The media, advertising, and marketing sectors need to start investing in talent pipelining, that’s according to Peter Cobley – who two years ago channelled his 20 years’ industry experience into a new recruitment consultancy venture, Found Us.

Cobley set up Found Us, which follows a research-led executive search approach, because he saw a lack of businesses using real initiative in their own recruitment efforts. The consultancy undertakes regular recruitment market insight projects, whereby it analyses the jobs market to arm businesses, such as media agencies, with the best competitive advantage in their search for talent.

Peter Cobley, founder and managing director at Found Us, said: “Having worked in the media industry for over 20 years building teams for big brands like ITV and Yahoo!, both pre and post digital boom, I understand how tricky it can be to recruit top-tier talent, particularly when there is a talent shortage.

“When the world went digital, recruiters lost a lot of control as candidates stopped approaching them in favour of finding their own job through the web. This has resulted in contingency recruitment now running riot, which is making it particularly difficult for businesses to recruit top-tier talent that they need in a sea of largely irrelevant CVs. And these companies aren’t taking the initiative in the searching process themselves – in the majority of cases this is due to them not having enough time to spare.

“Contingency recruitment is important to fill immediate demand, or short-term roles, but these businesses need to start developing their own talent pipeline, so that when a senior-hire is needed they have a handful of people they can contact. Market insights help them do just that.

“Senior candidates don’t want to have unsuitable jobs thrown at them left, right and centre, and companies don’t want CVs thrown at them in a similar vein. Instead, businesses in this space need to acknowledge that there is a worsening skills shortage, which means they need to start taking recruitment more seriously, and really invest time and effort into approaching the right people in the right way.

“My aim is to help these companies build strong senior teams with skillsets that will really benefit the business long-term.”

The consultancy can name media agency MEC Manchester and leading stationer Ryman as clients, helping them in their efforts to take on highly skilled and experienced professionals.