Strategist

This is a hands-on strategic role at the heart of Pink Squid.

As a Strategist, you'll be the strategic partner to a roster of accounts, leading the definition of employer brands and employee experiences from pitch through to delivery. You'll dig beneath surface problems to understand what's really going on inside organisations, using research, analysis and empathy in equal measure, then translate that understanding into strategic direction that inspires creative work and drives meaningful outcomes.

This isn't a theoretical role. You'll design and lead complex, multi-method discovery programmes, presenting with authority to senior client stakeholders, and bringing originality and rigour to pitches and proposals. You'll also start to shape the people and craft around you: coaching junior strategists, challenging tokenistic thinking, and helping define how the strategy team works and thinks.

• Experience in strategy, planning or insight in employer brand, recruitment marketing, or a related discipline such as brand or CX strategy
• A track record of leading (not just contributing to) strategic work such as EVPs, discovery programmes, employer brand frameworks
• Confidence presenting to, and challenging, senior client stakeholders, and comfort holding your own in ambiguous or high-pressure situations
• A genuine curiosity about people, organisations and the future of work
• Comfort working across research, strategy, creative and digital teams, connecting and clarifying at each stage of a project

• Leading strategic definition of employer brands and employee experiences, from early discovery through to clear, actionable strategic outputs
• Designing and leading complex, multi-method discovery programmes: qualitative and quantitative research, focus groups, stakeholder interviews
• Acting as senior strategic partner to clients: leading presentations, workshops and key decision-making conversations
• Leading on new business pitches, and contributing strategic thinking and originality to proposals
• Digging beneath the obvious to find the real tensions and opportunities facing employers, and building EVPs and frameworks that hold up to scrutiny
• Contributing to the strategy team's thinking, methodology and reputation, both internally and externally

• Bonus: Agency wide % bonus offered.
• Holiday: 26 days per year (plus public holidays) - annual increase after each full year of service up to a maximum of 30 days in total.
• We also offer a bank holiday exchange for alternative days of the year with religious or cultural significance, as well as a buy and sell option of up to 5 days per year.
• Pension: Aviva pension (5% employee / 3% employer)
• Medicash: Healthcare cash back plan
• Annual xmas trip / Socials: Every year the whole agency goes away for a two night getaway. As well as frequent socials to get the agency together
• Tank supplies: Drinks fridge, snacks and treats for those days when you're in the office