Where you work has a huge impact on the amount you can learn and the amount of hands-on experience you can get. So being deliberate in choosing the right work environment can help you streamline your career path.
My career took the following path:
Agency - 5 Years
Working at an agency is about as close as you can get to a legal internship or medical residency. Since the SEO field doesn't have standardized measures for professional development, finding an environment where you're surrounded by fellow SEOs you can learn from will have a huge impact on how quickly you can learn and grow. While it is possible to join a team of in-house SEOs, your time at an agency will be the only time you work with an entire company of people solely focused on what you do.
Working at an agency I gained the following:
- Experience across a wide range of business types from eCommerce to B2B.
- Diagnosing a huge range of SEO problems from Black Hat techniques to backend code
- Learning from my co-workers experience on their client's websites not just my own clients.
- Exposure to every SEO tool and analytics platform
- Hands-on link building
- Efficiency and prioritization of tasks that will get client results
- Built an extensive network early in my career
In-House On A Small Team Of Individual Contributors - 4 Years
When you join a small, in-house marketing team, there's generally only one person per speciality. So you will need to have the confidence and the skillset not only to answer SEO questions but to insert yourself and advocate for what you need to reach SEO goals.
Working on a small, in-house team I gained the following:
- Exposure to every business function from sales ops to customer success
- Additional responsibilities and experiences outside of SEO from webdev to organizing events to managing GoogleAds.
- Deep understanding of how business goals are set and budgets are distributed
- Using keyword research to influence product development and overall business strategy
- Managing agencies and contractors
- Understanding of why branding, security and legal requirements exist
- How to slow down and really develop a well-thought out, long-term strategy
- Developing a well thought out site structure and CMS functionality
- How to accomplish a lot with limited budget and manpower.
- Project management
In-House On A Midsize Team With Direct Reports - Current
Joining a larger team can be magical. Work that used to take a year to complete suddenly gets done in months. With the right business case, you get the budget for anything you need. Best of all, you likely have a VP whose sole focus is advocating for the work that you do and getting you the resources that you need. At the same time, cross functional collaboration can be harder. Every team has a lot that they're working on, so getting an email sent or PR support will take more than a quick meeting or Slack message. (Those teams also probably report to a different VP).
Working on a midsize team I gained the following
- Scale: Setting larger goals, having larger budgets, creating large amounts of content
- Team: The bigger your revenue goal the more you can grow your team to reach that goal
- Systems: Processes and documentation that allow a team to work seamlessly together
So What Career Path Do I Recommend?
Internship- Use this time to develop hard skills you need without the added pressure of being accountable for results
Agency OR direct report to another SEO - Use this time to hone your skillset and learn as much as you possibly can about SEO. While I spent 5 years at an agency, I'd honestly plan to leave after about 2-3 years. If you go in-house instead, be sure you are working directly for someone who can mentor you in SEO.
In-House - Once you've honed your SEO skillset, moving in-house will expose you to how a full marketing team functions, eliminate barriers to people, budget and information, and frankly reduce a whole lot of stress.
Ultimately, find a place to work where you have the skillset to succeed but also the capacity and means to grow.
