Creative Hiring Requires Creative Recruiters, with Steve Potestio [Full Transcript]

This is the full transcript of episode 13 Creative Ops Compass, “Creative Hiring Requires Creative Recruiters, with Steve Potestio.” Steve runs Harvester Talent, a creative recruiting firm, and has spent 20 years in creative staffing. In this conversation, we discuss why internal recruiters often struggle with creative hiring, how to make the business case for more flexible staffing processes, and why understanding a candidate’s potential matters as much as matching a job description.

You can listen to the full episode here.

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Intro

Jesse Krinsky: Welcome to Creative Ops Compass, your navigation system for turning creative chaos into strategic impact. My name is Jesse Krinsky. I'm a creative operations consultant and the founder of In Focus Consulting. I help in-house creative teams streamline workflows, improve stakeholder relations, and elevate their role as strategic partners.

Steve Potestio: The element that is often missed and certainly can be missed if an individual doesn't have the creative services industry experience is potential.

Jesse Krinsky: That's Steve Potestio. He runs Harvester Talent, a creative recruiting firm. He's spent 20 years in creative staffing, and he's seen too many companies build hiring systems that make it unnecessarily hard to find the right creative talent. Today we're talking about why creative teams struggle to staff up, what gets lost when generalist recruiters handle creative hiring, and what creative leaders can actually do to get the flexibility they need. If you've ever felt stuck in a staffing process that doesn't work for creative work, this conversation will give you a framework for making the case to change it.

Why Internal Recruiters Struggle With Creative Hiring

Jesse Krinsky: Steve, thanks so much for joining me on the podcast today. I really appreciate your being here. I wanted to have you on because I wanted to get a perspective about how staffing for creatives in-house, how it's traditionally been done, what are some of the downsides of how it's been done and how you work with your firm, Harvester Talent, to try to address those challenges for the creatives as well as the companies within which they work. A lot of creative directors struggle with hiring in part because internal recruiters in their company, they don't speak the language of creative work. What does that language gap actually cost the teams in practice?

Steve Potestio: Well, it costs time. And of course, you know, time is money. It's pretty common to hear a creative director say things like, my internal team is not presenting the type of candidates that I'm looking to hire. And that's no knock on anyone's internal recruiters, the skill and the knowledge gap is in, you know, the creative industry. If you're an internal recruiter for a large organization, your ask is probably pretty broad and chances are creative is going to be a niche piece of it. And so they're typically not going to hire a recruiter that has the creative background to fill that 10% volume. They're going to hire the generalist. And so that person is left to their own devices sometimes, which means they may then go and post something on LinkedIn. And now unfortunately what can happen is you get a ton of responses on LinkedIn to that person's post, but they don't have the orientation or the training or the knowledge of recruiting and don't necessarily understand the need and the brand of their organization to actually go through and respond to all those hundreds of people. And so the candidate then is not getting a good experience with the organization either.

How the Skills Gap Slows Down the Search

Jesse Krinsky: So let's talk about the speed issue when it comes to hiring. Creative teams, they're usually expected to move very quickly, but the staffing process can take weeks or months. And it's especially difficult when you're looking for just a contractor for a couple weeks, or you just need a freelancer to help out with a certain project. If you work through the typical internal hiring process, it just takes too long. It's not feasible for the actual creative work. How do you see that challenge affecting creative teams?

Steve Potestio: Yeah, every time, you know, theoretically the internal manager goes to an internal recruiting team, or, you know, an outside agency that is not in the creative industry, every search is almost start from scratch. And so they start from scratch going, okay, we need to find, you know, an art director. Well, we don't know anybody, so we better post an ad and start looking, as opposed to creative recruiters and creative recruiting firms in general, because we're the ones who are out there building the relationships every day with that talent. And, you know, the smart ones are building brands that resonate with the talent. Because if we do it well and we treat them right, chances are going to increase that that reputation starts to get out into the community. And if you then back it up with a smart brand, and then you back it up with experience and knowledge, the time to fill is going to be quicker.

Making the Business Case for Hiring Flexibility

Jesse Krinsky: So it's basically making the case that every moment we don't have this person in our office actually working is money that we are losing. It's value that we are not delivering to the company or to our clients or customers. So we need to find some way to be a little more flexible. But that flexibility in a lot of companies is, it's a tall order to try to work around established structures. Have you found that there is any particular phrasing or case that creative leaders can make either directly to procurement or through a CMO to enable that kind of flexibility?

Steve Potestio: Well, I think I kind of focused on, you know, time and time is money and the access to the people who understand the work. I think the other piece is the quality of the work. We're going to be able to engage and attract a higher level of creative talent because that person is going to more likely respond to an inquiry from us based on our background, our expertise, our experience. There's going to be a credibility factor where that person may go, okay, these guys look like they know what they're doing, I will talk to them, versus, you know, an internal or external recruiter that doesn't have the credibility in the creative industry. Their messages may not be responded to. They may not be as good. One, even identifying, okay, well, what's top talent look like? I don't have the creative industry experience, so how do I understand what top talent looks like? Well, we understand what top talent looks like. And so the person also, you know, can communicate the need to up level the work that they are doing internally, whether they are an internal agency themselves or just the marketing and creative department, to further the brand and to further the company's products. The better work that you're putting out, the greater likelihood that's going to happen. And so there's the time element, but there's also the quality element of the talent that you're going to be able to attract.

Why Creative Roles Need Market Rate Reality Checks

Jesse Krinsky: Have you seen that there's a disconnect at all between what companies are willing to offer in terms of rates for full-time work or contract work for creatives versus what that creative is actually worth? Or is the market pretty much even, though our expectations and actuals more or less aligned?

Steve Potestio: Well, companies have lowered their hiring budgets. It is a situation, I think, where an outside party can be an advocate for the talent in the way of communicating the market rates that are required to attract and retain the talent that they are trying to recruit in the first place. And so we can be kind of a bellwether in terms of, this is what, you know, to get that level of talent, we're going to need to pay them X. And it's kind of a reality check. And we can then be a strong advocate for the talent. It's extremely important for us to pay talent well and to pay market rates. It's also good business. If we're underpaying talent for whatever reason, chances are greater that they are going to leave whatever assignment or whatever placement we have put them on. So we've got to pay people well in turn to also then attract the talent in the first place. So I just think in general, there's maybe a required greater level of understanding of the market from a broad spectrum, as opposed to a company's maybe biased viewpoint to what they're able to do from a budget standpoint.

What Successful Creative Teams Do Differently

Jesse Krinsky: So you've worked with, you know, hundreds of in-house teams at this point. The ones who are in your mind succeeding at staffing, what are they doing differently from the teams that are struggling to bring in creative talent?

Steve Potestio: I think they're working with recruiters, recruiting firms that have a background in history and a knowledge base of the creative industry. I think they are being very clear in terms of their expectations, very clear in terms of the need. They understand why they need a person. They understand what that person needs to be doing. They've thought it through. They've done their internal homework, if you will. And they've done their best in trying to create a good work environment in the first place. So that when they do engage with the talent, that, you know, say if it's a relationship with us, when we do present some individuals for them to look at, the individuals are coming out of those interviews with a very positive impression of the job and the opportunity itself.

Why the Best Recruiters Take a Consultative Approach

Jesse Krinsky: So you said something really important in there. A couple things. But one thing I want to focus on is you had said that the teams that are staffing well, they know what they actually need, right? And they have clarity on that. How do you work with teams who don't have that clarity? Or maybe they think they know what they want, but when they come to you, how do you know if they actually are looking for what they need and not necessarily just what they want or what they think they need?

Steve Potestio: Well, that's a really good question. And I think that understanding comes with experience. If the listening party has the experience where they have been in, say, hundreds of these types of conversations, maybe even more, they're going to have the experience to say, what you're explaining to me tells me that you need X. Say it's a project manager, or maybe it's an internal account person. You don't necessarily want to tell them, this is what you need, but you can advise and guide and let them know, well, I think based on what you're telling me, you need this instead of that. And just be more consultative with them. If you don't have the understanding of the industry, you're just not going to have that ability. And it just comes down to experience and exposure. And, you know, also the fact of, have you ever done those jobs yourself? If you've done those jobs yourself, you're going to have a greater level of understanding of what it takes to be successful, and you're going to have potentially been in situations similar to the one that the hiring manager is coming to you with. And so you're just going to have a greater ability to advise and guide them to a decision. We just want that hiring manager to have the clarity and the understanding themselves so that they're able to make the decision. Okay, yeah, you know what, I really do need a project manager. And so it guides them to a better fit at the end.

Jesse Krinsky: And I can say from having been on the inside and hiring that the kind of questions that you're talking about, the pushback potentially, or making sure the hiring manager is actually looking for what he or she actually needs, that's not something that you would typically get from an internal recruiter, right? Typically what I've seen is they just take what you give them and just assume that you have done your due diligence, you know what you're looking for, and these are the most important things, and go out and find it for us. But this consultative approach that you're talking about, I would like to think that exists in some cases. But certainly, if you're working in a non-creative company where creative is a very small team and the recruiters don't know what they don't know, they're not going to ask those kinds of questions.

Steve Potestio: Yeah, absolutely. They will assume that the hiring manager understands what they need. And it's not typically in their job description to push back in any way or form.

Understanding Candidate Potential Beyond the Resume

Jesse Krinsky: But there's a lot of value in that because you don't necessarily want the candidate that matches the job description as it's written. You want the candidate that actually fills the need that the team has, whether or not that's written down in black and white.

Steve Potestio: Yeah, and it made me think of a very high value that I think is lost in hiring in general. The interesting thing about hiring in general, people don't go to take business classes in how to hire. Some people are inherently better at it than others. But the element that is often missed, and certainly can be missed if an individual doesn't have the creative services industry experience, is potential. Potential is something where, and I've been in many conversations where you get down to your final two candidates and you're trying to determine, okay, do we go candidate A or do we go with candidate B? Well, candidate A may be a better fit at that exact time and place. Their experience completely matches. They can walk in and immediately start doing the job. Candidate B may not match up with candidate A in that level of experience or knowledge. But, and this is where it gets very intuitive, but again a lot of that intuition is based on experience and knowledge, there's the belief that with their background, their experience, their attitude, whatever it may be, they have the greater potential over a period of time to become a better choice than candidate A. Do they intuitively understand the gray area that is beyond the black and white of a resume and beyond the black and white of a job description? In terms of having an employer brand and others understanding hiring and understanding business, you may choose candidate A because they fit that immediate need better. But guess what? You may keep candidate B in your network, and candidate B may be someone you hire a year from now.

Why Creative Recruiters Build Relationships for Future Roles

Jesse Krinsky: And is that something that you see often? Because typically I think when people are applying for jobs and they get a rejection notice or anything that says, we'll keep your information on file, I think most people just assume that's total BS and I'll never hear from them again. Are you saying that you work differently, or that you actually have seen or you do hold on to people who don't fit a certain role and you think about them for a different role?

Steve Potestio: I keep relationships with individuals that I feel would fit my business at some later date. I think good hiring managers who understand hiring do the same. I think good internal recruiters do the same. But it's something that is unfortunately not thought of or not attended to as much as it should or could be, partly because it takes time. It takes time to maintain those relationships. But I do think if you do it, you are building a more strategic organization because you're thinking big picture, you're thinking down the road. You understand your business, you understand where you're going, and you understand the type of individual that is going to fit your culture and your goals. Smart people in hiring and branding understand that and know how to identify that with external candidates, whether they need that person today or down the road.

Jesse Krinsky: I think there's a lot of value in that because it encourages hiring managers not to think myopically, not just to focus on their immediate need, but also on where the team is headed, which is going to matter in six months or a year. Steve, thank you so much for sharing these perspectives. It's not part of the typical conversation that we have in creative operations, but it's so essential to it, because if you don't have the right people in the right roles, then you don't have a strong creative team. The way to do that is by hiring well. And so many teams struggle with that, especially when they're stuck, or if they feel like they're stuck with their company's prescribed hiring procedures. It's really great to hear you talk about not just the fact that there are other ways to hire, but the benefits of them. Those are the ways of thinking about hiring for creatives. So thank you very much for sharing it today.

Steve Potestio: Yeah, thank you so much, Jesse. Really enjoyed the conversation and you had some very good questions. Really appreciate it.

Jesse Krinsky: Appreciate that. Thanks so much.

Key Takeaways

First, the knowledge gap is real and it costs time. Internal recruiters at most companies are generalists handling a broad workload, and creative represents a tiny fraction of their requisitions. They can't be expected to know the difference between a motion designer and an animator, or why tone and craft matter. Second, make the business case for flexibility. Talk to your CMO, your HR team, or procurement. The case is straightforward: faster time to fill because you're working with people who already have deep talent pools, better quality talent through credibility and creative industry expertise, and market rate reality checks that help you attract and retain the right people. Every day without the right person is lost value. Third, look for consultative partners who understand potential, not just immediate fit. Smart creative recruiters don't just take your job description and run with it. They ask what's actually happening, why you need this person, and help you get clarity on whether you need candidate A, who fits perfectly right now, or candidate B, who has greater long-term potential. And they build relationships for roles you'll need a year from now, not just the opening you're trying to fill today. The common thread is that creative hiring requires expertise that goes far beyond matching keywords on a resume. It requires understanding the gray areas in job descriptions, building relationships continuously, and thinking strategically about where your team is headed.