I am the Recruitment Marketing Manager at Hired, the largest AI-driven marketplace that matches ambitious tech and sales talent with jobs and the world’s most innovative companies. My role centers around engaging with job seekers through events, online communities, content marketing, and direct outreach. It’s very much a blend of recruiting, marketing, and community development, with a focus on generating awareness of the Hired marketplace.

Hired’s marketing team is about 25 people, split between Marketing, Candidate Experience, Events, and a growth-focused Technical Sourcing team. I manage this mighty team of 6 part-time Technical Sourcers responsible for recruiting candidates that match the open roles on our marketplace. Our team is spread far and wide, with people distributed across the US and UK. We straddle several time zones, and have gotten quite comfortable with asynchronous work.

The Marketing team plays a big role at Hired. Hired is a 2-sided marketplace, and our team is responsible for driving new business on both the Employer and the Candidate sides. Our work touches every aspect of our customer experience, from generating initial awareness all the way to ensuring candidates get hired by our clients.

The most important and effective parts of our remote culture are transparency, organization, collaboration, and flexibility. 

• Transparency - In a remote environment, it can be easy to feel siloed from the rest of the group, and transparency is a great way to help employees see and understand the broader impact of their work.
• Communication - Remote work, and in particular globally distributed work, necessitates asynchronous communication. My favorite question to ask is “should this meeting be an email?”, and if the answer isn’t an overwhelming “No”, I try to communicate updates virtually. Asynch communication requires the ability to clearly and concisely communicate your thoughts, which can be tricky to master for those that are more comfortable with talking in person. However, it is essential for moving work forward as a distributed team.
• Organization - Projects involving multiple remote stakeholders are the most successful when they are carefully organized and tracked. When I launch a project, I try to ensure there are clear expectations of ownership and responsibilities, and that project requirements are accurately tracked and updated in an agreed-upon place (huge shoutout to Asana!). Because we can no longer ask questions to our desk neighbors, it’s important that information is easily accessible and understandable. 
• Flexibility - One of my favorite parts about working at Hired is the flexibility. I’m able to move easily between my work and personal commitments and work the hours that make the most sense for my schedule. With an unlimited PTO plan, I can take time off when I need to recharge. This flexibility ensures that I bring my most productive and engaged self to work every day.

My biggest challenge, and one I try to frequently remind myself of, is that my priorities are not necessarily everyone else’s priorities, and that getting help from others requires advanced planning and organization. In a remote environment, I don’t have the same visibility into someone else’s workload, and though it may be tempting to schedule a same-day or next-day meeting to pitch an idea or talk through a problem, I have to keep in mind that my teammate may have something higher on their priority list. My approach is to put a project on their radar as early as possible, with whatever details I have, and then fill in the gaps as I get more information. This allows my counterpart to prepare for the project and meeting, and ensures that our time spent together is effective. 

Similarly, when managing my own team, I try to maintain a balance between checking in regularly and respecting their other time commitments. We have a standing bi-weekly meeting to discuss project priorities or updates, and I utilize the meeting agenda template in Asana to outline discussion topics, so the team knows what to expect and can prepare accordingly. Outside of these regular check-ins, I make myself readily available via Slack, so that any blockers are solved quickly.

The Hired Marketing team loves virtual game nights (Codenames and Pictionary are some of our favorites). We also hosted a team offsite in NYC last year, and got to enjoy an architectural boat cruise around the city, some rousing games of shuffleboard, and plenty of team-building activities.

We use icebreakers all the time, and often find that the more obscure the question, the more spirited the surrounding discussion. We also do a rotating Pecha Kucha presentation, where one person will spend a weekly stand-up presenting on any topic of their choosing - 20 slides for 20 seconds each. Pecha Kucha is an amazing way to get to know somebody and learn more about their interests, like favorite recipes, movies, cocktails, restaurants, travel destinations, and more.

Our collaboration tools make a huge impact on culture and morale, because they enable our team to work effectively in a flexible way. Asana is our one source of truth for projects of all sizes, and Slack is our preferred method of quick communication. As a company, we feverishly use our #employeerecognition Slack thread to commend our teammates, and use the Karma Bot as a lighthearted way to give kudos.

I love to lean on my Manager and our team’s VP, as well as my broader professional network for their leadership advice. Otherwise, I’ve used role-specific resources like Rally Recruitment Marketing or Employer Brandwagon, and broader community-focused groups like Elpha for leadership resources.