Lauren Spearman on rebooting your career and navigating marketing’s career crisis 

0:14Hello and welcome back to the Marketing Week podcast. I'm Molly Innes, Working Careers Editor and Podcast Lead at Marketing Week. Today we are joined by careers expert and founder of Careering, a new careers platform built to help people design a career that suits them, Lauren Spearman. Lauren is a marketer by trade, having held senior roles at the likes of Benefit Cosmetics, Made.com, Many Pets, but it was in 2023 that her career took on a new direction when she started posting online about the frankly terrible jobs market she was facing when looking for a new role. Since then, she has become an advocate for better hiring practices and salary transparency and was named a Marketing Week changemaker in 2024.

0:51Thank you, Lauren, for coming on the podcast. Thanks for having me. I guess to start with I don't know as I mentioned in the intro there it's about three years since you know you started posting online about the jobs market everything that you were experiencing and obviously you know job market goes up and down things change but how would you describe the current market for careers and marketing careers like is it in the crisis that everyone's sort of describing it as being I don't want to start on a gloomy note but I think yeah I in the last few years I don't necessarily see that things have hugely got a hell of a lot better I think we're still in a state where the economy is a little bit all over the place I think we're seeing businesses facing rising costs I think we're seeing much more cautious hiring we're seeing a lot of redundancies we're seeing reduced hiring there's lots of people feeling stagnant in their roles feeling like they can't move on and then we've also got AI changing what businesses needing from people so I think organizations we see this all the time and there's a squeeze right there's less people in roles people who expect to do more with less that just feels like a lot of pressure definitely and I think that's compounding I guess from from our side of marketing we like we have the career and salary survey every year we get loads of things out of that the most recent one for 2026 you know we're saying 69 % of marketers haven't seen any career progression in the last year that could be promotion or training or you know a lot goes into that but does that what's your response to that as a start as a thing people are feeling is it something you're seeing I don't want to antagonize but I would love to interrogate a little bit by what we mean by progression and how much we're putting the responsibility of progression on our employer um because I think I wonder if yeah to your point do people mean progression in terms of promotion or actually how much are we taking on something ourself whether it's learning a new skill or whether it's more visibility within the business where whether it's building out your network whether it's putting yourself forward for a project because I think all of that can be progression but it's not necessarily going to be reflected in a job title but I think we should always have an element of taking a bit more agency of our career and looking at how we can progress but yeah because the reality is you know there are a lot of businesses that are seeing that they're not necessarily progressing people because they haven't got the budgets available to justify that those increases but I think we should always be looking at what we can do ourselves to support ourselves and our own progression absolutely your employer has a role within your own career development but they they can't be the custodian of your career and I think the more that we feel like we can take a bit more ownership and be a bit more experimental and try things a bit more creative in how we see progression the more I think we can feel like we're not stagnating as much I think that's a really good point and I wonder do you see that the expectation of progression do you think that's a generational thing like people new to the industry who've not been in it so long and don't have the sort of full grasp or is it sort of a compounding thing I definitely see and I've probably seen this rise over the last few years an expectation that you get a promotion every year and that's something that I've not ever experienced in my own career or with my peers that there's an expectation that we should you know get a promotion every year I think it's always based on your progression to that role rather than just I've done this for a year therefore I should move on I don't want to maybe give that too much of a sweeping statement on that but again yeah maybe it's um I guess there's a bit of social versus reality of like what we see and people sharing their best bits and kind of sharing the promotions and the successes versus the reality of most people aren't necessarily always experiencing that yeah and i guess going back to what we sort of started on around the idea of the sort of careers crisis and it sounds like a very like lofty thing to declare but i feel like it's pretty clear from like literally anyone to speak to that yeah that is that is the case and is manifesting in different ways but you know i speak to students i speak to very early stage marketers I speak to mid-level marketers, I speak to senior marketers, you know, any marketer.

5:01And it's kind of the same across the board in my experience, but like in terms of the struggle, how spagnant it feels, like the pressure, the overwork. I think you're right. I think there are people across any point in their careers that I'm seeing facing different struggles. The challenge may be slightly different. I mean, I feel like the profession is being squeezed at both ends because you've got businesses that are stripping out junior roles and this kind of whole AI can do it, you know, effect. um so those kind of entry-level roles aren't being maybe hired into and then you've also got really senior marketers who are you know we're seeing such an increase in conversation about ageism in the industry and feeling aged out and and correct you'll be able to correct me if i'm wrong on this but the stat is something and is it a marketing week so i'm not even sure if it is but there's something around like is it 80 85 in the industry under 45 yeah our career and salary survey I think in 2024 it was like 75 percent yeah which is which is high right because if you think the reality is at 45 you're probably only halfway you know just over halfway through your working career so you know to it's a lot to feel like you're squeezing out so I think there's fewer opportunities to get into the industry but then actually developing and progressing and then staying in the industry is just as hard too yeah and like we're seeing so many people leaving the industries or whether it's going freelance so I feel like often on LinkedIn now I'll see someone posting there might be a marketing director or there might you know some sort of equivalent senior job title um or you know mid-level you know it doesn't really matter what the specific job title is but someone who's been in the industry for a good length of time being like oh no I'm not doing this anymore like I'm completely changing like I'm doing something completely different I agree I see that a lot and I question I wonder how much of that is through decision or through necessity because actually you know if you are a really senior marketer you know we we know you know it's hierarchy right there's less roles available the more you progress and so actually how much of that is a choice to go okay I'm going to walk away from that or how much does it feel like that choice has been made for them there's like a horrible thing as well that you know because careers are so personal and a lot of time and energy goes into a career but also the idea of a career and like what you who you are what you want to do and like obviously ideally people could separate it more or you know everyone's got different opinions on this but to have your I guess agency taken away in in that respect in an industry that you've wanted to work in you've worked in for a long time like it's just bizarre it's like any other profession experience is a good thing whereas you know if you're with a surgeon for example and they've got a year's experience versus 20 years experience you know still great experience they would have done all the training to get to that but the understanding is well that's great they've got 20 years of experience whereas we work in an industry where you're just shamed or you assume that you can't even like work the internet if you're over 40.

7:48I can't remember speaking to you about this but like the idea of when like you're neither like you're neither considered like too young or too old in the industry and it's often got like a gendered center as well because I think this does impact women more but like you know you you were told you're like too young and then suddenly you're like too old. Yes I think that that there's something that happens mid 30s but you feel a switch because I really felt it late 30s and now in my early 40s you kind of go oh wow okay I think when I got into the industry I remember my first ever job at Sky I remember being in the floor of the sales team going where are the women over 40 and thinking oh by the time I'm 40 that won't be the case but yeah you just see you know a huge amount of my peers dropping out of the industry because it's just like well actually what now is this it this doesn't feel like I'm somewhere where I feel like I'm thriving or even welcome sometimes there's an invisibility that happens I know you sort of touched on this earlier and I guess the ways that the marketing industry like marketing advertising media sort of this whole world like we're saying these issues are impacting all industries like you know there's like career crisis like everywhere how specific this is to marketing versus other industries like the that you're saying around the like job like you know squeeze and that you know it's the industry we work in so we're probably way more aware of it within marketing than we are elsewhere but i think there are you know across the board again to the point of around you know ai being used to take on more um admin based tasks or things especially that roles that have been historically sealed by women as well um i actually there was some linkedin research that came out last week around it was around the gender gap and and there was some pretty damning stats around like the roles that ai are not replacing because i feel like that's really scaremongering because i think what it will give is other opportunities um but it is those more kind of admin based roles which historically yeah have been filled by women um so it's yeah it doesn't make for the best reading even going back to what you're saying about progression point like taking it into your own hands more and that should have what you know that's always always the thing like you know that's you know your responsibility like you know you can't expect your employer to do everything for you but especially in moments where companies are so stretched themselves or by entity like being more I guess self-driven or doing that kind of thing and as obviously as I mentioned in my intro you've just launched Careering which is really exciting well done thanks tell us about careering yeah careering has born out of three years of my dms being filled with people going i don't love what i'm doing but i don't know what's next i feel a bit stuck is this it what now i've been doing you know i've been working in the industry 15 20 years and i'm just i'm just feeling it a bit of a crossroads and then on top of that i've had over well over 200 one-on-one conversations with people about their careers and i was just seeing these themes of people feeling like they don't have this agency of over their own career and I think we can sometimes accidentally find ourselves judging our success based on how our boss views us boss views our success so we kind of look at it once a year in the annual review what does success look like and I think we can also fall into a trap of success meaning the next job title you know more salary more job more you know more senior title and then I experienced it myself I've in others where you just go oh shit I've gone for that big role I've got that big salary and then I've got there and it's not this thing that fulfills me because I think we're we're not necessarily attuned with what fulfillment looks like for us and what success looks like for us in our career and you know we know that comparison is a thief of joy and we end up looking around at what other people are doing and so careering is a career design platform it's for people who feel like their careers have maybe gone a little bit of a drift and they want a bit more a bit more control and I think you know there's an intentionality to to start to shape their career so the way the platform works is we have a coaching directory for one-on-one support we have a group program that's four-week course called the possibility project where we really ask you to kind of deep dive into you know what fulfillment and enjoyment looks like for you and then there's a b2b element as well and I think this isn't necessarily about quitting your job or completely transforming yourself in that way I think it's just about this intentionality of what your success looks like for you and also giving you the courage to then pursue that yeah and there's so much in there to be helpful I think one of the things you just said around this isn't about getting people like quit their job I think there's such a sense it feels like you either have to be in like a nine-to-five job that you don't like or you have to have your own business no but I also think it's like such a privileged thing to be like oh if you don't want to do nine to five quit your job and then you become a founder I just think that's not the reality and it's also not what success is for a lot of people I think a lot of people that absolutely will have careers that thrive within the construct of nine to five and so I don't think it's this or that I think it's what what works for you and I also think and again I'm drawing on personal experience here some of my best career progression has come from staying in businesses over a period of time so I think if I I think back to like my role at MADE for example my first year was setting up the team it was setting up the strategy it was building the foundations then years two three and onwards that's when it got really good and you really felt like you're progressing because you were able to you know do the stuff do it again learn from it tweak it improve it grow it um so I think there's a lot that can be said for like a nine to five can be great for a lot of people so I don't think that's an option I don't like this narrative that like if you're not necessarily enjoying your work that the answer is to quit or to leave or to look for something else actually I think there's a lot that you can do internally to go well why does that why is that part of the job not fulfilling or what what is the stuff at work that really gives me energy or what kind of people do I love spending time with or what projects do I want to work on and questioning that about yourself I think sometimes you go actually this job is all right I've just been had a bit of a maybe it's a bad attitude towards things or maybe it's I just need to have a conversation with my boss and say that doesn't quite work or but I'd love to take this on or you know how do you see that working and so that's what I hope we can do is kind of give people that courage to have those conversations and really like reflecting what does that look like for me and you know how can I make that happen I think one of the things you know I'm very cautious of is from from an employer point of view you know because there is a b2b element of the business this isn't about telling your employees to just like leave actually I think there's a lot from going what can you get within the job you're doing and I think there's a lot of nurturing the the teams you know the employees that you have and actually those employees that feel like they're encouraged to learn within the business grow within the business take on your responsibility they will stick around because they you know we value good employers when you're in a business that you feel like the people running it are scared someone people are going to leave or you know they might not be positive towards someone when they do leave and they're in that sort of um notice period or that kind of thing it's it's really obvious in that you can very much feel it and i mean one it like case study on that is you know i interviewed um the bbc's like director of marketing audiences last year earlier before paul davis because they'd won marketing team of theater in our awards and one of the reasons they they won it one of the things he was talking about was you know they build in the time to do cv training with their team or career development or you know all these like different things and my sort of first response was like yeah but what if one leaves it's like but they didn't but also yeah it's important though and it's a bit of a false positive right because actually if you if you help people with their development they feel supported and actually there's a bit slightly bit more loyalty but actually on the other hand people will always leave jobs like that's just the nature of people moving around and and sometimes the business doesn't have the opportunity that person needs to develop in their career in whatever way or you know something you know there'll always be a level of churn um but i also think it can be a positive sometimes to get rid of deadwood you know there's there's you know we always i'm sure we've all worked in businesses where you know that there's someone that just hates their job and like just leave just go um so it can be a positive in many ways yeah no it's interesting and like and i guess maybe even ties that to what we're talking about the start like i can't remember if there was a start for this or not but so many people who haven't left jobs that would have left jobs because of their feelings about yeah the like about recruitment and the jobs available and and that kind of thing as well and like how that's holding everything else stagnation similar in the property market at the moment there's absolutely a job stagnation because i think yeah we're seeing we're so we're seeing so much instability that people are worried about leaving i also think to your point earlier about why people are maybe going out alone or they're doing fractional work or whatever that could be I think people are seeing that and like again I don't mean this to be in a scaremongering way at all because I don't think it's as extreme as this but there is a worry of going actually do nine to fives feel as safe as they used to I think there used to be this comparison of like nine to five is safe it's secure and actually working for yourself isn't whereas actually there is maybe power working for yourself and having a few different clients you know your revenue you know your income is split differently so you're not solely relying on one business to pay your income whereas actually a nine-to-five you know if that's stripped away it can be wobbly I think there's positives and negatives of both but I think there isn't this safety of a nine-to-five or a job for life anymore when you first started posting on TikTok so like around yeah three years ago I guess it's not a question of like could you ever imagine like your career how it is now that kind of thing but so much has changed in that time like for you and I know a lot of people in the industry do really look up to you and see what you're doing you know get advice from you but also there's that side of it of taking ownership of their careers whether you know I was talking about with Karim but also on like a personal level has seen example or seen it role model I can probably answer this in two parts so interestingly about the kind of role modeling when we discuss kind of building the platform so we have a number of founding coaches and we also have two coaches that I've worked with that are helping us build out the business and I very much I'm so adamant I do not want to be the expert I am designing my career just as much as everyone else that we're helping and you know we've got our coaches and they're the experts that really can give you that really solid advice and structure and support and so I think we were just talking off mic about um I've just read a amazing subset by Amy Smale called the pandemic of experts and everyone's like really trying to show their expertise but actually I think there's power in showing the learning and showing the reality of designing a career and what that looks like and the decisions we're making and then to your point about three years ago when I started making content I would never have dreamed I would have even worked for myself then let alone set up another business and I'll be the founder of this business which we're currently two days into the business launching at the point of recording but where I think this can go is phenomenal and you know I think I say this to a lot of people especially when you're in a state of flux or wobble or you're just at that point where you almost hate work so much that you think I'm never twice in my career I'm like this is it maybe I'm just not cut out of work and actually it's because I'm not I wasn't doing things that align to my values or how I see success I think there's real it's why I'm such an advocate of like intentional career design because I'm the most fulfilled I am in my career but I'm also the most ambitious and driven and I'm so excited to see where that can go I'm also listening to the audiobook of Tiny Experiments by Anne-Laure Lecombe at the moment and it's amazing like how almost every 30 seconds I'm having to stop to like write something down that she's like said it's just incredible actually seeing our career as experiments I think yes if you at 18 know that you want to be a doctor or a surgeon or something you know but actually in the work that we do there's so much power in saying actually I'm just going to try this and I'm going to experiment with this and I think by thinking of your career in this way one thing I've noticed from doing that over the last couple of years is my career is way more fulfilling and enjoyable than I ever could have imagined and I think yes I look back and go I couldn't get you know another senior role in a corporate and you know I saw a lot of felt a lot of failure around that but actually I don't think I would have been as fulfilled doing that as I am doing what I'm doing now so yeah things might not be the same as they were or they currently are but that's not to say that they can't be so much better.

20:21What were you saying there as well it reminded me of like obviously like you know in marketing or some other industries we talk a lot about like test and learn test and learn you have to test and learn then there's a conversation around how you do that or you know whether that's you know a campaign or like a piece of work whatever but I guess like applying that lens like to yourself yeah and it sounds really obvious but it's not something I think people and obviously there's an element of risk involved in that and like you know we've already said that but yeah I don't know and also there's um I did a mention amazing workshop recently and it was it was about risk and there's there's careless risk and there's strategic risk and actually strategic risk where actually it can really be beneficial you know in terms of this test and learn concept is like a real positive and so you know if things are always going to be risky like is it riskier to stay where you are and do nothing than to try something different i think it feels like it's a no-brainer right to experiment and try yeah definitely and also wanted to talk about I guess and not to give away everything that is on the platform with but I don't know a lot of this has come through in the conversation already in terms of like taking hold of your career and and you know doing that kind of work and everything involved in there so looking at like the idea of taking hold of hold of your career and I guess what that looks like on a very practical level if that makes sense and like you have you know the conversation has sort being practical so far anyway but I don't think we've spoke about this before like I see a lot of career advice and I'm always like I guess applying these things practically and making sure you're having the time or like whatever that looks like I don't know yeah and and I think when we talk about a reset we should probably be clear that it's not like blowing everything up and being like I've got like a whole new change or of career whatever that could be sometimes it's kind of actually just stopping to work out what is it that's no longer working and I think we sometimes we fall into this trap of like I hate my job do you hate your job or is there parts of it that you don't enjoy and therefore even that is quite useful information I think you know one of the things I've talked about for years and we definitely comes up through the platform is is knowing your values I think there's so much power in knowing who you are we talk a lot about like careers can you know go in all sorts of different directions but actually for me they have but the thread has always been my values and I think knowing who you are and what's important to you is incredibly helpful for how you make decisions in your career but also it's incredibly helpful for how you build relationships with other people as well and how you understand others i think you know communication skills are you know more important than ever and actually i was at i had a drink with a neighbor recently and she said something along the lines of being correct is a diminishing skill because you can find that online and you can use ai to be correct but actually some of the skills we really need are being able to communicate that and communicate our thinking and then the why behind it and the detail and I was like oh I like that I could take that one so I think yeah looking at your values looking at really starting to look at like stripping out that all the different elements of your job so you know is it that actually you just really don't like the strategic part of your role or actually you really don't like having to spend time with that tosser and whatever or is it you know there's or actually you love it when you're presenting and sharing the work or you know there's I think if you really start to break down what you do sometimes it isn't about yeah it's not about blowing everything up it's kind of going that doesn't work for me and then what experiment or thing could you try that might help shift that I think that's in a nutshell how we can start to think about how we make decisions or changes within our careers yeah definitely especially when you can't upskill every skill like you're saying like you know you can't just something be like oh I'm gonna upskill to be like a doctor but applying it in this case skills most people probably capable of a lot of the skills in a lot of jobs in terms of like the practical side of it but like you're saying like not everyone's suited to everything i've always found it strange that when we have our annual reviews it's like here are your strengths and here are your weaknesses and here are things you need to get much better at and it's like yes there's definitely my organization skills that could be better but actually i think there's so much more value in leaning into what your strengths are and getting really good at those um rather than spending so much time and energy on something that maybe you're naturally never going to be great at or you're never going to enjoy yeah that makes sense and I wonder if there's a question and maybe it's like an obvious thing of just like speaking to your manager and saying can I speak to you about this but navigating those conversations like earlier on and maybe this is probably maybe a question more helpful for someone who's towards the start of their career but also from my experience speaking to people people at every stage of their career and find those conversations difficult the advice here would be to those who manage people creating environments where you can have those conversations because I think so many of the times I chat to people the answer is have a conversation with your boss however if if that person does not feel comfortable to have that conversation because their boss has made it feel like if you say that you're not happy right your your name's on the door you're out you know you're out next like that it's such a it's so damaging and it's so it then puts people on a state of um you know just high alert all the time and no one does no one does their best work under that amount that kind of level of pressure whereas we know that if we feel supported by our boss to have those conversations it's just going to get so much more out more out of it so actually i think the advice there is to manage is how do you create those environments where people feel safe and i to demonstrate that and i think or to come and talk to you and i think a lot of it is you've got to demonstrate that that yourself so that the team feel comfortable i don't think i mentioned this so you're on but obviously you're speaking at festival of marketing i am quite soon the sort of talk you're giving it's sort of around that i think isn't it sort of the hiring practice and like yeah aimed at that person yeah hiring is marketing right i think we um one thing i really have learned over the last few years is how you treat your um prospective talent so whether that's people within interview processes and where you know candidates you're interviewing whether it's people or even employees that are coming into the business how how you treat people and how you bring people into the business or through the business or through the process says so much about your business and I think more and more people are seeing that and you know I'm definitely someone that's not been afraid to share my own experiences of that and how I then perceive those businesses and so I think there's a lot to be said for how you like look after people in hiring process we shouldn't underestimate the power of like and also the power of a great process even if you don't hire someone so that you know I see so many stories where people are like I love this business I interviewed there I didn't get the role but I absolutely try again because I loved how they treated me all this people that you think of all this businesses where you think of a dream job and then how they've treated you just makes you such it's such a reflection of what it'll be like once you're in the business well I'd seen the quite a few different brands doing the sort of um height like you know the cv on yeah that sort of whole thing and that's sort of like snowballing and like a lot of people been like this is amazing and like you know these people the people putting together those job applications like god you're good at this like but it's always felt icky and when i saw you post about that i was like oh thank yeah so yeah for context I shared a post on I just had this stream of thought and consciousness it was getting to me the other week and I just let out this rant about how I'm really hating this new trend I guess we're seeing of hiring in public it's like make this content about us share about this and it's just so someone in the comments was like it's a humiliation ritual you know in what planet do we need to be publicly applying for jobs which one just makes no sense because you if you're employed within a business why on earth are you publicly starting to make content um the the company that i i've named specifically in that they're hiring a content creator so yes there's a level of being comfortable maybe being comfortable on camera for example or showing your camera work but actually one you can see that through a portfolio and two why does that have to be public i think there's and again i don't mean to sound like so millennial on this but it worries me that I'm seeing young people who want to get into the industry be like this is amazing because for me it's not amazing it's not how you treat people and you know one of the businesses admitted that it was they wanted exposure they wanted to get the the job listing out there and so for who does it benefit it doesn't benefit the candidate and I think that's what you've got to be really careful is when you were hiring yes of course you were looking for the best candidate for the role but what is the candidate experience overall because it can really backfire and what you sort of mentioned there it reminded me seemed like a similar thing like you know obviously the publicity thing and wanting the exposure and like showing to be hiring as a form of marketing like when you know there's so many brands that you just you know they're posting job ads that don't exist and that kind of it's almost like an extension of sort of encapsulating the whole whole issue with it i mean we see it a lot and it becomes a running joke right when you just go so and so are hiring again and then you're like actually are they even hiring i think yeah it is And I think someone said to me recently, it's like, yeah, it looks great to investors if you look like you're hiring.

29:27But if you're not hiring, like you said at the start, there are so many reasons people are having a really difficult time in the job market. Brands aren't making it any easier for people. No, and I think, I mean, that's my whole MO when I started this three years ago is when you are looking for work, especially if you are out of work, it can be all consuming. And that interview or that process you're going through can be the biggest thing that is on, you know, across your week. and so yeah but for a hiring manager that's just a one hour interview in their diary they don't see it the same way right but being aware of what it means what could mean to their candidate and keeping them informed through the process i think is so important you know i speak about this a lot about you know ghosting candidates or not giving that feedback it's just close the loop is really important um it's similar in dating right it's like you know not everyone is for everyone but actually communicating that makes it a hell of a lot easier to kind of write okay great let's move on I think emotionally it can be so so draining when you're looking for work should be your responsibility as an employer as a hiring manager to make that experience as pleasant as possible and back to an earlier point about this the talk that I'm doing at the festival marketing like how you treat people in that process says a lot about you as an employer and I guess to end on like as we've spoken about lots of people that are feeling stuck and it's a horrible place to be in what would you say to someone who's feeling stuck and wants to become monster yeah okay I mean I'll try and give you a simple answer I guess there's there's probably a short medium and long term answer to this I think in the short term it's really important that you get curious about what is making you feel stuck what's making you feel unhappy what is taking all your energy then in the medium term start experimenting with what could be different so what do you have control of within the work that you do already um who could you have conversations with you know start seeing again we talked about it earlier start seeing everything as a small experiment and then the long term start making deliberate decisions and actions that can help move you towards that it's probably how i'd start to start to see that that's really helpful amazing well thank you so much for coming on to the podcast we'll see you at best with marketing very soon but no this has been brilliant so thank you so much thanks so much for having me

31:43We'll be right back.