Sales & Marketing

We were one of Argyll Scott’s first teams in Hong Kong nearly 10 years ago. Companies were struggling to grow and connect their brands to Asian consumers due to a scarcity of high-quality Sales & Marketing professionals who truly understood the Asian market. Retained search firms were too slow and cumbersome to seize the opportunity and larger transactional recruitment agencies were not able to uncover hard to find talent needed in Hong Kong. So, we employed a range of bespoke search methods but in a proactive, fast-moving, and affordable way, accelerating the growth of many consumer firms in the region.

Although the talent pool of consumer-focused Sales & Marketing professionals has grown in Asia, the market is still very short of digital and e-commerce talent. The competition from very nimble starts-ups and challenger brands has also increased. These companies are often more “digitally native” thus more attractive to digital talent. To help our clients with their expansion plans, we have scaled local offerings in Singapore and Thailand and further expanded our regional networks with purely digital marketing led teams.

Our success is built on our ability to identify the highest calibre Asia-focussed consumer talent for our clients from their competition. We also add value through our insights into what the best performing brands are doing to connect with their audiences and how to replicate this. We love operating in a space where we can touch, feel and see our client's products, enabling them to move quickly with their hiring plans and scale their functions faster, so they can seize even more opportunities in Asian and global markets.

A great solution for hiring talent into your business quickly and effectively. Whether you’re recruiting for a handful of roles a year or a handful of roles a week, we are here to use our extensive network to find the best candidates for you.

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Key features:

• We source and secure high calibre talent using innovative, customised search methods

• Dedicated resourcing of 1 or 2 recruiters in your specific disciplines

• Time to hire: 2 to 4 weeks, including search

• Shortlists within 48 hours

• Pre-agreed timeline to hire

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Why you’ll love it:

• Quick and easy access to engaged and active talent

• Reduced time to hire

• Less time spent interviewing

• Less time spent reviewing resumes

Hire interim and Fixed-Term Contract (FTC) talent to compliment your existing permanent workforce. This solution is best suited to businesses needing to plug skills gaps or bolster existing resource on a short-term basis. Our in-house contractor care team can fully manage your payroll, mobility, and visa processes.

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Key features:

• High-quality supply of Interim and FTC resource within required timescales

• Access to our local and global community of candidates and cutting-edge expertise

• All contractors pre-screened and vetted as requested

• Dedicated account manager to provide a single point of contact

• We will onboard and manage contractors throughout the contractor lifecycle, including payrolling

• We always find a cost-efficient way to run projects without compromising on quality with minimal overall impact on current resources

Why you’ll love it:

• Rapidly ramp up & scale down resource to suit your needs

• Cost efficient way to run projects without compromising on quality

• Bring on contractors without having a payroll or benefits package in place, significantly reducing costs

• Gives you the ability to hire permanent staff when you don’t have the correct legal entity set up

• Faster contractor onboarding

• Helps to mitigate against payroll risks, streamline your financial and commercial processes and improve service delivery

Carried out by expert researchers, our market maps provide invaluable insight into active and passive candidate communities within specific market areas and aim to help you gain a more comprehensive understanding of your market position.

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Key features:

• Using both our Regional Research Center of Excellence (COE) and experienced in-country Consultants, we will objectively map niche markets

• Fully bespoke from a location, skill set and seniority perspective

• Proactive and organic for quick access and use

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Why you’ll love it:

• Better awareness of the candidate pools available in your market

• Increased awareness of your employer brand to help you stand out from the crowd

• Benchmark your talent strategy against the most effective in the market

• Gives you the ability to rapidly ramp up and scale down resource

• Successfully headhunt direct competition to your business

• Arms you with the information you need to make a business case on your talent requirements

• Your experience will be interactive - we’ll empower you and engage candidates towards your brand

Perfect for senior hires or multiple roles requiring similar niche skill sets. We take full responsibility for the entire search – our approach is targeted and specific, we meet and screen all prospective candidates for cultural fit before considering an introduction.

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Key features:

• Time to hire: 4-8 weeks, including search and shortlisting

• Pre-defined timelines and start date for the candidate agreed as the search is started

• Dedicated recruitment team on each specific search, to ensure a thorough search and all relevant candidates in the market are spoken to

• Weekly updates on your search

• Option to conduct market mapping and report on your brand perception in the market

• Staggered pricing solutions, in line with different hiring phases

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Why you’ll love it:

• You gain preferred access to the best pools of active and passive candidates in your market

• Your experience will be interactive - we’ll empower you and engage candidates towards your brand

• Guaranteed to secure the hire

• Remain anonymous whilst you go out to market

• Easier to plan around a pre-agreed start date

• Ability to spread the cost across a number of weeks or months

A cost-effective and time-saving solution to help you streamline your hiring process while maintaining total transparency. We will conduct thorough research on your company’s brand and competitor positioning so we can align your employer brand with your hiring strategy.

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Key features:

• Dedicated recruiter embedded into your business – but also still fully connected to the Argyll Scott ecosystem

• Pre-defined SLA’s

• Full account management team and regular reviews

• 100% focus from the recruitment team

• Flexible billing structure

Why you’ll love it:

• Cost saving without quality saving

• Combined benefits of both the search and RPO model

• Search firm brand ambassador and extension of your internal HR / Talent Acquisition team

• Faster to hire because of the better understanding we have of your business

• Market knowledge and intel to help shape your hiring strategies and decisions

The challenge:

Our client, an internationally recognised luxury retail brand, was looking to hire a Head of Buying to lead their APAC & GC team. The perfect candidate needed to have a strong luxury merchandising background across China and APAC, as well as management experience of a sizable team, and the ability to manage and influence HQ. The retailer had already explored internal options and had also approached a few candidates discreetly, but to no avail, so engaged us due to our previous track record, having successfully made a senior placement with them.

Our solution:

We conducted a thorough mapping exercise of the talent in the luxury merchandising market for various brands in Hong Kong. We produced four candidates, one of which was shortlisted, however, we weren’t convinced about their genuine interest in the role, so advised against it. At the same time, our referrals uncovered a candidate who was returning from Shanghai to Hong Kong, who met the criteria and would be a strong cultural fit.

The outcome:

• 10 candidates outside of the client’s network were shortlisted, six were presented and interviewed

• There was a long interview process due to the time of year and availability of senior decision-makers, so we kept all candidates engaged and interested

• Our candidate accepted an offer and we helped with relocation advice to ensure a smooth transition to Hong Kong

The challenge:

Our client, a multinational manufacturer and marketer of branded consumer foods, wanted to find an innovative Marketing Director with strong leadership skills and regional FMCG experience that included China to help with their growing presence in the APAC region.

The key challenge was finding someone who had both the right level of experience and would fit into the company’s culture. The position was confidential, so the client needed to engage in a discreet third party. As a long-time trusted recruitment partner of this brand, Argyll Scott was their first choice.

Our solution:

Our 3-part retainer began with a market map. Our expertise and deep penetration in the region were key in finding and securing candidates who met the unique brief.

After the first shortlist of five, a round of interviews and a second shortlist thereafter, one outstanding candidate went all the way through eight rounds of interviews, including a leadership psychometric test and an external party interview.

Our strong relationship with the hiring manager and regular updates with both China and Singapore HR were critical is securing the hire. We managed the offer process very carefully, ensuring highest level transparency and communication across all parties involved.

The outcome:

• We successfully placed the Marketing Director within a relatively short time to hire, given the client’s thorough hiring process

• Argyll Scott is a trusted partner that they know to be a great brand ambassador for them

• The hiring manager has since engaged us for hiring within his start-up company

The challenge:

We first began working with this multinational beauty company, when they were going through a period of great change. They were in the midst of pivoting their brand image and had also gone through a large M&A, resulting in lots of redundancies and showing the early warning signs of a negative company culture, making it difficult to attract new talent who could execute the company’s new vision.

They required a highly experienced recruitment partner who knew the market well, could help them develop innovative candidate attraction strategies and manage a full RPO solution. They chose to partner with Argyll Scott because of our shared values. We quickly developed a strong rapport with the HRD, who appreciated our truly consultative approach.

Our solution:

Our RPO solution manages the company’s entire hiring process. From the outset, we established clear SLAs which have adapted with the client’s needs over time. A key part of our solution is our account management team. As we service their roles across five countries, all roles come through our key account manager before being delegated throughout the region. The account management team also manage the Management Index Report, a detailed weekly update for the HR Director.

Our approach also involves a lot of consulting and coaching of hiring managers, to help understand their needs and build workable solutions. Frequent and transparent two-way communication enables us to sell the roles and the exciting vision of the brand effectively. We’re constantly building a strong pipeline of business-critical talent and refining our solutions to better support our client’s expansion plans.

The outcome:

• We’re a key hiring partner for this beauty brand across the region – the initial mandate for 20 roles across Sales & Marketing, Accounting & Finance, Procurement and Supply Chain functions developed into Argyll Scott filling 60+ retained roles.

• Our client’s brand has grown significantly across the APAC region in that time, and we’re hugely proud to have been a part of that.

• We’ve grown our account management team and capabilities in line with the client’s growth.