#117: Career | When to Make a Move, Negotiating Offers, and Working with Recruiters (with Kelly Gordon and Matthew Kanter from Creative People)

Kelly Gordon and Matthew Kanter are marketing recruiters at Creative People and join Dave to share some insider strategies to help you land your next marketing job and make your next big career move.Creative People is a recruiting firm specializing in the Series A to Series D world and Matthew and Kelly bring in-depth knowledge of roles in B2B SaaS and marketing leadership. This conversation dives into advice on how to navigate the job search, understand your worth in the market, and effectively advocate for yourself during the hiring process. Topics include using LinkedIn for personal branding, negotiating job offers, researching compensation, and how (and why) to look without looking.Matthew and Kelly share insights on the nuances of recruiting, the importance of building personal connections, and how recruiters should approach hiring for roles that might be new to an organization. Throughout the discussion, they stress the importance of being proactive about career development, being honest about one's own job preferences, and how to ensure a potential employer's values align with one's own.Timestamps:00:00 Maximizing Your Career Potential.05:20 Navigating Career Transitions.09:08 Smart Career Moves: Assessing Company Fit & Interviews.11:24 Interviewing Insights: Evaluating Company Fit & Ideal Timelines.14:23  Importance of Efficient Hiring Process for Role Success.18:26 Candidates must embrace ambiguity and self-sufficiency.21:36 Emphasizing relationship building in career advancement.26:58 Career Focus and Motivation on LinkedIn.29:44 The importance of honest self-assessment for job seekers.31:05 Navigating Compensation Negotiations.35:52 Importance of honesty and negotiation in job offers.38:55 Importance of Effective Outreach in Job Recruitment.40:51 Connect with Matt and Kelly on LinkedIn. Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterLearn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/***Brought to you by:Zoom Webinars & Events – The virtual event platform built to help B2B marketers run webinars that actually drive pipeline, with branded registration pages, live engagement features, and built-in tools to repurpose sessions into clips and content. Learn more at zoom.com/exitfive.Customer.io - An AI powered customer engagement platform that help marketers turn first-party data into engaging customer experiences across email, SMS, and push. Learn more at customer.io/exitfive.Vector - A contact-level ads platform that lets you build audiences from actual people on your site, clicking your ads, and checking out your competitors. Learn how to build an ABM program that scales at vector.co/exitfive.Join us in Stowe, Vermont for Drive 2026 - three days away from your desk to learn what's working in B2B marketing from the people who are actually doing it. Grab your ticket at exitfive.com/drive.Walker Sands - An integrated B2B marketing and growth services agency that helps marketing leaders turn strategy into measurable business impact through their Outcome-based Marketing model. Learn more at walkersands.com/exitfive.***Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more