Martin King, Senior Consultant at recruitment agency Become talks to Figaro Digital about skills-sets, roles and retention across the digital industry, and explains how staff and employers can get the best out of each other
Successful campaigns are born out of teamwork. And successful teams require the right people. As the digital landscape expands, as technologies evolve and skills become more specific, locating the best digital talent is more important than ever. As with so much in marketing, that’s a process which requires expert knowledge not just of individual brands and agencies, but also the creative, commercial and technical issues which keep those companies at the cutting edge.
Taking the industry’s pulse
Digital recruitment agency Become have been operating in this field for 15 years and Senior Consultant Martin King has been with them for a decade, specialising in digital and creative. With a background in design himself, King is well placed to observe developments not just within recruitment, but across the digital industry. So with the UK riding out the roughest economic storm in a generation, how does he judge the health of the digital sector?
“It’s interesting,” he says. “We hear all the doom and gloom on the news, but digital and creative are thriving. The creative industry as a whole has held up very well and is big business in the UK.”
That may be, he says, because digital is still the new kid on the block, driving innovation and opening up new forms of communication. “For us generally,” says King, “despite the advent of social media, mobile, handheld devices and so on, the strongest and most consistent digital area for us is design and build. The most common freelance request for digital developers is still for HTML and CSS. CSS has come a long way in the last few years, and with the advent of HTML5, coding has seriously broadened its horizons. We also continue to have a lot of requests for Flash and ActionScript people too. It’s the design side of digital that has perhaps diversified more, with clients looking for designers that really understand user experience, customer journey and can create ‘the big idea’ that really gets the consumers to engage directly with brands.”
That sense of accelerated change marks every aspect of digital. In 2005 – well within the working lives of most of us – Facebook was barely open for business, the iPhone was still in development and we were yet to discover just how much could be said within 140 characters.
“Now,” says King, “there’s a lot more emphasis on user-interface and user-experience for mobile devices, iPads and so on. The entire mobile revolution has taken place within that period. Designing for digital used to be more of a bolt on. You’d have the advertising campaign and the digital aspect would come at the end. Now it’s got to be there from the beginning. It’s so much a part of every creative solution and actually opens doors to new areas of communication.”
Open to opportunity
Whatever the next year holds for the digital industry, the right people will always need to be matched with the most relevant roles. What advice, then, does King have for those on both sides of employee/employer equation?
Clients seeking to hire and retain the best staff, he says, “need to move as quickly as they can – candidates with these very exacting skill sets are rare. Clients need to pay competitively, and when you find someone, keep hold of them with additional benefits and training. We are finding that ‘soft benefits’ are very important too. Designers and developers who are immersed in digital like to be continuously at the cutting edge so digital seminars, networking events with like-minded people and conferences like Flash On The Beach and MLOVE can provide them with new and innovative ways of approaching creative challenges and can lead to work that no-one has seen before.
“And advice for candidates? Think about the advantages of a longer term/permanent contract – the chance to be an integral part of a team, to work on projects from start to finish and deliver great work that you can be recognised for rather than potentially having to pass it on to someone else when the booking has finished. Try to look beyond the salary, and try to recognise the potential opportunities this role could lead to. Don’t forget however, the job must be right for you, and interviews are as much a chance for the agency to sell themselves to you the candidate as they are for you to sell yourself to them.”
Going for gold
In terms of creative and technical innovations over the next 12 months, says King, “I think we will definitely see the rise and rise of mobile and handheld devices, which will continue to push user interface design and UX, with the aim of providing online experiences that are as good as we get at home and in the office while we are on the move. Creative solutions will endeavour to get consumers engaging with brands in a more targeted and personal way – with digital not necessarily providing the final solution, but driving customers to that solution in more and more ingenious ways. Apps will, of course, be a big player, as will branded Facebook pages with purchasing facilities. And, of course, gamification.”
Naturally, it’s advances in technology itself that enable these projects, provide their functionality and drive the big digital ideas. As well as branded Facebook pages, says King, “Expect demand for ecommerce functions and broad-reaching gaming development to provide gamification into everyday sites. Interactivity will be a growth area with AfterEffects being in demand, working alongside Flash – which isn’t going anywhere quite yet. HTML5/CSS will continue to be key areas and Adobe’s new Dreamweaver replica/replacement MUSE looks interesting. ”
King also points to innovative technologies like augmented reality platform Aurasma and says advances in QR codes will be a significant factor over the next year or so. Like many in the industry, he also points to the potential for digital innovation around 2012’s greatest event: the London Olympics. “Big events require big campaigns,” he says, “and I expect to see some groundbreaking work amongst the many campaigns that will launch during the Olympics in 2012.”
Regardless of how Britain’s athletes fare down there in east London, he says, the sheer scale and scope of the event represents a massive opportunity for the digital and creative industries. As ever, those at the cutting edge will be relishing the challenge.
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So say the organisers of the international 3D Printshow and they do have a point.
The guys on the Autodesk stand were informative and the software seems pretty easy to use particularly if you are up to speed with 3D Studio Max. This is definitely good news for the creative industry (as well as others), as there is good pool of people with strong 3D software skills who will only need to extend their knowledge slightly to get to grips with this dynamic software.
Whilst there I also spoke with the guys at Uformia (www.uformia.com) who have alternative 3D Printing software called “Symvol” which again works as a bolt on to the already popular 3D software Rhino. Symvol allows you to create both organic and mechanical objects that are always watertight and ideal for 3D printing. Their software “MeshUp” lets you blend shapes and allows your imagination to run riot.
15 years recruiting creatives. 