Ruth from Six Agency has a stat that should make any agency leader pause: 41% of agencies report difficulty in recruitment. Not because of volume. Because of quality.
Six experienced it first-hand. Two years ago, the ambition to grow was there, but the strategy and narrative weren't sharp enough. "We couldn't really ask brilliant people to join us if we weren't actually clear on where we were going," Ruth says.
So they waited. They defined their positioning, clarified the work they wanted to do, and identified the behaviours they expected of themselves. Only then did they hire, and it turned out they needed two roles, not ten: a strategy lead and a creative lead to bring those disciplines closer together.
Ruth sees the same mistakes across the industry. Agencies hire tactically, panic-filling roles when someone leaves rather than building a talent plan mapped to long-term goals. "The days of sticking a team photograph and a nice cuddly dog on your advert are done," she says. "It needs to be more strategic."
She's also using AI to build richer client personas, training models on real behavioural data and customer feedback rather than relying on generic assumptions. "The insight is deeper," Ruth explains. "You can interrogate AI to ask how a particular person would react to a message. It takes away the guessing." The thinking and ethics, she's quick to add, still sit firmly with the strategy team.
Listen to the full conversation with Ruth on the Happy Teams podcast.
