MONO’s Senior Recruiting Director, Emily Riddle, Shares Her 7 Steps for Recruiters

Emily Riddle is the senior recruiting director at Minneapolis-based advertising and branding agency MONO, where she solo manages agency staffing for their account, project management, creative, and production teams. With over 20 years of experience in the advertising industry, Emily has an excellent eye for recruiting bright talent who are excited to take meaningful steps in their careers by leveraging their strengths to achieve their highest potential. Emily uses her creative thinking skills to shine positivity on all working environments through a DE&I lens. Her passion for building strong teams and her DE&I mindset has given Emily a great track record as an internal liaison helping blend a creative’s point of view with the overall business goals and operations. As a proud cultural ambassador, Emily continues to find long-term recruiting and team-building opportunities for creative agencies that drive results. 

The current industry landscape has opened doors that make it possible for talent to try new and different things. Now more than ever, people can pursue new paths or pivot into different sectors. Recruiters like me have become the gateway to unexplored opportunities. 

As the paths of new talent have shifted, however, so has the way we recruiters need to approach our jobs. Prospective talent often decides which career opportunities are attractive by looking first for a company whose culture fits their values and lifestyle. Recruiters are the first cultural touchpoint for an agency - and it should be an authentic experience. I care about what I do and who I help hire – and it shows. Connecting people with a role that brings out their strengths and helps them shine is what I love the most.

Recruiting is an art, not a science. Below are principles I use that can help other recruiters and their agencies create their own approach to finding ideal candidates and better outcomes.

• Work at an agency you believe in. As the first glimpse that talent gets into an agency’s culture, it is quintessential that you, the recruiter, are aligned with the agency and its values. Candidates can smell an unauthentic pitch and, instead, deserve an honest picture of their potential new employer and its culture. 
• ABC - Always be connecting. The people you meet while doing your job and sometimes while living your life–will undoubtedly be your best tool for finding new talent. Foster that network, grow it and look for those who can give you unique referrals. Sending them connections in return will help you keep a great and growing ecosystem. Timing is everything—and so are your relationships.
• Have hiring managers do their homework. My recruiting process begins with hiring managers filling out a hiring brief so everyone understands what we seek. This first step helps identify the preferred skill sets, backgrounds, and soft skills we’d like to bring to the agency/role and adds important nuance to my knowledge of what the team needs. 
• Don’t rely solely on job posts. Posting the job in all of the usual places is important. These should include LinkedIn, specialty groups by discipline, social media and industry job boards, and attending conferences and events. But more importantly, consider connections you’ve built within your pipeline and who might have a different perspective on a referral. Bringing in talent from other verticals gives your agency an opportunity for fresh thinking—we can look at our processes through a different lens and evolve them. Passive applicants–the ones who aren't even necessarily looking to make a move–are often the best. Remember, with these candidates in particular, your job is to connect the dots for them. You must shape a narrative about how your opportunity aligns with their passions and long-term goals.
• Approach with authenticity and compassion. I constantly seek meaningful opportunities to connect with the new talent we’re recruiting. It is essential to show up to the meeting prepared and eyes open, as bridges are often built during an interview. Candidates are more likely to be open in their answers if you approach them with genuine compassion. Not only will candidates naturally feel more comfortable, but they’ll also become a magnetic force for the agency after having a positive recruitment experience. And once a candidate is hired, I believe recruiters should remain connected to their experience as coaches. This provides additional employee support and a culture of continuous growth.
• Know what you’re looking for. I start by looking at the details: from the words a candidate uses on their resume and LinkedIn profile to what I glean from an interview. Do their strengths align with the agency? How do they add value or bring something different to their team (a strategist with a fantastic digital/social comms strategy background in a department of mostly brand strategists, for example)? Might they work better with one brand team/client over another? While I’m often recruiting for a particular position, I sometimes think of myself as a coach with a player who could be good in a few different positions, deciding where to put them in the lineup.
• Know who you’re looking for. You’re looking for a person with the skills and experience the hiring manager needs, but you’re also playing a matchmaker between the candidate and the agency. I start by asking candidates to tell me their stories and then inquire about former account projects they have worked on. These questions help me determine if their talent suits the role and show me how well they can articulate their contributions to an agency. At MONO, we approach the work process as a fully integrated team, building the story together through vulnerability regarding our opinions and reasonings. I always look for someone with a strong point of view because candidates who need help voicing their views could certainly get lost given our collaborative approach to making the work. 

Recruiters are ultimately the cultural ambassadors for an agency’s brand–we are the first impression for outside talent and an internal liaison. We connect creative points of view with operations and overall business goals to build a team that can succeed from the jump. Connecting the right people with the right opportunity is now, more than ever, about creating and curating a unique and authentic hiring experience.

The industry as a whole moves at an extremely fast pace. We always focus on servicing our clients at lightning speed and creating award-winning work. While this is important, it can leave talent initiatives at a disadvantage. Often there is not sufficient time for a fully inclusive recruiting process, including proper onboarding and training (which has a direct impact on DE&I efforts to hire diverse talent).

This needs to change, as we all know an agency’s most important commodity is its people. An agency recruiter can’t be successful without the partnership of leadership and hiring managers in creating a healthy culture of opportunity and calibre of work to be proud of.