🏴‍☠️ Hunting For Treasure - How To Find A New Marketing Job In 2025 🏴‍☠️

Good Morning, Marketers!

Thank you for the feedback (hint: you can always hit reply on this email to tell us what you think or’d like to discuss) on last week's QBR template - even if you don’t formally share them, it’s a great exercise to run with your team!

This week, we have a very personal antidote (and highly actionable steps) for you from Harry on his new hobby - treasure hunting, and his journey searching for a new CMO role. Keep an eye out for lots of rusty nails (applications), occasional silver artifacts (interviews), but some dirt and disappointment, the cautious game of changing the job spec many interviews in, how to keep imposter syndrome at bay and why building a personal brand is always a smart step.

I’d always wanted to buy a metal detector. Wandering over fields, lost in my thoughts with the chance of occasional excitement felt like something I would enjoy. I like fossil hunting and golf, two pastimes in which you get to enjoy a relaxing stroll through lush surroundings but with the chance that once in a while, something interesting will happen. 

It’s clear that both my body and brain appreciate and benefit from these kinds of distracting walks.  

So a few weeks ago, I treated myself to an early birthday present – a Nokta Simplex BT plus a Quest XPointer (the small carrot-like thing you use to accurately pinpoint any targets). Having been out three times on local land (with the kind permission of the owner), I haven’t made my fortune, but I’ve found enough to get me hooked:- 

A pair of lead tokens, merged together, which were used to pay rural farm workers in medieval times, a padlock, several nails, a length of chain, two buttons, a watering can entwined in the root bed of a fallen tree, a musket ball and a plough tooth. 

Best of all, on my second trip out across the lush South Cotswold fields, I uncovered a silver Tudor Bodkin needle, bent unrecognisably, with a tiny spoon on the end. Having looked online, the spoon was for the retrieval of ear wax, used to bind the cord before you threaded it through the needle. I sent pictures to my local PAS (Portable Antiquities Scheme) representative Dr Edward Caswell, who sent it onto the local coroner. Being over 300 years old, and made of silver, he told me that it officially came under the bracket of ‘treasure’. 

If I wasn’t hooked before, this find sent me over the edge, if for no other reason than the randomness of the find and the history I could learn about it afterwards.

Searching for a new marketing job and hunting for ancient artifacts share a number of traits, except in 2025, you might have more chance of enhancing your salary by digging up a silver ear spoon…  

There’s a queue for the hype train on LinkedIn and elsewhere when it comes to people bigging themselves up and for many, the train is barely leaving the station. To counteract the bravado and hyperbole, I’m going to give a warts and all appraisal of what it’s really like to be looking for marketing clients or a permanent job in the current market.   

TL;DR – it ain’t pretty…

Regular readers will know I was made redundant from my previous role last July. It’s not the big deal it once was, in that senior marketing roles are the most disposable ones in the C-Suite, so I decided to take some time off over the summer before igniting my search from a new position. 

This was my fourth redundancy in a 25 year career, so not my first rodeo by any stretch. I know how it works, and I have a preplanned strategy of how I approach it (as well as a protective wall of fluff that allows my ego to stay in one piece while I 

First, I gave my CV a spring clean, editing out the grandiose fluff and refocussing on data points to demonstrate success across numerous channels and brands. I’m looking for a CMO position in an established digital start up or scale up, so I made sure my AI credentials were front and centre next to more robust KPIs.

Next, I planned to write a book – my fourth – with the mission of delivering a Middle Grade fiction title that was good enough to be published properly this time. Numbers one to three were written during periods of gardening leave between 2005 and last year, and as it’s a passion of mine, it meant I could focus on something positive while I waited for the world to get back to work in September and offer up permanent roles I’d be a good candidate for.

Phase 3a was my recruitment roadshow – messaging, emailing, calling and meeting all the marketing recruiters and headhunters on my not inconsiderable database.

Phase 3b was applying for jobs on LinkedIn. This is, and has always been, a giant waste of time, nearly every time. Applicant Tracking Software twinned with the ‘Easy Apply’ process means it’s a lottery, with hundreds of candidates going for each role and zero feedback coming back the other way. I know I’m not alone in treating LinkedIn applications as a singularly useless road to madness, but one you engage in because you simply want to be doing something proactive every morning.

Finally, I reignited my consultancy business – Brand Architects. Launched in 2017, it’s a vehicle through which I offer brand, performance and integrated strategy consultancy to digital clients. Within ten days, I had five warm clients asking for proposals. Things were looking up.

Until they weren’t.

Four of the five consultancy clients pushed their projects down the road until 2025 (I’m still chasing them). Now I’m not expensive – the whole premise of Brand Architects was to utilise a ‘brutally honest approach with streamlined methodology across performance marketing and brand strategy to avoid submitting unmanageable invoices.
Despite this, I was undercut on two further brand guidelines projects by agencies who are either making zero margin or they’ll end up delivering the skinniest of skinny brand books with AI design assets to a disappointed client. 

The perm job market has gone through the floor, with only one serious role. I made it to the third round before they changed the job spec from sounding exactly like me to being nothing like me. I’ve followed up with the recruiters and headhunters every month, sending lighthearted updates about my job search status, book writing, progress of this newsletter and my metal detecting finds -  standardly hearing back from around ten percent of the eighty. The one role mentioned above was the only positive result so far, in over 8 months. 

As for the book? I finished the first draft of The Fossil Hunters pre-Christmas and sent it off to a bunch of agents, leading to a generic single paragraph rejection landing in my inbox every couple of weeks. Oddly, this is the least painful failure, as I know from previous experiences that getting an agent and latterly a publisher is remorselessly difficult.        

Which brings us to now – several months on. I saw a CMO role with a new trading platform advertised on LinkedIn whilst browsing the job boards. Despite my previous policy of avoiding it like the plague, I clicked on Easy Apply, submitting my details to see what would happen. 

I didn’t have  to wait long, as I received an email from an Italian Recruitment Agency shortly afterwards asking me to complete a full market appraisal in advance of any meeting. To be clear, this wasn’t a ‘what channels would you prioritise to build brand awareness and acquire customers’ 1 liner. It was a multi stage strategic appraisal and recommendation brief over TWENTY TWO segments. 

I only share this ridiculously verbose example to outline the absurdity of it all. I reckon that to do a decent job of this monstrous application would take a minimum five hours of work, and that’s a conservative estimate. 

I replied, courteously but directly, with the following:-

She asked for a call so we could discuss my recommendations of how to improve their process. An industry friend suggested I send a quote for my time… 

 So How Do You Plan A Successful Job Search?

It’s clear that I’m not doing a great job, so I asked some of my industry friends how they see the job market and whether they could offer any advice for the purposes of this newsletter. One anonymous CMO kept his reply simple:-

‘I’m not sure there are enough expletives to cover how I feel’.

CMO Nick Bottai was a little more expansive:-

 The economy is uncertain and the job market reflect this uncertainty in two ways:

1. Lack of resources and hard resistance in committing to investments

2. Companies don’t know what they need for the future anymore

These 2 “issues” have a domino effect on all the recruiting pipelines. Therefore, we experience crazy low salaries, vague job descriptions, weird job descriptions, and the use of AI to sort the enormous amount of application for a single role.

Pragmatic Steps

So where does that leave you, a highly skilled marketer, seeking your next role?

Here are my suggestions: –

1/ Rewrite your CV and cover letter for each application – have a header statement in which you focus on the biggest requirements. One flawless application for a job you fit perfectly will have a better conversion rate than 1,000 ‘Auto Apply’ clicks or generic submissions. Work out your core proposition in under 30 words and use that everywhere to define and differentiate you from the competition. Mine would be something like this:-

“Harry is an experienced and creative B2C CMO who provably grows digital businesses through brand building, performance marketing and retention strategy twinned with a customer centric approach and motivating team leadership”   

2/ Don’t mistake volume with quality. I made this mistake early on – hours spent looking at job ads on LinkedIn and job boards, applying haphazardly, panic shopping in the desperate belief that carpet bombing would eventually catch me a fish. It doesn’t. Take half an hour each morning, see if any jobs fit you and if not, move on with you’re a more productive version of your day instead. Also, AI Applicant Tracking Software is almost omnipotent, so pick keywords and phrases from the JD and ensure you use them, with data examples, liberally. It’s a game, and a shit one, but it’s winnable if you follow the rules.  

3/ Invest in building relationships with recruiters and headhunters. They may be getting fewer briefs, but the ones they get will at least be robust with lest chance of ghosting. I’ve attached a list of all the firms I’ve contacted as an appendix to this article, although courtesy and GDPR dictate I can’t give you my contact names nor emails, which should be easy enough to find. Make an introduction, have a call, take their advice. Don’t get annoyed with them if they don’t find you work (or reply). They’re every bit as keen as you are to connect applicants like you with high paying jobs with the minimum of fuss so they can bill their fee – but they’re also at the mercy of the market…

4/ Tighten the buckle. The more senior you are, the longer you may need for wait for the right role to become available, which means you’ll need to survive longer without an active income. Downgrade holiday plans, audit your shopping budget, consider whether your flashy car payments are essential (they’re not – nobody except you cares about your status wheels). One thing you’ll have more of is time, so taking a while to map out your household expenditure and look for savings won’t just be useful in the short term – it’ll pay back significantly when you’re earning again.

5/ Adjust your parameters – I don’t mean going for jobs two grades below where you are, nor opening yourself up to a 30% pay cut – it doesn’t work anyway – recruiters smell you a  mile off and its very possible to be over as well as underqualified. However, you might be polishing your halo too much by holding out for ‘perfect’ roles. Look at regional businesses, SMEs, start ups (with proven funding though) or established but less trendy sectors. There are plenty of professional services firms who need B2B marketers and loads of ex-high street retail brands crying out for digital marketers. You want an interesting job with a reliable paycheque – no one else cares what it is you’re doing, and as for optics? Pffft… nobody’s CV is a perfect narrative arc through their career and besides, you’re a marketer – you polish turds for a living so you can make any pivot look like a decisive and purposeful career upgrade.  

6/ Network – like premium houses, many jobs won’t reach the open market. Engage with your industry peers who may easily come across open roles in their networks and will only be too happy to share them with you if you ask. As a bonus, if they know the hiring firm, they may be open to a warm introduction.

6/ Invest in your personal brand – it’s a turgid phrase, of course – but you’re an awesome marketer. Treat yourself as the client and market the fuck out of yourself. Three astute LinkedIn posts every week minimum, comment intelligently on other posts, offer to write articles in the marketing press, ask too go on podcasts or speak at events or just get in touch with Danny or I and write a Marketing Unfiltered newsletter piece. If you’re not getting on recruiter radars, then MAKE SOME NOISE so you stand out from the burgeoning crowd.  
(if you struggle with personal brand here’s a take from me and Harry)

7/ Relax. I know it’s hard – financial pressures, unpredictable markets, days dragging into weeks with no positive news – imposter syndrome can set in like an unwelcome cold leaving you feeling weak and disillusioned. Snap out of it – go for a walk, enjoy your hobbies, get fit (both mentally and physically). Trust me, you’ll feel better and sleep better as a result.

In framework terms, craft yourself something like this:-

You want to know what the worst thing is about this comatose job market? It’s that absolutely nothing is happening. Every day, you apply for jobs, follow up with recruiters and promote yourself with gusts of effort, hoping that someone will hear the message, and in return? Nothing - and the sound of silence is deafening.

All this advice is well and good, but in this market it’s a waiting game - so follow the process, keep your chin up and good things will, eventually, happen.

Thanks for reading this week.
Next week we have another two-parter, including Lottie Unwin’s Upclub.

Have a great weekend!

Danny & Harry

Join our dedicated whatsapp channel to receive our weekly Unfiltered updates