3 How do you react to the idea of asking candidates to do unusual things such as singing and dancing? Bigmouthmedia is a digital marketing company offering services such as pay per click management, display advertising and search engine optimisation. The company started out as three employees in the basement of a pet shop in Edinburgh in 1997, providing web design and hosting operations for clients. By 2012 the company had become a leading agency in Europe with over €140 million in annual turnover and over 400 big brand clients such as Tesco, MTV and the Body Shop ( Bigmouthmedia, 2012 ). Steve Leach, CEO, attributes the success to the recruitment of a winning team in a new, up- and- coming industry.

Leach describes this process as one fraught with challenges. It was difficult for a startup to attract skilled employees in a relatively new field. To attract the best talent he focused on developing a strong culture and building a brand image of a company with promising career options. It was initially challenging to help find qualified candidates in such a new and emerging area of expertise. At the time no one wanted to be a ‘search marketer’ because the general opinion was that such jobs were not ‘real jobs’. Leach felt that digital marketing was not being promoted as a promising industry by universities. Bigmouth recruited talent scouts to visit career fairs to generate interest in digital marketing.