Brianna Doe

I share tips & stories about job hunting, leadership, and marketing yourself | Demand Gen @ Aion | Creator of This Could've Been an Email

According to my mom, I started writing stories at age 3. Picked up a pencil and never put it down, which explains the book, the business, and my obsession with Google Docs.

Today, I’m the founder of Verbatim, a boutique agency helping brands grow through high-impact influencer marketing, fractional operations, and speaker scouting. We’re also ranked the #1 influencer agency in Phoenix by Influencer Marketing Hub — which is exciting and now lives proudly in my email signature.

I help brands stop blending in, and I help creative professionals &amp; entrepreneurs build careers that align with the life they actually want.

The tl;dr:
↳ Bestselling author of The Unapologetic Professional
↳ Keynote speaker, advisor, and marketer
↳ Helping people rethink work without burning it all down
↳ Host of Stop the Scroll, co-creator of Let Her Cook 🌮👀 

As seen in/at: HubSpot, Harvard, Fast Company, Stanford, CNBC, American Marketing Association, and more.

Outside of work: Big fan of tattoos, cookie-scented candles, and the Oxford comma.

Want to collab or bring me in as a speaker? Send me a note: https://www.briannadoe.com/contact

Director of Demand Generation

Aion is revolutionizing the way businesses manage their finances and fuel growth with our all-in-one modern finance platform. 🚀

There's $50,000+ in grant money sitting on the table right now for women, nonbinary, and minority entrepreneurs.

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Get that bag. 🫶🏽 I'll drop the links in the comments.

Founder & CEO @ Verbatim | In my influencer marketing era and you should be too | Bestselling Author, The Unapologetic Professional

The world feels so heavy. And the calendar still says "10am team sync."

There's something v dystopian about being expected to treat work as business-as-usual while being handed headlines that knock the wind out of us. 🫠

Work doesn't stop. And for many of us, it helps. It gives me structure, something to focus on, and a sense of purpose. And I care deeply about my work, clients, and team. But expecting people to fully detach from everything else they're navigating is the part that feels outdated.

We're living through a different work reality than our parents and grandparents. The information hit differently. You weren't watching a crisis unfold in real time on your phone between Slack messages. The boundary between "life" and "work" barely exists anymore, but for some reason we're still pretending it does.

As I build my business this year, I'm thinking less about optimizing output and more about how to lead in this constant state of in-between, where people are capable, committed, and still very human. 🫶🏽

If you ask me, the future of work isn't about learning how to compartmentalize 24/7. It's learning how to do meaningful work without asking people to leave half of themselves at the door.

Founder & CEO | In my influencer marketing era and you should be too | Bestselling Author, The Unapologetic Professional

How your email is finding me after a weekend of being glued to the news (again), hearing about a certain social media management platform, and realizing it’s still January.

P.S. Abolish ICE.

No alternative text description for this image

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

Sinead Willis

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.

Sinead Willis 

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

Long live the messy marketer.⁣
⁣
The one whose CV makes hiring managers nervous because it reads like:⁣

• agency⁣
• in-house⁣
• startup that blew up⁣
• startup that blew apart⁣
• role created from scratch⁣
• role inherited mid-chaos⁣
⁣
Irony is, that marketer has probably fixed more broken systems than the tidy one.⁣
⁣
They have launched with no data.⁣
Scaled with imperfect data.⁣
And cleaned up after leadership decisions they did not make.⁣
⁣
That is not instability.⁣
That is resilience under real conditions.⁣
⁣
If your business is complex, your marketers experience should be too.

Exciting news today!!! I’m happy to share 😊

After now almost 12 years in marketing recruitment, here’s what I still don’t care about in 2026: (and neither should you)

If you have a non linear CV
If you had a short stint
If you were laid off 
If your role disappeared after a restructure
If your CV looks “messy”
If AI changed your job
If your last company panicked instead of planning
If you took a break because burnout finally caught up with you
If you’re over 45
If you’re under 30
If you’re still using the Open To Work banner
If your job title doesn’t match the JD exactly

None of that tells me if you’re good at marketing.

If you’re filtering people out for any of the above, 
you’re not protecting your business.
You’re protecting your bias.

And marketing pays the price every time.

And for any new followers here's what I care about:

I care about whether you can do the job.

-How you approach problems
-How you learn when things change
-How you deal with uncertainty
-How you adapt to change
-How you think commercially
-Whether you know what not to do
-Whether you stay curious
-How you treat people

That's it

Isn’t it sad that in 2026, a basic requirement for a marketer at work is still⁣
⁣
“go somewhere people treat you nicely.”⁣
⁣
Not growth.⁣
Not learning.⁣
Not impact.⁣
⁣
Just basic human decency.⁣
⁣
I had multiple conversations with marketers last week and one theme kept coming up.⁣
⁣
“I just want to go somewhere I’m treated well.”⁣
⁣
That was it.⁣
⁣
Often followed by stories of being spoken down to, ignored, micromanaged, or blamed when the goalposts moved.⁣
⁣
Not bad marketers.⁣
Not underperformers.⁣
Just people worn down by how they were treated.⁣
⁣
If “being treated well” feels like a perk, something is seriously broken.⁣
⁣
Being treated well should not feel like a luxury.⁣
⁣
What’s worse is most people reading this will recognise it.⁣
From where they work now.⁣
Or somewhere they worked before.⁣
⁣
Which tells you it’s not rare.⁣
It’s normal.⁣
⁣
And it really shouldn’t be.⁣
⁣
I’m genuinely curious.⁣
If you’ve seen this, what do you think is driving it?

#TheMarketingRecruiter #TheHonestRecruiter #ImHiring

Job titles in marketing are one of the worst signals we rely on.⁣
⁣
I’ve met:⁣
– Heads of Marketing who never managed anyone⁣
– Directors of Marketing who were deeply hands-on⁣
– Senior Managers who led entire functions of 20+⁣
⁣
Yet we treat titles like truth.⁣
⁣
They’re not.⁣
⁣
They’re marketing.⁣
They’re politics.⁣
They’re context-free.⁣
⁣
Real recruiting starts when you stop asking:⁣
“What is there title?”⁣
⁣
And start saying:⁣
“Let's have a chat”⁣
⁣
Because titles don’t hire well.⁣
Conversations do.

Marketing has quietly become the emotional support function for bad leadership.⁣
⁣
No strategy?⁣
Marketing will “figure it out”.⁣
⁣
Conflicting priorities?⁣
Marketing will “be flexible”.⁣
⁣
Everyone wants something.⁣
No one agrees on what matters.⁣
And marketing is expected to make it all work.⁣
⁣
Every request starts with:⁣
“Could you just…”⁣
⁣
As if:⁣
– strategy takes five minutes⁣
– infrastructure appears by magic⁣
– execution doesn’t require trade-offs⁣
⁣
When it doesn’t work:⁣
“Why isn’t marketing performing?”⁣
⁣
When it does:⁣
Sales hit target 🎉⁣
Leadership takes credit 👏⁣
Marketing… gets another request.⁣
⁣
This isn’t a talent problem.⁣
It’s an alignment problem.⁣
⁣
And it’s why so many good marketers aren’t leaving the work.⁣
⁣
They’re leaving the chaos.⁣
⁣
If your marketing team is exhausted,⁣
it’s probably not because they’re bad at their jobs.⁣
⁣
It’s because they’re doing everyone else’s.

I placed a candidate last year who most companies would have rejected instantly.⁣
⁣
“Too senior.”⁣
“Overqualified.”⁣
“Won’t be happy.”⁣
“Will leave.”⁣
“Flight risk.”⁣
⁣
Why?⁣
⁣
She’d been a Head of.⁣
Led a team of 15+.⁣
Senior leadership role.⁣
⁣
The role I was hiring for?⁣
⁣
Mid-level.⁣
No team.⁣
Hands-on.⁣
Standalone.⁣
⁣
If she’d applied directly, her CV wouldn’t have made it past the first filter.⁣
⁣
But from my conversations with her, I knew two things:⁣
She was excellent.⁣
And she had done this exact kind of role before.⁣
⁣
Here’s what a CV can’t tell you.⁣
⁣
She didn’t want to manage people anymore.⁣
⁣
She said to me, very clearly:⁣
“I’m done with management. I want to do the work again.”⁣
⁣
Not a step back.⁣
A conscious choice.⁣
⁣
She wanted to be close to the craft.⁣
To ship.⁣
To execute.⁣
To focus.⁣
⁣
So I put her forward.⁣
I called the hiring manager and said "Look past the title, she's excellent, just meet her"
They met her.
She got the job.⁣
And she is absolutely smashing it.⁣
⁣
This idea that someone’s previous job title defines what they want forever is so narrow-minded it hurts.⁣
⁣
And I know for a fact there are companies who will skip a CV the moment they see “Director” or "Head of" when they’re hiring for a less senior titled role.⁣
⁣
People change.⁣
Life changes.⁣
Priorities change.⁣
⁣
So next time, instead of skipping the profile…⁣
speak to the person.⁣
⁣
A conversation will tell you far more than a title ever will.

Apparently, once you’ve been promoted in marketing to Head of or Director, there’s an unwritten rule:⁣
⁣
You are now legally required to manage people forever.⁣
You must keep moving upwards.⁣
⁣
According to many people screening CVs, you may no longer:⁣
⁣
– enjoy doing the actual work⁣
– want a standalone role⁣
– prefer depth over scale⁣
– value focus over politics⁣
– want fewer meetings and more output⁣
– choose peace⁣
⁣
If you apply for a “Manager” role, your CV will likely be skipped by whoever’s reviewing it because, in their opinion you are a:⁣
⁣
❌ Flight risk⁣
❌ Over-experienced⁣
❌ Just wants a stopgap⁣
❌ Too far removed from the detail⁣
⁣
This out dated thinking is clearly broken because, Some of the best individual contributors I know:⁣
⁣
– began as hands-on specialists⁣
– became leaders after years of strong delivery⁣
– balanced people management with deep craft expertise⁣
⁣
And then they thought:⁣
⁣
“Actually… I want to do the work again. I don’t want to manage people.”⁣
⁣
Some of them have even freelanced purely to prove they can still execute at a high level, fast, and without layers.⁣
⁣
Not a step back.⁣
A fully informed decision.⁣
⁣
So if you’re reading this and you screen CVs:⁣
⁣
Career progression is not a one-way escalator.⁣
⁣
Some people don’t want bigger teams.⁣
Some people don’t want endless stakeholder management.⁣
Some people don’t want to spend their days translating strategy instead of delivering it.⁣
⁣
Some people genuinely want to be hands-on again.⁣
⁣
They are not a flight risk.⁣
They are clear on where they do their best work.⁣
⁣
And filtering them out is how you miss exceptional talent.

Remember, a conversation tells you far more than a title.

If you’re a marketer who’s ever left for any of these reasons, I salute you 👏
⁣
If you walked away to protect your sanity⁣
If you left because the goalposts moved every month⁣
If you joined to lead but weren’t trusted to decide⁣
If the role quietly tripled in scope with no pay change⁣
If your founder rewrote your campaigns⁣
If “alignment” really meant approval⁣
If targets doubled but budget disappeared⁣
If headcount was promised, then pulled⁣
If you were blamed for results you weren’t resourced to deliver⁣
If staying meant burning out or going numb⁣
⁣
That’s not a lack of commitment.⁣
That’s self-respect.⁣
⁣
People don’t leave great roles quickly.⁣
They leave environments that set them up to fail.

Ever left for one of these reasons?
Did I miss any?

When I see a business restructure marketing for the third, fourth, fifth time in a few years, I know what’s underneath it.⁣
⁣
Not a talent problem.⁣
Not a capability gap.⁣
Not even a performance issue.⁣
⁣
It’s unresolved leadership problems being pushed downstream.⁣
⁣
No clear strategy?⁣
Restructure marketing.⁣
⁣
Conflicting priorities?⁣
Restructure marketing.⁣
⁣
Growth stalled?⁣
Restructure marketing.⁣
⁣
Sales under pressure?⁣
Restructure marketing.⁣
⁣
Instead of fixing:⁣
– unclear direction⁣
– decision paralysis⁣
– misaligned leadership⁣
– unrealistic expectations⁣
⁣
Marketing gets reorganised.⁣
⁣
New roles.⁣
New titles.⁣
New reporting lines.⁣
New org charts.⁣
⁣
Same problems.⁣
⁣
And eventually:⁣
Burnout.⁣
Attrition.⁣
Disengagement.⁣
⁣
Then the narrative becomes:⁣
“Marketing isn’t performing.”⁣
⁣
When in reality, marketing has spent months or years absorbing instability that leadership wouldn’t resolve.⁣
⁣
Marketing becomes the emotional support function for broken systems.⁣
⁣
And when that system finally cracks,⁣
marketing becomes the place blame quietly lands.⁣
⁣
If your marketing team keeps getting restructured every year, maybe it's time to look in the mirror...

I scrolled through my LinkedIn just now and it’s full of:

“I’m excited to announce…”
“Thrilled to be joining…”
“So grateful for the opportunity…”

Which is genuinely brilliant. Truly.

But it did make me think about everyone still in the in-between.

So just in case those posts are doing the opposite for you and instead of inspiring you, they’re quietly making you question yourself, here’s a dose of reality.

What you don’t see when someone posts their new role is:

the months of rejection
the interviews that went nowhere
the roles that vanished
the offers that fell through

So if you’re looking at those updates and feeling like you’re falling behind, please know this: most of the people posting them were struggling quietly not that long ago.

And if those posts are hurting more than inspiring you right now, there is nothing wrong with you.

You’re navigating something genuinely hard, with as much grace as you can.
This part is heavy. It takes time.

And you will come out the other side too ❤️

#TheMarketingRecruiter #TheHonestRecruiter #ImHiring

I disappeared for 4 weeks and my world did not, in fact, collapse.⁣
⁣
I went completely offline.⁣
No LinkedIn.⁣
No checking.⁣
⁣
I scheduled my posts to run once a day and left.⁣
⁣
In that time I:⁣
• Swam with 50 sharks⁣
• Climbed two volcanoes⁣
• Watched a volcano erupt with my own eyes⁣
• Got norovirus and was sick more times than I care to count⁣
• Picked up a parasite for good measure⁣
⁣
I do not recommend repeating the last two.⁣
⁣
Coming back, I had mixed emotions.⁣
⁣
Refreshed.⁣
Still a bit broken from the parasite.⁣
Excited about 2026.⁣
And yes, nervous.⁣
⁣
Opening LinkedIn after a month offline is weirdly intimidating.⁣
You start imagining everything that might have moved while you weren’t glued to the screen.⁣
⁣
So on the 5th, I opened it for the first time.⁣
⁣
629 new connection requests.⁣
One of my pre scheduled posts had gone viral.⁣
My most viral post ever.⁣
⁣
3.5k likes.⁣
300 comments.⁣
170 shares.⁣
And I’d hit 40,000 followers.⁣
⁣
What really made me stop was this.⁣
⁣
If I'd have been online, I would have been convinced myself that this was all due to my being online.⁣
Replying to every comment.⁣
Watching the numbers.⁣
Staying visible so it “kept going”.⁣
⁣
But I wasn’t online.⁣
I was nowhere near LinkedIn.⁣
⁣
While I was away, two candidates were placed as processes wrapped up.⁣
And in the last 24 hours, three new roles have landed.⁣
⁣
So yes, I can say this with confidence.⁣
⁣
The world does not end when you step away.⁣
⁣
You do not need to be permanently online to be relevant.⁣
You do not lose momentum by logging off.⁣
And good work still works, even when you are offline, sick, climbing volcanoes, or very much minding your own business.⁣

If you are waiting on a reply from me, I’m working through everything now.⁣
Thank you for the patience.⁣
⁣
Right.⁣
Let’s get back at it.

2026 Marketing Predictions 

– Job descriptions only list one role. Just one.
– “Strategic” actually means strategic, not “do everything yourself”
– Budgets are agreed before targets are set
– Senior marketers are hired for their experience and then… trusted to use it
– Full autonomy is given, without needing permission for every decision
– Marketers are given the titles that match the work they’re actually doing
– Senior marketers have a real seat at the table, not a calendar invite after decisions are made
– Marketing is involved in strategy, not asked to “make it look nice” at the end
– Decisions are made by people who own the outcome
– Marketing is given time to generate results, not judged after six weeks
– Brand and performance stop being pitted against each other
– “Quick wins” are no longer demanded constantly 
– Senior hires are made before the money is spent, not after

Marketers sleep.
Campaigns compound.
No one is burned out.

…….Just kidding 😂

If you have got this far I do hope you noticed this was a joke. I can indeed confirm not a huge amount has changed. 

The job description still wants a unicorn.
The budgets are still “below market rate”.
There’s still a committee.
And no one on it owns the result.
And someone asked me last week if ChatGPT can do the role instead.

But hey.
We can dream.

Happy 2026 😉

The irony is that in marketing, one of the fastest-changing functions in any business, we still hire for predictability.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
Neat CVs. Linear careers. Long stints that look safe on paper.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
But marketing rarely rewards safety.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
The marketers who tend to operate best in chaos are often the ones with the messiest paths.⁣⁣
Not because they lack direction.⁣⁣
Because they have perspective.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
They have rebuilt when things broke.⁣⁣
Pivoted when strategy stopped working.⁣⁣
Learned the hard way which levers actually move the needle and which ones just create noise.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
That experience changes how someone shows up.⁣⁣
They stay calmer when plans shift.⁣⁣
They ask sharper questions earlier.⁣⁣
They spot problems before they become expensive.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
Messy careers do not create chaos.⁣⁣
They create operators who know how to steady the ship when it matters most.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
In a function that keeps changing, adaptability is not a risk.⁣⁣
It is the advantage.

That CV that looks like it’s been through a war zone?⁣
⁣That’s the one you should be hiring.⁣
⁣
The startups that exploded.⁣
The startups that imploded.⁣
The roles that don’t line up neatly on paper.⁣
The short stints.⁣
The pivots.⁣
The contracts.⁣
⁣
To a risk-averse hiring market, that CV looks messy.⁣
Uncomfortable.⁣
Hard to explain to a committee.⁣
⁣
But to anyone who actually understands marketing, it tells a very different story.⁣
⁣
That person has been in the trenches and the weeds.⁣
⁣
They’ve shipped campaigns without perfect data.⁣
They’ve rebuilt funnels mid-flight.⁣
They’ve adapted when budgets were cut, leadership changed, or strategy flipped overnight.⁣
They’ve learned judgement the hard way.⁣
⁣
Marketing is not a classroom exercise.⁣
It’s live fire.⁣
⁣
And when things go wrong, which they always do, you don’t want someone who’s only ever operated in calm, well-resourced environments.⁣
⁣
You want the person who has:⁣
• Seen chaos before⁣
• Stayed calm under pressure⁣
• Fixed what was broken⁣
• Made decisions without a playbook⁣
⁣
Yes, their CV looks like a battle map.⁣
That’s because they’ve already been through it.⁣
⁣
And when you’re hiring for a role that will involve uncertainty, change, and impossible expectations,⁣ that’s exactly who you'll want by your side.⁣
⁣

From the outside, marketing looks easy.⁣ Just post something.⁣ Run some ads.⁣
Make it go viral.⁣

Generate leads.⁣ Fix the funnel.⁣ Build the brand.⁣ Hit pipeline.⁣
This quarter.⁣
⁣
From the inside?⁣

It’s constant trade-offs.⁣ Limited budget.⁣ Unclear priorities.⁣ Conflicting stakeholders.⁣
Pressure to deliver fast and long-term at the same time.⁣
⁣
Most marketing roles don’t fail because of bad marketers.⁣
They fail because the complexity is invisible to everyone else.⁣
⁣
Everyone else thinks it's easy. 
Opinions are free.
Ownership is heavy.

Until you sit in the seat,
you don’t see the weight.

And that’s the difference.

I spoke to a marketer yesterday who’s at final stage for a role and she hasn't met a single human. The whole process has been AI.

No hiring manager.⁣
No future peer.⁣
No one.
⁣
100% AI.⁣
⁣
I asked her how it felt?⁣
⁣
She didn’t feel brought into the business.⁣
She didn’t understand the culture.⁣
She didn’t know how people actually work together.⁣
⁣
And more importantly…⁣
⁣
It did give her concerns over the fact that the company hadn’t wanted to invest time in meeting her yet.⁣
⁣
Hiring is supposed to be a two-way decision.⁣
But this isn’t two-way in any stretch of the imagination.⁣
⁣
This is:⁣
“We’ll assess you through everything.”⁣
“And if you make it… then we’ll show up.”⁣
⁣
That strips candidates of the ability to decide as they go through a process.⁣
It concentrates all the power on one side.⁣
It turns people into inputs, not participants.⁣
⁣
I’m all for using AI to speed things up.⁣
Scheduling.⁣
Admin.⁣
Even early signal.⁣
⁣
But removing humans entirely until the final moment?⁣
⁣
And if you won’t invest time in meeting someone…⁣
What does that say about how you’ll invest in them once they join?⁣
⁣
Curious what others think.⁣
Is this genuinely the future?⁣
Or have we crossed a line?⁣
⁣
Because for me, hiring without human connection isn’t progress.⁣
It’s a red flag.

Nothing tells me a marketing decision was made by committee faster than 
a QR code on a social post 😆 

 That is what happens when common sense gets voted out of the room.
And yes.

 This same company will later ask why engagement is down.

#TheHonestRecruiter #TheMarketingRecruiter

I’ve lost count of how many women I’ve spoken to this January alone who are £15–20k out of sync with the market.⁣
⁣
And almost every time, they say something like,⁣
“Well… I’m currently on £60k, so I thought £60–65k would be fair.”⁣
⁣
That’s the anchor.⁣
Their last salary.⁣
⁣
Not the role.⁣
Not the scope.⁣
Not the level of responsibility.⁣
Not the market.⁣
⁣
Just what they happen to be earning right now.⁣
⁣
And this is the bit that honestly breaks my heart.⁣
⁣
Because I’m sitting there thinking,⁣
I’m speaking to so many people with half your experience earning significantly more than this.⁣
And you’re better.⁣
⁣
Hypothetically, the market for someone with their experience might be £80k.⁣
But because they’re on £60k today, they don’t even let themselves consider it.⁣
They anchor to the past, not to reality.⁣
⁣
So I ask,⁣
“Has anyone ever told you that your expectations are way below market?”⁣
⁣
Almost always, the answer is no.⁣
⁣
The danger is, no company is going to stop the process and say,⁣
“Just so you know, you’re underselling yourself by £15k. Let us fix that.”⁣
⁣
They will pay what you anchor at.⁣
And the cycle continues.⁣
⁣
Ladies, if your reading this, please remember, your current salary has absolutely nothing to do with your market value.⁣
It is just your last data point.⁣
That’s it.⁣
⁣
Market rate is driven by demand, scope, impact, and what businesses are actually paying for that level of experience right now.⁣
Not what you were paid previously.⁣
Not what feels like a “reasonable uplift”.⁣

This is why the gender pay gap persists, because we are locked in these endless cycles and we can help improve this if we are informed.
⁣
This is why checking the market matters.⁣
You don’t need to be actively looking.⁣
You don’t need to want to leave your job.⁣
⁣
But you do need to be informed.⁣
⁣
Because anchoring low once doesn’t just affect your next move.⁣
It follows you.⁣
And too many brilliant women are quietly doing themselves a disservice simply because no one ever sat them down and told them the truth.⁣
⁣
Know the market.⁣
Anchor there.⁣
Not to your past.

Is marketing the only function where this still feels normal?
⁣I spoke to a marketer this week who joined a company as part of a team of five.⁣
⁣
Then came the restructures.
One after another.

Each time, someone else disappeared.
A role removed.

Can we replace them? 

No "headcount paused” they said.
A responsibility quietly absorbed.

Until eventually, it was just them.
Doing their job.
Plus everyone else’s.

Same title.
Same expectations.

Same salary policy.
Year on year, their increase was capped at 2%.

No exceptions.

They pushed back.
Pointed out the scope.⁣
The impact.⁣
The reality.⁣

The response?

“Sorry. We can’t change policy.”

That genuinely made me laugh.
⁣
This person started under market rate.⁣
They now hold the entire marketing function together.⁣
They carry context no handover document can replace.⁣
⁣
When they leave, and they will, the company will try to replace them.⁣
⁣And they won’t find a like-for-like replacement anywhere near thier current salary.⁣
⁣
To cover the workload alone, it will cost them at least £20k extra. 
Probably more once you factor in:⁣
Recruitment fees.⁣
Ramp time.⁣
Lost momentum.⁣
Knowledge gaps.⁣
⁣
Retention would have been cheaper.⁣
Easier.⁣
Smarter.⁣
⁣
But instead, they hid behind “policy”.⁣
⁣
Companies love to say they are commercial.⁣
Then ignore the most basic maths.⁣
⁣
Paying good people properly costs less than replacing them.⁣
⁣
Every time.

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