2 roles, 1 engagement. A Growth Advisor with deep SEO and a real view of where AI search is going, and a Growth Manager who pairs with an Advisor inside OGM. People who want to build what is next, not cling to what was. Written for you, and for the director helping you hire.
From the call on 5 November, played back so you and your director can check we listened before we propose anything.
OGM started with you in-house at BigCommerce, then consulting, then contractors, then an agency. The model is deliberate. What worked was not running an audit and a task list. The consultant acts as if they work at the client and helps solve the problem. You are boutique on purpose, at about $20k+ a month, which removes most companies, and that is fine. Business is good because clients know this channel matters, they are under pressure to act on AI search, and almost nobody can answer the questions. That is why the people in the seats have to be good enough to answer them.
The seat you keep hiring is the Growth Advisor. It is your term for the lead strategist and account manager. You look for a "mini me", often someone better than you at specific things: deep SEO, a view of where AI search is going (brand and product marketing, not SEO alone), and the ability to write and talk to clients. You said it sounds easy, and it is not. The people who have succeeded were almost all people you already knew. That includes the person who used to run SEO at Hotjar, who you said is in the role, and someone who ran SEO at Coda, which was later acquired by Grammarly, who you knew because they were a client. You have hired this profile without a recruiter before. You do not have good leads now, and you want to hire.
The structure is a pair. The hire is not. 1 Growth Advisor works with 1 Growth Manager. You are not hiring these 2 people to work with each other. 1 Manager you already have needs an Advisor. 1 Advisor you already have needs a Manager. You want both gaps filled, with people onboarded this year, ideally early to mid December, before agency work slows down. You asked for something you could share with the director helping you run the search. You saw Search For Hire on LinkedIn the same day you needed to hire. You had already been on a webinar with Shreya, and you sent an AEO guide afterward. You are in Barcelona. The business, and the clients who need to feel looked after, are in the US.
"What worked for me was not treating it as run an audit and run a bunch of tasks. Just pretend you work at the company and help solve problems, and then things tend to get good."
Nigel Stevens, 5 November
"Business is good right now. People know this channel matters, they're getting pressured to do it, and no one knows what is going on. If you can answer any of these questions, it can be a good time."
Nigel Stevens, 5 November
"The people I have found where it works, it's me saying that we're trying to do cool stuff in this space and build products. They're like, oh my God, I want to be a part of that."
Nigel Stevens, 5 November
Run the Advisor and the Manager in parallel, hire each of them beside someone you already have, and make hunger the first screen. If December is real, the search opens now.
1 engagement, 2 scorecards, 1 dashboard. The new Advisor pairs with the Growth Manager you already have. The new Manager pairs with the Advisor you already have. They are not a duo we match to each other. Either role can be a yes on its own. Running them together is how both gaps close before the year ends.
You want people onboarded this year, ideally early to mid December. Agencies go quiet once the month turns. First candidates within about 10 days. An offer inside about 28 to 30 days. 95% of roles fill within 28 days. Notice period is on every shortlist, because that is what decides whether a start lands in December.
Deep SEO gets someone into the conversation. It does not decide the hire. The people who work at OGM hear that you are building what AI search becomes, including products, and they want in. The people who are burned out, and who want the change to stop, are a no. That screen applies to both seats.
Same pace on both roles. Separate shortlists. The Advisor is the harder search, so it starts at the same time as the Manager, not after.
Gold on both roles is the recommendation, and it matters most on the Advisor. Terms follow the same day. Activation is £2,500 per role, in pounds, deducted from that role's success fee.
You and your director with our hiring team. Outcomes at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months for each seat. The briefs you already wrote answer most of the 21 questions. This call is where we weight them.
On your dashboard, with the Fireflies recording and the scored interview. Nobody who fails the hunger screen is on that list.
95% of our roles are filled within 28 days. You and your director move people forward from the same board. Each shortlist shows notice period.
The window you named, before client work and candidate attention drop off. A December start is a decision you make from the notice periods, not a promise we print in advance.
The false bar. You were clear that OGM does not need a magical person who already thinks every thought you think. The pass is simpler, and harder. They hear the vision, they say it makes sense, and they add to it. Hunger first. Then the SEO depth, the brand and product judgment, and the ability to write and talk to a client. A strong Advisor does not fail because they arrived without your exact point of view.
2 profiles. Separate must-haves, separate red flags, separate scorecards. The 60/40 split is the same on both. The tech topics follow the seat. Salaries below are indicative, from what you told us and from the brief you sent before the call.
Senior lead strategist and account manager. About $120k+. Fully remote. US or Canada preferred, for time zone and for how US clients feel looked after. An excellent person in the UK stays in the process. This is the rare seat, and the one your existing Growth Manager is waiting on.
The pairing seat. About $60k+, from the brief you sent before the call. Fully remote. This hire sits with the Growth Advisor you already have. That brief still holds the day-to-day. The onboarding call weights it. What follows is the standard we will not drop, taken from how you described the company and the pair.
We are headhunters, not a recruitment agency. These roles will not be posted. The people you want are employed, paid well, and not refreshing job boards. We go and get them. Both seats run through the same steps, on separate scorecards.
Our hiring team with you and your director. An outcome scorecard per role: what this person must deliver at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months, the mission of the seat, and the personality traits that have not worked at OGM. 21 questions. Your briefs already cover most of them. The call locks the weighting, including anything in the Manager brief we should not flatten into a generic SEO list.
52,000 search marketers in the private network, built over 5 years from the Agency Growth Club podcast, events, and webinars, including the session you already joined. Well over 100 inquiries a week from strong people. We still go out and approach the ones who are not looking, especially for the Advisor.
The story is the one you told. Boutique on purpose. About $20k+ a month. The consultant acts like they work at the client. The work is moving past classic SEO into brand, product, and products you want to build. The Advisors who have thrived wanted to be part of that. That is the conversation that gets a passive candidate on a call.
Interviews are recorded in Fireflies, the same way this call was. You can watch the interview. An AI scorecard sits beside it: every subtopic scored from 1 to 5, weighted 60% behavior and 40% tech and domain. Nothing reaches you that misses the scorecard. If you want your own assessments in the process, we use them.
Shortlisted people land on your client dashboard with the scorecard and the recording. You and your director move them forward or pass from the same board. Communication stays there.
We manage the offer and the notice period, then we stay for the first 90 days. You get an onboarding plan built from the scorecard, so the first quarter is the work you hired them to do.
The ones that change the search. Here so your director can read them without replaying the call.
No. You were explicit. You are not hiring these 2 people to work with each other. 1 Growth Manager already on the team needs an Advisor. 1 Advisor already on the team needs a Manager. We run both searches in 1 engagement so the gaps close on the same timeline, with 1 dashboard and 1 set of terms. You can say yes to both, or to 1. Each role has its own scorecard, its own success fee, and its own activation.
2 packages. The difference is the guarantee. Silver is 20% of first-year salary, with a 12-week sliding rebate: if they leave inside 12 weeks, part of the fee comes back, on a slide the agreement sets. Gold is 25%, with a 12-month replacement guarantee. If they do not work out for performance reasons inside 12 months, from your side or theirs, we run that search again at no extra success fee. Every role has an activation fee of £2,500, in pounds, deducted from that role's success fee. It is not an additional fee. It is the same SOP when a client opens 1 role or 2. The agreement carries the full terms after you say yes.
That is the right target, and it only works if the search opens now. First candidates within about 10 days. An offer inside about 28 to 30 days. 95% of roles are filled within 28 days. Starting from this proposal, an offer lands in early December. A start date still depends on notice period, which we show on every shortlisted person. We will not treat notice as something we control. Once December is on the calendar, agencies slow down. Candidates do too. Waiting until then is how this slips into next year.
US or Canada first. That is where your previous Advisors have sat, for time zone and because US clients feel looked after. You do not personally think location should matter. You also said perception is reality, and someone elsewhere adds a point of friction. An excellent person in the UK is welcome, and we will not drop them to satisfy a filter. What we see in market: more than 90% of our clients are in the US, so senior strategic searches are mostly US. Some US clients prefer the UK because salary is often $20k to $30k lower. That discount is not the reason to hire this Advisor. The client in the room is. The role is fully remote. Barcelona is where you live, not where the hire needs to sit. The Manager follows the same remote brief unless you set a different one.
Rare. Deep SEO, a serious view of AI search, brand and product judgment, and the ability to write and talk to clients is a short list. You have mostly found them among people you already knew, and you said there are not many people on earth who can do this. That matches what clients have brought us for the last 6 months. The test is not a clone of you. They hear the vision, it makes sense, and they want to build. On the call, the closest comparison was Hennessey Digital: a senior hire under pressure to lead AI-search innovation, not another classic delivery seat. People at that level exist. Our job is to reach the ones who are not applying, then put them through the hunger screen before you spend time on them.
You have hired without a recruiter before. You are here because you want to hire and you do not have good leads. The Advisors who worked were people you already knew. The Manager gap is the same problem from the other side of the pair. This search opens the market past the people you already know.
2 packages. The difference is the guarantee. We recommend Gold on both roles, and we recommend it hardest on the Growth Advisor. Each role is priced on its own. Running them together does not change the SOP.
The Advisor holds the client, the vision, and the pair with the Manager you already have. If that hire is wrong at month 11, a $20k+ retainer feels it, and so does the person beside them. Gold means we go again on that seat. The Manager is the same recommendation. A bad pair is still a failed seat, and the Advisor waiting on that Manager should not have to absorb a second search fee. Take Gold on both. If you take it on 1 role only, make it the Advisor.
The success fee is a percentage of first-year salary for that role. The activation is £2,500 per role, charged in pounds, and deducted from that role's success fee. It is not an extra fee, and it is the same for every client, whether the engagement is 1 role or 2. Full terms follow in the agreement.
You saw us on LinkedIn the day you needed to hire, after a webinar you had already attended. Search marketing only. Headhunters, not a job board.
The closest search to this Advisor. On the call we used Hennessey Digital: a senior hire under real pressure to lead what AI search becomes, not another classic delivery seat. The profile exists at that level.
Firstly, they do NOT spray and pray. They take a super methodical approach to first aligning on what the role needs.
Chirag Kulkarni, Founder, TACOAfter three failed hires, these guys found us a rockstar. A great fit both technically and culturally.
Christine King, COO, StorIQ (self storage)They have transformed our SEO hiring process, allowing us to find and recruit the top 1% of talent.
Chris Dreyer, Founder, Rankings.ioYes on Gold for the Growth Advisor and the Growth Manager. Terms the same day. Your director can read this page as it stands.