This is a new way of doing things so we appreciate there are likely a few questions. We'll do our best to answer them below.
Finding great marketing talent means "post and pray" on multiple job boards or engage with a very expensive external recruiter who knows how to search LinkedIn.
Job boards are frequented by people who are actively looking for a job (who are not always the best candidates) and their posting fees are not linked to performance (quantity not quality)
Recruiters don't know their Semrush from their toothbrush. They haven't worked in the industry and yet businesses are still reliant on them (and their big commissions) to source talent.
We think there is a better way of doing things. We want great businesses to sidestep the middle man and find their next marketing hire through genuine referrals.
Step one, bounties.
When a sidestep scout (basically anyone who refers talent for a role) successfully refers someone they know and have worked with, they split the bounty with the talent.
This means a nice golden handshake for the new starter and a proper referral bonus for the scout doing the hard work.
Step two, a quality, vetted referral process from someone working in the industry. We tailor each referral questionnaire to the individual job posting so you can be sure that your candidate has the channel, tool and personal experience that you need.
Check out our how it works page and all will be revealed.
My name's Rod and since the noughties, I've been building and marketing stuff on the internet.
I've founded and grown several businesses where I've had to hire lots of great marketers and it was always one of the most important, time-consuming and challenging parts of my role. Candidates who were referred to me, were consistently some of the best people I hired.
Job boards were hit and miss and recruiters were very painful to deal with, not to mention very expensive. So I built sidestep as a platform to better connect great marketing talent with great businesses.
New technology (AI etc) and asynchronous work practices are forcing companies to rigorously assess if their company organisation is future proof.
There are two key factors affecting the market today, which make it an ideal time for more companies to embrace referral recruitment:
1) A rebalancing of human and tech resource
Is our headcount bloated? Can we be more efficient in our hiring? What is the ideal balance of tech and human resource for us to be competitive in the next decade? Are we embracing automation and AI? Can we free up our team's time for more creative and strategic work?
2) Hands on experience gap between hiring teams and talent
Secondly, with all the new tools, tech, platforms and automation at our fingertips; you need people with hands on knowledge of the role and industry, to accurately refer talent that is best suited for the role. This is not always easy with growing teams who are building new departments with a lack of incumbent knowledge and no resource for internal talent teams.
The people who have worked by your side will be helping you step into your new role.
According to a recent Nielsen study, 88% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know, above all other forms of marketing.
We believe if industry experts are properly incentivised, we can 100x referrals in the hiring process.