Connecting Startups & Scaleups with Marketers that fuel business growth| Talk to me about Talent Acquisition, Candidate Experience, Market Insight, Job Searching, D&I, Headhunting, Career Progression

I don’t just “send CVs.”
I help founders, CEOs and CMOs hire marketers who actually move the needle and help great marketers land where they can do their best work.

I’ve seen the cost of getting it wrong: wasted spend, stalled growth, burned-out teams.
And the upside of getting it right: pipeline compounding, CAC improving, careers taking off.

I’ll challenge the brief, push back when it’s vague, and fix broken processes.
From CAC payback to PLG and ABM, I speak marketing so you don’t hire a unicorn JD for £35k or a “Head of Everything.”

If you want bums-on-seats, I’m not your person.
If you want the right marketer, right now let’s talk: sinead.willis@propellondon.com | +44 7858 425 481

𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐂𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬
I speak to marketers all day, every day from first hires to VPs. 
Most are leaving because they’re underpaid, undervalued, or stuck proving their worth to people who don’t get marketing.

If that’s you, you’re in the right place.
I’ll help you benchmark your value, prep for interviews, and get clear on where you’ll actually thrive, not just survive.

My inbox is open whether you’re actively looking or just need to sense-check your next move.
No fluff. Just honesty and strategy.

𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝗪𝐡𝐨 𝐅𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐬 𝐌𝐲 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭
I’m not here to sugar-coat the market.
I’m here to say what everyone in marketing is already thinking > out loud.

The overworked “one-person marketing team.”
The £35k “Head of Growth.”
The Marketing Directors that a parachuted in to fix everything that's broken.
The “we want creativity but here’s our template” brief.
The marketers that are sick of hearing, just make us go viral and just put something on LinkedIn.

I write about it all.
Real stories, real data, and the real state of hiring in 2025.
If you want insight without the corporate spin and you care about better work, better leadership, and better marketing, and you also want to laugh along the way, then hit Follow.

Much love x

Exciting news today!!! I’m happy to announce 😊 
After 11 years in marketing recruitment, here's what I don’t care about:
⁣(And neither should you.)

If you’ve had a short stint⁣
If you took a break to breathe, reset, or recover⁣
If you were made redundant⁣
If your last role didn’t work out⁣
If you don’t have a flashy job title⁣
If your CV isn’t “perfect”⁣
If you’re over 50⁣
If you have the open to work banner
If your CV isn’t 2 pages⁣
If you’ve changed industries⁣
If you’re figuring it out as you go⁣

None of those things tell me who you are.

And if you care about the stuff on that list?
I guess you’re part of the problem, not the solution.⁣

Follow Sinead Willis for more truth, transparency, and zero fluff 🧨🔥

⁣
#hiring #careeradvice #marketingjobs #cvtips #themarketingrecruiter

Sinead Willis 

The Marketing Recruiter | I help Tech Startups & Scaleups build marketing teams that actually drive growth | Mentor, advocate, ally for my audience.

The strongest marketers I know have the “messiest” careers.⁣
⁣
They’ve worked inhouse, freelanced, taken breaks, been laid off,⁣
jumped into startups that blew up and startups that blew apart.⁣
⁣
Every one of those moves built perspective.⁣
They’ve learned to do more with less, build from zero, and fix what’s broken.⁣
⁣
But too many job descriptions still cling to linear career logic⁣
as if the only valuable experience is uninterrupted, upward, and corporate.⁣
⁣
The next decade belongs to marketers who’ve done the messy stuff 
because they’re the ones who know what to do when the playbook stops working.

Marketing with no budget is not scrappy.
It’s sabotage.

You wouldn’t:
hire a sales rep without a phone
hire an engineer without tools
hire a driver without a car

But companies do it to marketers every day.
Then they wonder why growth stalls.

If you want serious results, put serious resources behind them.

My DMs have been wild lately.

Messages from marketers saying they feel seen for the first time.
Messages from leaders admitting they’ve lost faith in their own companies.
Messages from people who are thinking of quitting the profession altogether.

And reading them, one thing has become painfully clear:
Marketing doesn’t have a talent problem.
It has a trust problem.

Marketers aren’t leaving because they can’t handle the job.
They’re leaving because they’re tired of defending their expertise in rooms that hired them for it.

One person told me,

“It’s not the work that broke me. It’s the constant second-guessing.”

Another said,

“I loved my role until I realised my ideas only mattered when they matched the CEO’s.”

You can feel the weight behind every word.

This is what’s happening across the industry 
micromanagement disguised as collaboration,
“alignment” that really means approval,
and “accountability” that somehow never applies upward.

If you lead a team: listen.
If you’ve lost your spark: it’s not you.

The system needs fixing, not the people inside it.

And to every marketer who messaged me saying “thank you for saying it”
I’m not done yet.

Because until marketing leadership learns that trust is oxygen,
I’ll keep holding the mirror up

#TheMarketingRecruiter #TheCandidRecruiter #TheHonestRecruiter

You don’t lose marketers because the work is hard.

- You lose them because you make them feel like their expertise is worthless.
- You lose marketers because you hire them for their expertise, then ignore it.
- You lose marketers because you want brand, demand, content, performance, CRM, partnership, social, product, copy, design and PR in one person.
- You lose marketers because you expect them to perform miracles on a budget that wouldn’t cover anything 
- You lose marketers because you say “data-driven” until the data shows you’re wrong, then suddenly it’s about “gut feel.”
- You lose marketers because every idea is “urgent” so it's impossible for them to be strategic.
- You lose marketers because you change direction every quarter but still expect consistent growth.
- You lose marketers because you ignore their advice, but still blame them when things go wrong

Have I missed anything?

Follow Sinead Willis  for more truth, transparency, and zero fluff 🧨🔥


#recruitment #marketing #hiring #imhiring

To everyone who’s ever said marketing is easy…

Go on. Try it.

Build the strategy.
Write the copy.
Align 10 stakeholders,
that want different things.
Run the ads.
Fix the tracking.
Prove the ROI.
Get it live by yesterday.
On a shoe string budget.
Deliver results instantly. 

Then come back and tell us how “easy” it was.

Sincerely, every marketer (+ me)


Follow Sinead Willis for more truth, transparency, and zero fluff 🧨🔥

#TheMarketingRecruiter #TheHonestRecruiter #TheCandidRecruiter

Marketing isn’t an emergency button.⁣
⁣
Too many leaders treat it like one.⁣
They ignore it when numbers are up.⁣
They cut it when budgets are tight.⁣
And then, when sales slow, they slam the button and expect miracles overnight.⁣
⁣
It doesn’t work like that.⁣
⁣
By the time you “switch marketing back on,” you’ve already lost visibility, demand, and momentum.⁣
⁣
Marketing is a long game.⁣
It’s consistency that builds brand.⁣
It’s patience that creates pipeline.⁣
⁣
If you only invest when you’re desperate, you’re not investing — you’re gambling.

Fastest way to kill both creativity and results?⁣
Hiring a marketing expert and then stripping them of autonomy!⁣
⁣
You bring them in for strategy.⁣
Then reduce them to order-takers.⁣
⁣
You demand fresh ideas,⁣
but shoot down every one that makes you uncomfortable.⁣
⁣
You say “we need to be bold,”⁣
then rewrite the tagline to sound safer.⁣
⁣
And slowly, that spark, the one you hired them for, disappears.⁣
⁣
You’ll call it “underperformance.”⁣
They’ll call it “a new job search.”⁣
⁣
If you want creativity,⁣
you have to create space for it.⁣
⁣
Autonomy isn’t a perk.⁣
It’s oxygen.⁣

#Recruitment #TheMarketingRecruiter #TheCandidRecruiter #TheHonestRecruiter
⁣

Met a marketing leader recently who joined a startup to build everything from scratch. Two weeks in, the CEO asked her why the numbers weren’t higher.

Two weeks.

This is the pattern I’m seeing everywhere.

Founders want a GTM engine
but expect overnight results.

They hire someone great
then question them before the work has even had a chance to breathe.

So if your hiring these roles, pay attention: you won’t see meaningful trends until before the 90-day mark.

Not because people are slow
but because you need time, data, and consistency before anything becomes a signal.

Intervene too early and you don’t fix the problem.
You restart the entire learning curve.

The teams that grow are the ones that trust their hires, back their expertise, and let them actually do the job they were brought in to do.

Seen this recently?

#Recruitment #ImHiring #TheMarketingRecruiter #TheCandidRecruiter

We ask candidates to explain every pause on their CV,⁣
but never ask companies to explain their turnover.⁣
⁣
When someone has a career gap, they’re grilled:⁣
>Why did you leave?⁣
> What did you do in that time?⁣
>Why the gap?
⁣
But when a company churns through people every six months,⁣
no one asks the same.⁣
⁣
I’ve spoken to marketing leaders from businesses hiring right now who’ve had three CEOs in eighteen months.⁣
What’s that about?⁣
⁣
I’ve spoken to candidates hired because the last two CMOs quit.⁣
Others brought in to “build from scratch” because the entire team before them left.⁣
⁣
Yet somehow, it’s the candidate who has to explain the instability.⁣
⁣
Maybe the question isn’t “Why did they leave?”⁣
Maybe it’s “Why couldn’t you keep them?”

#recruitment #hiring #imhiring #themarketingrecruiter

Just another Tuesday in marketing:

9:00am: Meeting about the meeting we had yesterday.
9:15am: Alignment meeting that creates zero alignment.
9:30am: Another stakeholder adds a “quick sync” to your diary with no context.
9:55am: “Can you jazz up this deck?” (It’s 70 slides… from 2013.)
10:00am: Re-explaining that brand and performance are not the same thing.
10:30am: Someone asks why the numbers didn’t change even though the strategy changed yesterday.
11:00am: “Quick tweak” becomes a full rebrand.
11:20am: CEO saw a competitor’s ad and now wants to change everything.
11:40am: “Make the logo bigger.”
11:55am: Approve 27 requests in 9 different tools while resetting another password.
12:00pm: “Can we use Comic Sans? Just to test?”
12:10pm: “What does marketing even do all day?”
12:30pm: Lunch break. Cancelled.
12:58pm: CEO’s nephew has “thoughts on the logo.”
1:00pm: Panic meeting about leads.
1:30pm: Someone books over your only free slot “to discuss.”
2:00pm: “Can we go viral?” (No budget, obviously.)
2:30pm: “Low hanging fruit.”
3:00pm: Engineering team: “Marketing is just tweeting.”
3:15pm: Sales wants a campaign “by tomorrow” with no brief.
3:45pm: The classic: “Let’s add this to the video last minute.”
4:00pm: “We should rebrand for tomorrow’s event.”
4:15pm: Someone sends you a screenshot of a competitor ad with: “Thoughts?”
4:30pm: Another “quick deck update” that is not quick.
5:00pm: “We need this by EOD.” (It is EOD.)
5:30pm: You start fixing copy you already fixed.
6:00pm: Updating the Executive Dashboard to explain why today’s decision didn’t change today’s numbers.
7:30pm: Someone messages: “Quick question.”
8:00pm: Cry-laughing while rewriting copy again.
9:00pm: Finally close laptop. Immediately think of something you forgot.

REPEAT.

Every marketer who got to this point is likely laughing, crying, or both because this isn’t exaggeration.

This is literally Tuesday.

If companies spent half as much time supporting marketers as they do interrupting them, the results would speak for themselves.

Until then…

we joke, we cope, and we share posts like this so the rest of the world finally sees what the job actually looks like.

Sincerely every marketer + me

Hire top-tier marketers.
Micromanage them.
Ignore their strategy.
Add ten approval layers.
Then blame them when performance dips.
And repeat.

It’s wild how many companies think “control” is the same as leadership.
You can’t suffocate creativity and then wonder why nothing stands out.

If you hired marketers for their expertise,
let them use it.

#recruitment #imhiring #jobsearchtips #themarketingrecruiter

Everyone has an opinion on marketing because they’ve seen it, 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺’𝘷𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘪𝘵. Imagine if we all did that with finance or product. 😂

I might just start telling the CFO how to manage the books.
Or the Product Lead how to architect an app.

IYKYK

If your company has let people go even once in the last 2 years, you have no business acting surprised by short stints. 
⁣
Gaps between roles.⁣
“9 months here”.⁣
“5 months out there”.⁣
⁣
Those didn’t appear out of thin air.⁣
⁣
Lately the majority were created by:⁣

Redundancies⁣
Restructures⁣
Budget freezes⁣
Mergers that went sideways⁣
Leadership changes⁣
“Strategic pivots”⁣
Board decisions⁣
Investor panic⁣
⁣
But sure… let’s side eye a candidate for “looking jumpy”.⁣
⁣
It’s wild how quickly businesses forget their own role in the chaos they created.⁣
⁣
You cannot:⁣

Break people’s stability⁣
Pull the rug from under them⁣
Change the plan every three months⁣
Then judge the very patterns that caused⁣
⁣
Short CVs in 2025 aren’t a red flag.⁣
They’re a timeline of what the job market actually did to people.

Agree? 

#TheMarketingRecruiter #TheHonestRecruiter #TheCandidRecruiter

A day in marketing:⁣

9:00am: Meeting about meetings.⁣
10:00am: Re-explaining the difference between brand and performance.⁣
11:00am: “Quick tweak” turns into full rebrand.⁣
1:00pm: Lunch break (cancelled).⁣
3:00pm: “Can we go viral?”⁣
5:30pm: “We need this by EOD.”⁣
8:00pm: Cry-laughing while fixing copy you already fixed.

REPEAT

Did I miss any?

Marketing fails when everyone wants to have a say.
Marketing doesn’t need more opinions. It needs fewer interruptions.

CEOs, boards, founders all well-intentioned.
But all convinced their “small tweak” will help.

It doesn’t. 

It resets learning curves 
breaks consistency
and confuses the signal.

You don’t need more ideas
you need discipline.

Data takes time. 
Early results lie.

Marketing is an engine that compounds through consistency.

If you want your team to win
stop meddling in their execution.

Your input might feel helpful
but your probably the reason it feels like chaos.

#TheMarketingRecruiter #TheHonestRecruiter

Sometimes the bravest career move isn’t up, it’s out!!!

Out of the role that looked good on paper but drained the life out of you.
Out of the culture that rewarded silence more than honesty.
Out of the company that said “we’re a family” but treated you like a resource.

You don’t owe anyone your peace.
You don’t need to hit breaking point to justify leaving.

growth doesn’t always look like climbing.
Sometimes it looks like resting.
Rebuilding.
Reconnecting with why you got into marketing in the first place.

Trust me the longer you stay in a place that drains you, the quicker you will forget why you love marketing.

I am so glad so many marketers are finally realising that protecting your spark isn’t quitting.

It’s the reason you’ll be able to come back sharper, freer, and more grounded than ever.

So if you’ve stepped back, walked away, or hit pause
that’s not weakness.
That’s wisdom.

The ladder isn’t the only direction.
Sometimes the exit is the evolution.

#TheMarketingRecruiter #TheHonestRecruiter #TheCandidRecruiter #OutLoud

The moment a CEO starts steering marketing, momentum dies.

Marketing leaders have seen this movie before, and all its sequels.

Campaigns change mid-flight.
Headlines get rewritten in Slack threads.
Data gets ignored in favour of gut feel.

Marketing runs on momentum.
Every interruption resets it.

The best CEOs know this. They don’t hover. They protect focus.

 They understand that trusting the process isn’t passive, it’s leadership.

If you want your marketing team to perform like an engine,
 stop treating it like a suggestion box.

Here is why I speak up. Here is why I care this much. Here is why I will not shut up.

Because messages like this land in my inbox every single day.

People who love their craft, who give everything, who show up with heart and pride, yet feel completely worn down by systems that do not support them.

Because nobody should be dreading the work they once loved.
Because too many brilliant marketers think the problem is them when the problem is the environment they are trying to survive in.
Because people are burning out in silence and blaming themselves.

This is why I am loud.
This is why I tell the truth.
This is why I will not soften the edges.

If one person reads this and realises they are not the problem, it is worth every word.

Follow Sinead Willis for more truth, transparency, and zero fluff 🧨🔥

#TheMarketingRecruiter #TheHonestRecruiter #TheCandidRecruiter

Good morning to everyone 
except the leaders who said they wanted a marketing expert, then stripped them of all autonomy.

🙃 

#TheMarketingRecruiter #ImHiring #TheCandidRecruiter #TheHonestRecruiter

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