Latest / The Marketing Career Podcast with Fexingo: Marketing Jobs, Skills, and Career Growth / How Mid-Career Marketers Use Community Building to Land Jobs
Transcript
- Lucas: So there's this idea that's been floating around marketing circles for a while now — that building a community can be a better job search strategy than sending out resumes. And I'll admit, I was skeptical until I looked at the numbers. Luna: I've heard that too. But it always felt abstract — like, 'start a Facebook group and magic happens.' What's the actual playbook? Lucas: Well, let me ground it in a real case. There's a marketer named Sarah Chen — former brand manager at Clorox, focused on CPG. She left her job in early 2025, not because she had to, but because she wanted more autonomy. Instead of immediately applying to roles, she built a Slack community for CPG marketers. Just a specific niche: people working on consumer packaged goods brands, from junior associates to VPs. Luna: How big did it get? Lucas: About 4,000 members in eight months. And here's the kicker — within that same eight-month window, she received three job offers from members of the community. One was a senior director role at a mid-size startup. She never submitted a formal application. Luna: That's the dream scenario. But I have to ask — how did she get 4,000 people to join? That's the hard part. Lucas: She started with a specific pain point. CPG marketers constantly deal with retailer compliance issues — think Walmart's vendor portal, Target's submission guidelines. There was no dedicated space to ask quick questions. So she created a private Slack, invited about fifty people from her existing network — former colleagues, conference contacts — and then seeded it with one high-value weekly thread: 'Retail Compliance Win of the Week.' People started sharing actual fixes. That's what made it sticky. Luna: So it wasn't a general 'marketing chat' — it was hyper-specific. That makes sense. I've seen general marketing groups turn into noise quickly. Lucas: Exactly. The narrower the niche, the more valuable the signal. Sarah's rule was: every post must either solve a problem or celebrate a win. No self-promotion, no job posts — at least not for the first three months. She wanted the community to feel like a utility, not a networking event. Luna: And then the job offers came organically? She didn't even mention she was looking? Lucas: She never said 'I'm available.' But people knew her background from her profile. And when a member's company needed a CPG marketing leader, they thought of her — because she had been consistently helpful in the community. It's basically the 'give first' philosophy, but with a specific audience. Luna: I wonder if this works for other marketing niches. Like, could a content marketer build a community around, say, B2B thought leadership for regulated industries? Or is CPG uniquely suited because of those compliance pain points? Lucas: I think any niche where there's a recurring, unsolved operational headache works. For example, there's a community called 'Fintech Content Writers' — about 2,500 members — that started as a place to share how to write for sec reviewed content. The founder, a mid-level content strategist, now gets two or three recruiter DMs per week from members. She hasn't applied for a job in over a year. Luna: Alright, I'm convinced there's something here. But what about the time commitment? Sarah must have been putting in serious hours to grow and moderate 4,000 people. Lucas: She estimated about five hours per week at the peak — mostly curating the weekly thread, answering DMs, and handling the occasional conflict. She used a few automations: a welcome bot that asked new members to introduce themselves with their specific CPG focus, and a weekly digest that summarized the top discussions. That reduced the manual load. Luna: So it's not a full-time gig, but it's not zero-effort either. What about the risk of it becoming a job-search platform? At what point does the community start to feel transactional? Lucas: That's the big trap. Sarah told me she saw other communities implode because the founder started posting job listings every week. Members felt used. Her approach was to never post a job herself — but allow members to share openings in a dedicated channel, with a rule that the poster had to include a personal note about the team culture. That kept it from feeling like a job board. Luna: And she still got offers without that channel? That's impressive. Lucas: Right. The offers came through DMs and referrals, not public posts. That's the signal that the community is working — when people think of you privately as the solution to their hiring need. Luna: So for a marketer listening today who wants to try this, what's step one? Don't just create a Slack group and hope. Lucas: Step one: identify a specific, recurring frustration in your corner of marketing that has no existing community. Not 'digital marketing' — that's too broad. Something like 'email marketers at mid-market SaaS companies' or 'trade show coordinators for medical devices.' Then, interview ten people in that niche to validate that they'd join and contribute. If you can't get ten enthusiastic yeses, the niche is too narrow or the pain point isn't sharp enough. Luna: Once you have that validation, what's the growth lever? Sarah used a weekly thread — but is that enough? Lucas: She also did one-off collaborations. She invited a few well-known CPG marketers to do an AMA — not to promote themselves, but to answer specific compliance questions. Those AMAs brought in hundreds of new members each time. And she cross-posted the best answers on LinkedIn, tagging the participants, which brought in more people. Luna: So it's a content flywheel: high-value inside the community, then excerpts outside to attract more. I like that. Lucas: Exactly. And the key metric she tracked wasn't member count — it was 'weekly active contributors.' People who posted or replied at least once in the last seven days. She aimed for 20 percent of members. When that dipped, she'd start a new thread or prompt a debate. Luna: Let me play devil's advocate. Some listeners might be thinking: 'I'm not a community manager. I'm a brand marketer. I don't have the skills to build a Slackbot.' Lucas: You don't need to be technical. There are tools like Circle or Discord that are point and click. The real skill is understanding what your audience needs and consistently delivering it. That's a marketing skill. If anything, building a community is a portfolio piece that demonstrates exactly the kind of strategic thinking hiring managers want. Luna: That's a good point. And it's a lot more impressive than a bullet point on a resume saying 'managed social media.' Lucas: Exactly. And you know, if these marketing conversations have sparked something you've actually used — maybe a community you joined or a strategy you tried — that's exactly the kind of real-world application we hope for. This show stays ad-free and independent because listeners who find it valuable choose to support it. If that's you, you can buy us a coffee at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure, no perks — just a way to keep these conversations going. Luna: Yeah, it genuinely helps. And it keeps the show focused on the tactics that work, not on sponsors. Alright, back to the community playbook. Lucas, what about the timing? How long should someone expect to build before they start seeing job opportunities? Lucas: Sarah's timeline was about six months before the first offer. But she was also working on it consistently. I'd say for most people, three to four months of steady value creation — where you're the most helpful person in the room — you'll start to get inbound interest. The key is not to rush it. If you start broadcasting your availability too early, you undermine the trust you've built. Luna: So patience is a strategy. What about the exit — once you land a job, do you hand off the community? Or keep it as a side project? Lucas: Sarah kept it. She appointed two moderators from the community — both active members — and reduced her time to about two hours a week. The community became a network she could tap for industry insights, and it also positioned her as a thought leader in CPG. Her new employer actually saw it as a plus — it gave her credibility with retailers. Luna: That's a nice bonus. One concern I've heard is about burnout — that running a community while job searching can be exhausting. How do you avoid that? Lucas: Set boundaries early. Sarah had a rule: she only checked the community twice a day — once in the morning, once in the evening. She also used the 'do not disturb' feature during deep work. And she never felt obligated to respond to every single message. The community had norms that encouraged members to help each other first. That's critical. Luna: So it's more about being the catalyst than the help desk. I think that's a great takeaway. Alright, for someone who's convinced and wants to start today — what's one concrete action they can take in the next 48 hours? Lucas: Draft a one-paragraph invitation to send to ten people in your target niche. Explain the community's purpose — focused on solving a specific problem — and ask if they'd join and invite two others. If you get five positive replies, you have your founding members. That's the seed. From there, plan your first weekly thread. Keep it simple. Luna: I like that it starts small and specific. No pressure to hit 4,000 overnight. Lucas: Exactly. And if you're worried about the time, remember: every hour you spend building a community is an hour you're not writing cover letters that get ignored. The ROI is there — if you do it right.