Published on 24, July 2024

Meet our Trainee SEO Executive, Oliver Hare

At Climb & Conquer, all our staff start in the same role: Trainee Executives. This allows everyone to progress in the same way, learning the intricacies of our service offering and receiving mentoring along the way. So many of our team have risen to senior roles and specialised in a specific area of SEO, PPC or Email Marketing, and each started as a trainee. It’s a unique way of hiring and coaching, and it’s working well for us, providing opportunities for eager and enthusiastic individuals to get into a career in digital marketing.

Without further ado, it’s time to meet another one of our team members…

Next up it’s our County-Durham-based, “song of the day” enthusiast, Oliver Hare. Oliver is one of our earliest hires and is currently a Trainee SEO (Technical) Executive.  We’ve been thrilled with how quickly Oliver has developed and progressed, adding real value to our client’s campaigns along the way and following in the footsteps of Steph, Ellen, and Victor.

Give us a whistlestop tour of your career journey to date:

Since I’m not very old (19 years young!) I’ve only really had one job before this, supporting my Dad’s business with admin and digital support where necessary. This certainly gave me a flavour for the kind of role I’d be keen to do and I’ve always been interested in digital, so this early experience definitely instilled my work ethic and gave me some direction as to what I’d like to do with my career.

What made you decide to join Climb & Conquer?

I joined the company before it was rebranded to Climb & Conquer. I originally found Shane on LinkedIn and found he was advertising for a trainee SEO job. I applied via email and unfortunately didn’t get the job the first time. I then tried a couple of more times, and I finally got the job. At the end of the day, persistence pays off!

Describe briefly a typical day in the life of your role:

I log on a few minutes before I start work to check what there is to be done. I’ll catch up on Slack messages and my emails, too, ensuring any time-sensitive tasks are taken care of as a priority. It depends on the day, but it could be anything from doing an audit on a client site and performing search console checks, to proposing fixes to the problems that arise from the audits and maybe a bit of content writing (although I have a strong dislike for it!)

What do you enjoy most about your role?

What don’t I enjoy about my job? In all seriousness, the best bit is probably the team and the flexibility that working from home allows. It’s exactly what I hoped for when I applied and persevered, so I’m really glad I did.

And what’s the most challenging part?

For me, it’s content writing, but apart from that it’s probably that I focus so much on work that I forget to take breaks. It can be a real challenge in a remote-first role to instil work-life balance but it’s something Shane, Victor and Blanaid are helping us to get better at, ensuring we get out to enjoy the weather, take slower days when needed and organising team-building activities, both virtually and in person, keeping us connected as a team.

What’s your hot take on SEO/PPC/Digital Marketing for 2024?

I’d probably say that although AI is great, there is an over-reliance on it especially for content writing. If you work in the industry, you can spot from a mile away if something has been written by AI.  There are certainly benefits of AI when used correctly, but there really is a fine line and I think we’re all seeing the pitfalls play out for many. I guess it’s a “watch this space” situation because of continued developments, but it’s one to be conscious of in a digital role, for sure.

If you could give one piece of advice to anyone looking to get into your field, what would it be?

I’d probably say look into free courses to boost your experience and knowledge. Hubspot offers some great free courses around SEO and marketing in general, and there are a heap of other digital resources and tools out there for eager learners looking for a big break into a digital role. This extra learning helps to set you apart from other people and shows you have a willingness to learn and develop.

Want to see more about what life at Climb & Conquer is like and be the first to know when we’re hiring new people to join the team? Follow our LinkedIn page for the latest updates.

Shane Parkins
Shane Parkins

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We're an agency that takes action, but sometimes we like to do the talking as well. Here you'll find some team intros, updates about the company or some industry news we think is worthy to shout about.

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