PR and Communications Recruitment Agency
We find you the best PR and Communications Talent to help you grow.
We are recruitment and executive search specialists for ambitious organisations looking to hire leading PR and Communications experts. Our search specialists can help find you the best Public Relations and Communications Talent, globally.
Whether you’re a High-Growth Startup, an established Financial Services or Technology business, a listed Corporate or a PR and Communications agency, we can help you grow your team.
We support the Recruitment of candidates across multiple PR and Communications jobs and disciplines including; B2B PR, Corporate Communications, Investor Relations and Financial Communications, Digital Communications, Crisis and Issues, and Corporate Affairs, as well ranging seniority from Communications Executives to senior level PR and Communications Directors, all the way up to board level.
Businesses we've worked with:
At Sapio, our industry expert consultants always commit to understanding as much about your business as possible; you as an employer, the PR or Communications role, and the motivations behind the hire.
Unlike your typical Marketing and PR Recruitment agency, we don’t fall into a numbers game focused solely on filling a new role.
Our aim to help your business find the right PR and Communications people or solution.
Our in-depth Recruitment process ensures that we’re best placed to find the PR and Communications professionals who best fit your business requirements.
Whether that be someone experienced in Corporate or B2B Comms, Financial PR, Internal Communications, Public Affairs, Corporate Affairs or Digital Marketing, we will help you find the best person for your business not just the next person for the role.
We provide a fully-managed service and your Recruitment consultant handles the hiring process from start to finish – utilising our expert Communications industry knowledge, unrivalled network and relationships to source the best Communications and PR candidates, running initial CV screening to ensure we are proactive in putting applicants forward on a quality over quantity basis, and managing the interview and offer process.
We won’t stop until you’ve got the right person for the role to enhance your team.
PR and Comms sectors we recruit for:
PR and Comms roles we recruit for:
We specialise in finding permanent staff for Comms and PR positions both across PR agencies and In-house, including:
In-House Roles
- PR & Communications Executive
- PR & Communications Manager
- PR & Communications Lead
- Head of PR & Communications
- Director of PR & Communications
- CCO
Agency Roles
- Account Manager
- Account Director
- Associate Director
- Director
- Managing Director
- CEO
Quick answers to your PR recruitment questions:
Location - In which locations can you support my hiring?
Headquartered in London, we work across the UK, Europe, North America and APAC. We have experience supporting clients across the UK from the South-East to Manchester and up to Scotland, North America, from California to New York via Austin and Toronto.
We have worked with businesses in mainland Europe including Paris, Berlin, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Milan and Zurich.
We have also partnered with firms across Asia Pacific including in India, Hong Kong, Singapore, mainland China and Australia.
Timeframes - How long does it take from engaging Sapio to making a hire?
It’s hard to offer definitives around exact timelines without understanding more information specific to your search as there are a number of factors we can’t control (people’s diaries being one of them!).
However, 6 weeks is a good rule of thumb to allow throughout the whole process of finding your ideal comms or PR professional.
This allows 1 week for us to do a good search to find and vet the best candidates for the role as we are always actively searching against the brief to ensure best fit versus those CVs we just have to hand.
Typically, an interview process will then run over 3-4 weeks depending on number of stages – we would advise keeping this as compact and efficient as possible and so are happy to work to tighter time frames.
Finally, around a week from job offer to acceptance with a buffer for salary negotiation, contracts and referencing.
Levels - What levels do you recruit for?
We are able to and are experienced in working across all levels from entry level to senior positions like C-Suite, across all marketing, PR and Communications disciplines, but we find we are able to deliver the most value to our partners when they are looking to hire candidates with experience.
We do work with graduates and entry level candidates trying to get into the sector and are always happy to give them job opportunities and the time to help, given we feel we have an important role to play as part of the PR, Communications and Marketing industry.
However, we find it better to open up our networks within the industry on a case by case basis in this endeavour, versus charging our partners a fee as a successful placement is harder to guarantee at this level.
We want to focus on helping a diverse talent pool of entry level candidates access opportunities instead of our fee being a barrier.
We are always happy to discuss how we can best help, however, and so get in touch and if it’s not a solution we can provide in house we’ll be sure to point you in the right direction.
Our Recruitment Process - What does a search and hiring process through Sapio look like?
Simply put our process is Scope, Search, Engage, Interview and Offer but a little more detail on each of these aspects of our service can be found on OUR PROCESS page.
Beyond this, a number of our clients rely on our support for onboarding and beyond, which we are always happy to assist with throughout the process and afterwards, however we also understand some businesses have fairly tried and tested processes here.
How do we charge for our services?
Like most recruiters, our fees are charged as a percentage of the first years’ compensation of the successful hire; however, the exact structure depends on several factors.
Given we work across a swathe of clients of differing sizes and shapes, industries and locations as well as distinct volume requirements, we understand that there isn’t one size fits all.
As talent specialists, we endeavour to be solutions orientated and design partnership terms based on each individual client for the best recruitment experience.
Our MO is to establish long lasting partnerships with the businesses we work with and be seen as their trusted PR, marketing and Comms recruitment experts, so charging the highest fee possible at every juncture is not in our nature.
We work with our partners to ensure that our services are value-add rather than painful expenses and provide a long-term solution to talent challenges.
Services/Approach - What service does Sapio offer? Contingent, Retained or Executive search?
The fact is we offer all of the above; Contingent search (success based fee model); Retained search (strategic tailored search with an upfront commitment fee); and Exec search (specific to senior and strategic hires for very narrow talent pools) and all have merits, but the truth is that without information as to your specific needs and requirements, and therefore the talent pool in question, it is hard to say which approach may be best for your business.
What we can say however, being MarComms specialists and industry experts, is that in our experience an iterative or contingent search model tends to be effective in around 70% of cases, particularly where exclusivity is agreed.
As ever, there isn’t one size fits all and so we endeavour to be adaptive to each client’s needs and priorities, and work closely with you and the challenges you face, to provide a strategy most likely to secure an efficient and successful outcome.
What sets you apart from other marcomms recruitment agencies?
What sets us apart from the typical marcomms recruitment agency is our experienced team of marketing and communications specialist recruitment consultants have deep and specialised knowledge of the sectors they recruit in. We know where we can add value and we know where our networks are strongest. We won’t take on mandates if we feel we’re not best placed.
We keep on top of the latest professional trends, requirements, salary guides, qualifications and qualities required so you can make the perfect hire who is ready to hit the ground running and help your business achieve it’s growth ambitions, whatever they may be.
This makes us a leading recruitment partner for your PR & Communications function, or your agency. Thanks to our expertise and diligence, we’re efficient and tirelessly seek the best candidate for your business.
How do you approach DE&I and what is your DE&I policy?
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) is a topic that has consistently been discussed and pontificated around, but is still seen by some as a tick box exercise and has made little progress despite the noise.
At Sapio, we realise we have a key role to play in changing that and we actively work to increase DE&I in our sector by influencing some key areas.
Please see our DE&I page to find out how we’re helping to foster inclusive cultures that facilitate the success of ALL employees and businesses.
What some of our clients have said:
MEET THE SAPIO TEAM
Richard Savage
Partner
Richard has worked alongside Tech, VCs and High Growth businesses for almost a decade, helping grow ambitious businesses from seed stage Start-ups to Multinationals, and everything in between…