sitting with a HR manager or someone at the time being like can you help me because I think it’s very different sitting the other side of the table and actually I think one thing we often forget in interviews is interviews are a two-way street. They’re a chance for you to find out if that’s the right employer, if that’s the right role. And I think there’s sometimes fear in that, oh, we leave our questions to the end because that’s it. We’ve got a couple of questions written down and we have that at the end. But actually, again, the best interviews being a conversation should mean that we can ask those throughout.

Louise:
Yeah. You kind of mentioned how not putting loads of roles into one job description, not having this lengthy interview process with multiple stage interviews. Is there anything else that brands and agencies can do to be better hirers?

Lauren:
I’ll start with the job listing. What I think makes a really good job listing, and again this comes from spending an ungodly amount of time looking at job listings over the last year or so, I will always advocate for salary transparency. I think we’re absolutely foolish to think that salary isn’t one of if not the most important part of looking for a role you know in a dream world we’d all absolutely love our job and salary wouldn’t matter but it does and we’ve got bills to pay so salary transparency was always really clear. I think again on a job listing obviously a little bit of company blurb but I think what’s I don’t see loads of, but I always think it’s really helpful is a little bit of information about where you sit in the team. So who do you report into? Have you got any direct reports? How many, like all of that stuff. I think if you’re applying for a job, it’d be quite good to know who your boss is and be able to kind of have a look on LinkedIn and see who that would be. And then I think a really clear remit of the role and really thinking about, is this the right amount for one person? Are you setting up that role for success or are you just chucking your entire wishlist into a job listing and thinking, I will see what happens. I think it’s always also really good when you can lay out what the interview process is. So, you know, if there are multiple stages, you know, what do those stages look like? Are you looking to wrap up the process within a few weeks, for example? And then also when it comes to the remuneration, obviously we’ve touched on salary, but what else is there that’s involved? And I think, you know, I’m sure, I’m sure that all, you know, three of us here today have seen plenty of jobs where it’s like, talks about pizza in the office, no one cares. Like, that’s not the stuff that people care about. So, sharing the stuff that I think is important would be really helpful. And then, yeah, so that’s the kind of job listing. Then when it comes to the interview process, like, communication is key. I think even if you are rejecting people, and email to reject just to let them know, I think it’s like, there’s so many similarities with dating and looking for a job. Like, if someone’s not interested in you, it’s fine. But just that, you know, rather than you do the chasing, it’s like gets embarrassing to a point. So I think, you know, politely rejecting is fine. Like, rejection is part and parcel of job process. So, you know, letting people know if they haven’t made it. I think if they have gone through an interview process, taking the time to give them feedback. I think if someone has especially delivered a task, for example, and that feedback shouldn’t just be, oh, we’ve gone with someone more experienced. Feedback on the thing that they’ve presented to you. I think that stuff is really helpful. And then, yeah, keeping that communication going. Finally, when it comes to making an offer, I think even if you are rejecting someone, reject them with clear feedback and especially if someone’s given a task or something like that, really share something that is much better than just, we went with someone more experienced. And also, I think a really good example I’ve seen was when I joined Many Pets, the pet insurance company. After the final interview, I had a call with HR to see, you know, a bit of a debrief, but we talked about salary again. So obviously, you know, at the start of the process, you have that chat, but we had a second chat as well. So when it meant that I got the offer, it was a really clear offer and one that I accepted straight away without negotiation because we’d almost done the negotiation beforehand. Then moving on to onboarding, just having some consideration around that. So lots that can be done, but that’s the starting point.

Steve:
So on the flip side of that, because obviously a lot of people applying for jobs like all the time, but how can people be better applicants? We’ve talked a lot about kind of brand and agency side, but to be better applicants, what do you think people should be doing?

Lauren:
One thing I do notice a lot is people use their CVs to just basically list their like roles or responsibilities and use it as like just list their job description, whereas actually a CV should be to share your achievements, not just what you’ve done, but how well you’ve done it. So I would say you’re instantly going to be a bit more of an attractive candidate if you can talk about what you’ve achieved, not just what I do in my day to day. don’t be afraid to share some personality. I don’t know if you’ve seen this as well, but whenever I’ve hired, if someone’s just shown a bit of themselves, you want to them as a hiring manager because you can kind of see what they might be like to work with. I think when it comes to, we’re seeing now for me and again I sound like a grandma but for me I’ve always seen a portfolio as something that creative roles have but we’re seeing the rise of portfolios for just lots of roles now but when I’m seeing them they’re just screen grabs of things and actually I think you need a bit of context to that so make it as easy as possible for the hiring manager to understand what you’ve done, how well you’ve done it and then also one thing I think you can probably help when it comes to hiring managers is like don’t just scatter gun your applications. I think again we talked about this like if you’re just applying for the sake of applying which I’ve been in that position I know that when you’re looking for work there is like that sense of oh it’s just a numbers game I’ll do what I can but actually it becomes I don’t think that’s necessarily the best approach.

Steve:
That’s really interesting because we are hiring at the moment. I mean, it’s so timely we’re chatting about this now because we’re putting together a job description, but we’re also seeing applications come through. Because what we decided to do for the first time was put out like a social post pre-Christmas to say, we are hiring for these roles. Job descriptions in full will follow. But if you’re interested, get in touch to we can tell you more about the role or send us your CV. And we’ve actually had some really good applications but you can see that scattergun approach and you can see it an absolute mile off because there’s no personality in it and we had one that was just like a CV and it just said hello please find attach my CV it didn’t say there’s two roles didn’t say which one it was applying for and it had no context at all like there was nothing there to it so I haven’t applied for a role for a long, long time, but I think you’re right. You have to get across what you’ve achieved, a little bit of personality. Even if it’s not true, make the person, the hiring manager, feel like they’ve really thought about us. I can see why they would want to work here rather than they just want a job, which is true, but you’ve kind of got to play the game a little bit, right?

Lauren:
Yeah, why do you want to work here? Because I need to pay my rent. But yeah, I think you’re right. You know, if you’ve got two applications next to you and one says, hello, sir slash madam, here is my application versus, oh, I saw that you were sharing this post on LinkedIn. I’d really like to find out about this. This is a bit about me. Which one are you going to pick? Like, it’s a no brainer.

Louise:
It is kind of also that when you think about the dating side of things again, I remember when you’re looking at dating apps and things like that, you pick out parts of someone’s profile and say, oh, I’ve seen you’ve been to India recently, and things like that. You’re showing an interest in the person, show that you’ve taken the time to look at them, especially since we’re doing the podcast, it’s such an easy thing for someone to reference and be like, oh, I listened to an episode of your podcast or I saw you’ve even done a podcast. Things like that. It’s a little bit of flattery. Maybe they haven’t even listened, but it’s nice that they made the effort to try and say it.

Lauren:
Yeah. No, I think you’re absolutely bang on. If you’re on a dating app, you don’t go, well, I’m single, you’re single, that’s it. In the same way that if you’re applying for a job, you don’t go, well, I’ve got a job going, you’re looking for a job, that’s it. There has to be that assessment to see if it’s a right fit.

Louise:
A little bit of future gazing if you don’t mind because I would like to hear about where you think things are heading in terms of the job market. Things aren’t great at the moment so we have been a little bit on the negative side and that is a fair reflection of how things are. Obviously, are you feeling positive or negative about the future?

Lauren:
I will always try and have a positive outlook because I know that we have talked a lot about things that maybe haven’t been right and how things can be improved, but I will always try and have a positive outlook. However, there are a couple of things that I am seeing that I think need a little bit of work and potentially, if I carry on, could be a little bit damaging. One is the use of AI in the hiring process. So there are many advantages of AI and from a productivity and efficiency point of view, it can be fabulous. But I’m slightly worried that using AI too much in the hiring process can take out the humanity. And we know that AI isn’t perfect from a buyer’s point of view. I think when we talk about things like keywords and filtering and all sorts of stuff, I think too much AI is not a good thing. And then similarly from an employee’s point of view, I hear a lot of my friends who are hiring that are receiving CVs or cover letters that are clearly written by ChatGPT. And I’m not against using ChatGPT to help your writing, but not to do the writing for you. So that’s one trend that I don’t think is necessarily the most positive of trends. And then something else we’re definitely seeing more of is return to office. Big agency group WPP recently announced that they were going back to the office, I think it was four days a week, and randomly there was something like, had to be at least two Fridays a month. There was just some weird regulations about the return to the office. And we know that, you know, women are affected disproportionately when it comes to returning to the office. Women, you know, in the UK in heterosexual relationships still make up the majority of childcare responsibilities. That’s obviously not all the case for all relationships. I don’t think that’s a positive thing to have had the last five years where we have had to, you know, we’ve been able to experience a more flexible approach to working to then start adding in return to office mandates. And I think whenever I talk about return to the office, I love being in the office. One thing I miss about corporate life is I love being in the office. But I think when we’ve seen alternatives and seen that we don’t have to perhaps be in the office all the time or actually, you know, when we are in the office, let’s make it structured time rather than And I’m sure many of us have been in offices where you just have to then take your Zoom calls in the office and you’re like, I could be doing this at home. So yeah, I’m definitely not against office work. I just think it should be that there’s ways that businesses can consider what’s best for the employees and how to harness great in-office experience and great remote working experience too.

Steve:
Yeah, we’ve seen it can work, as you say. It’s like this arbitrary, like it’s got to be like, yeah, those like two Fridays a month or something. We’ve thought quite deeply about it, Propellernet, because there are 100% benefits to getting people together and like doing training and making it more structured. But yeah, it is quite a strange, it feels like this year or tail end of last year, it started to change back again. And there’s more demands, which is odd.

Lauren:
I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, one of the arguments for the return to office mandate is to improve culture. But then it will be like you can choose two days in the office to come in. So that effectively means I could be coming in on days that my team aren’t even in. Where does that make sense? Companies that are saying, yes, we are going to come in two or three days a week. These are going to be no Zoom meeting days, or these are going to be the team days, or these are going to be whatever days. And then these are going to be action days at home or whatever that is. I think you’ll get from a productivity and efficiency and happiness point of view. I think that all of that will be a positive.

Steve:
Lauren, we wanted to talk to you about your personal brand and your views on it, because you have this amazing personal brand and you kind of mentioned a little bit about how you’d built that, but TikTok, LinkedIn, loads of our listeners will have seen you, heard you. What are your thoughts on having a personal brand and how that kind of affects your career, like when you’re going for jobs, how important is it? Yeah, just keen to get your take on it.

Lauren:
Yeah, it’s so, even when you ask that question, I was wincing. I have such a reaction to like personal, it just feels a bit cringe, doesn’t it? It does. And I think it’s because, I think the reason I feel a bit ill about it is because we all have a personal brand. It’s just our reputation. It’s what our colleagues think of us. It’s whether someone would recommend us on LinkedIn, you know, it’s what people say about how we work, what we like to work with, you know, and that’s colleagues, external partners, et cetera, et cetera. I think so much of our, career can be built on our reputation as, you know, she’s fab to work with, or she’s not, or she goes out of her way to help others, or whatever that could be. But I think the rise of it is obviously mainly due to social media and people being able to extend that beyond first connections, so people that they have had working with before. I think even before my TikTok days, I’ve definitely seen advantages to having, using my voice or having an opinion, whether that’s be on LinkedIn, public speaking, panels, etc. In my days when I was at Benefit and Made, I was actively on the kind of speaker circuit and so and made some great connections and had some amazing opportunities come up that way. So I have nothing but positive things to say about if someone is consciously, right, I am going to start posting more content. Where I think it falls down sometimes is the, how do I word this, the kind of desperation for everything to translate into followers, rather than something meaningful and meaningful connections. And I think we see it a lot in our industry where people feel like, I’ve got to post because that’s the only way I’m going to be visible, but they’re not necessarily posting original content. So, you know, we saw it recently with Jaguar rebrand, everyone jumped on it and was just regurgitating the same shit. And actually I think where your personal brand can benefit is from having an original thought.

Steve:
And that’s clearly where you’ve succeeded in spades. You know, you’re like marketing week change maker last year, which is a phenomenal achievement. Yeah, you have something original to say on it. You have a purpose. You have something that people can kind of really resonate with. And I totally agree with you. I see, that’s the reason I’ve often not posted that much. Cause it’s like, I’ve got loads to say. I say to you, Lou, I say to the team, I’m quite comfortable with that, but I just see the same stuff pumped out all the time. Like, Why? What’s the point?

Lauren:
What is the point? That’s exactly why you should post to counter that.

Steve:
Yeah, that’s true. That’s true.

Lauren:
Whenever I’ve written something that’s completely from the heart versus, or maybe I’ve seen others talk about it, the difference in the reaction is quite obvious.

Louise:
There’s probably someone out there listening or watching this now who is in that space where they’ve been applying for jobs for months without success. They’re not feeling great about it. Do you have any words of advice for them?

Lauren:
Yes, so I can give you all the kind of, I’m not gonna give you all the fluffy stuff of like, it’ll all work out, all this. I’m gonna give you a kind of a piece of practical advice, something that really helped me when I was job hunting, and that was diarising your job hunting, blocking out time for your job hunt, and then allowing yourself to have free time as well. And so the reason why I think this is a really hopefully important piece of advice is when I left a job a couple of years ago, And I was talking to my coach, I had a session, and I was telling her, you know, I’m on LinkedIn all day, every day, I’m on job sites, I’m doing whatever I can to find a job. And about five minutes later, she’s like, I’m going to end this conversation. I was like, but we’ve got 45 minutes left. She’s like, you can barely speak, you’re so exhausted and drained. She’s like, because you’re spending your entire existence looking for work. If you don’t look on LinkedIn for 24 hours, you will not have missed anything because you can play catch up. So what I started doing was three times a week, I’d block out three hours a day. And I would use that as my time to go on LinkedIn, message pick connections, follow up on things, you know, apply for jobs, type a cover letter, whatever that is. And then I’d spend the rest of the time, this is before my nephew was at school, so I’d go and hang out with him or I’d go for a swim or just do something that made me feel like I had a purpose and a life outside of job hunting. And I appreciate, you know, It can feel a lot when you’re like, I need something and it’s a numbers game, I must apply. But mentally, you’ll be a hell of a lot stronger if you can have some free time to be you as well as a job hunter.

Louise:
That’s great practical advice because yeah, you’re so right, there can be that, you know, you’ve got this kind of vibe to this type of advice sometimes and it’s nice to have some headspace and to be thinking about one thing all the time every day is gonna feel exhausting and to be able to take your brain somewhere else for a bit is gonna do you the world of good.

Lauren:
Yes. I found swimming particularly helpful because I didn’t have my phone on me so I couldn’t check anything. That’s, yeah, swimming and yoga.

Steve:
Yeah, it just gives you the space to process as well and actually think about what you want because I haven’t been on a job search for many, many years. I’ve been at Propellernet so long, but I’m sure that if that happens in the future, I would probably get into a similar headspace where it’s like, right, my goal is to find work and the best way to find work is to be applying and being on LinkedIn and all of those kind of things. But actually, taking a bit of a step back and thinking about what you want, it’s like, well, what do I want to apply for? Like, what are my skills? You know, that kind of thing.

Lauren:
I think you can really easily fall into a trap of it being a numbers game and just applying for anything. And then you get rejected from a job you don’t even want. And you’re just like, why? And so then it’s like you get that horrible feeling of rejection and then it’s not even something you’re interested in because you’ve done it in a panic.

Steve:
Yeah well thank you on behalf of our listeners for that amazing advice and sort of tackling it that way because it’s really easy to do the fluffy stuff as as you said as Lou said and like yeah just stick at it it’ll work out it’s like all true but yeah there’s some practical things you can do too.

Lauren:
I’m not taken away from that but I tell you when you are in the depths of job hunting you’re like fuck off.

Steve:
Stop telling me this crap advice. We have reached the last question and probably a usually botched outro, which we’re going to try and perfect. We’re asking every guest this season, we’re giving them a choice. So could you share a PR or marketing campaign or story that you’ve loved recently? And we’re going to leave recently as sort of an arbitrary thing. It could be from last year, whatever you want. Or which brand would you love to work with and why? You’ve worked with many good ones. So we’d love to hear your thoughts on either of those, Lauren.

Lauren:
Okay, I’m going to go down the which brand I’d like to work with route. I’m going to give you two answers, one for me in my day job as a consultant and then one of me as a creator because I think we do different things. As a consultant, social media consultant, I would love to work with Rightmove. I find it so pleasurable to look through Rightmove and I think with my love of interiors, And love of social, like Rightmove would be an absolute dream client in that aspect. And I think we’re still seeing on, you’ve got the likes of Modern House that are adapting to like really beautiful video content and Modern House estate agent that has an incredible YouTube channel. And I think there’s lots of learnings that Rightmove could take there. And then as a creator, there is an audio erotica app called Quinn that I use. It’s amazing. So it’s erotic literature, but like in audio version. And they do these partnerships with different celebrities. So like the priest from Fleabag, one of the guys from Emily in Paris, and their social content is incredible. And I just think it would be, I don’t, I don’t think we talk about female pleasure enough. And I think I’ve got a platform with predominantly, it’s about 85% women that I think it would be just so fun to work with them as a, like in a content creation point of view.

Louise:
I don’t know how to react. I’m like, that sounds great.

Steve:
I was, at one point there, I was going to make a note of the name and I thought, does that look weird and creepy? Because actually we’re like being filmed doing this, so yeah.

Lauren:
My friend was, one of my friends, she was like, in the WhatsApp group, she’s like, girls, you’ve got to download this app and listen to this guy called something the devil of Dublin. And so it’s an Irish guy and he just tells you kind of stories. I was like, I’ll do it as a bit of research. And I was walking around Tesco and there was just this moment where I went to get some prawns out of the freezer and I was like, wow. But yeah, I just think female pleasure and being a woman over 40 and enjoying that side of things, I think it would just be fun.

Louise:
Yeah, that’s great. Also, I just love the thought, this shows you never know what people are listening to when they’re just pottering around the shops.

Lauren:
I know, I know. That’s why people want to work from home.

Steve:
On that note, Lauren, thank you so, so much for joining us. It’s been an absolute pleasure and I’m glad we got through to the very end despite all the technical difficulties that we had in the first recording. If, and I’m sure there will be people that want to get in touch with you, we don’t want to like bombard your inbox, your LinkedIn, whatever, but what is the best way people can reach you, follow you, et cetera?

Lauren:
Yep, so I’m on TikTok, my username is at spearmanlauren and I’m on LinkedIn, find me under Lauren Spearman. More likely to get a message back from me on LinkedIn because my TikTok inbox is disgusting.

Louise:
Do you get a lot of offers from sugar daddies on yours?

Lauren:
Oh yeah, loads. They always use the same pictures, don’t they? There’s no originality. It’s always the same spam accounts. They always use this one guy. I need to find it. That poor guy.

Louise:
I’m assuming that he’s not, maybe that is him in multiple different guises.

Steve:
I have no input into this world whatsoever. But I might chat to you off air, Lou. If you want to earn $5,000 a week, we know someone that can help you out. Great, I’m all ears, I’m all ears. Thank you so much, Lauren, and yeah, thank you from all of our listeners as well for your brilliant advice, your inspiration, and all of your knowledge on, yeah, how to be better applicants, what brands should be doing differently, and all of that, it’s been great. Thanks so much, Lauren.

Lauren:
Thank you, thank you so much for having me. Take care.

Steve:
Thanks, bye.

Louise:
Bye.