Skills shortage means adtech companies paying over the odds for ‘average talent’
McCabe
The boss of one of Australia’s biggest programmatic advertising platforms has warned the over supply of advertising technology companies is leading to a skills shortage where agencies and clients are overpaying for “pretty average talent”.
Speaking at yesterday’s Mumbrella Programmatic for Marketers session in Sydney Kerry McCabe, managing director Asia Pacific at RadiumOne, argued the industry needed to do more to broaden the talent base in the programmatic advertising space.
“There are a thousand adtech companies in Australia,” said McCabe. “Its a pretty small market so there is this massive supply and demand issue. That leads to a situation where, not to mince words, there is a lot of money being paid for pretty average talent.”
I completely agree. I’ve worked in and out of agencyside for quite sometime. The complete lack of understanding of even fundamental AdWords processes and structure from so called “Head of Digital” and “Digital Directors” beggars belief.
Question them on GA conversion tracking or Facebook dark posting and they’ll refer you to a junior (who invariably have a sound working knowledge) or slickly change the subject.
Time to out the weed out the pretenders.
I had the unfortunate experience of working for a very reputable media agency who wouldn’t train me in AdWords, Search or Programmatic after I persistently requested it. So I left and got a job somewhere else where they were willing to train me… and promptly doubled my salary #medialyf
Not to derail the topic but I think the issue runs a little deeper than just “overpaying for average talent”. Media and tech agencies need to learn how to invest properly in young talent. Train them up properly, keep them keen and pay them more than a McDonalds casual. Who knows… they might just stick around for more than 3 months.
Digital Freshy – Couldn’t agree more.