Marketing Director
Q&A with Nick Brown: Pebble
Introduction to Pebble
Pebble provides the stepping stones to a more flexible, convenient and efficient childcare ecosystem for everyone – so parents, childcare providers and professionals alike can be in full flow. They offer flexibility, choice, and convenience for parents; and efficient customer centric services that drive revenue for childcare businesses. Pebble believes that finding flexible, convenient childcare should be pain-free. That’s why they’ve created the first UK tech solution that empowers care and activity providers to connect with anyone at any time, no matter where they are; a platform for parents to book and manage their childcare flexibly and conveniently.
What was your recruitment challenge?
It’s currently a difficult market for hiring – not many candidates are prepared to leave their current roles due to uncertainty around the pandemic and what the immediate future looks like. We’ve found this certainly to be the case, especially across the product and tech market. Couple this, with the fact we are a start up business, with a defined budget for our Product Manager vacancy, I felt that we needed extra support from a specialist recruitment agency in finding the right candidate.
I already had a clear vision in my mind of the person that I wanted to hire, and the impact I needed them to have, but I found articulating this to the job market was another thing entirely – one that requires experience and time. I needed a recruitment partner that knew the product management landscape and could find a quality candidate that would add value to Pebble straight away.
What made you approach / work with Intelligent People?
I’ve had quite a few positive experiences with Intelligent People, and in fact, they placed me at Bookatable about 10 years ago. So, I know how they work from both the client and candidate perspective – a nice group of people to work with, who are never pushy or aggressive which is exactly what I want from a recruitment agency. They have always been honest, professional, and considerate balancing the needs of candidates with those of the hiring company.
Whilst I was at Bookatable, I used Intelligent People are few times across various hires, so when I started at Pebble and we urgently needed a first-class Product Manager, Doug at IP was my first port of call.
What services did Intelligent People provide?
The process was simple and straightforward, the shortlist was exactly what I wanted and the advice along the way, including salary benchmarks, candidate profiling and analysis was invaluable and refreshing in the scrappy world of recruitment. From start to finish, the hiring process was painless and well managed by Doug. The shortlist was full of quality candidates, well filtered against the initial brief. I really appreciated having open and honest discussions on candidate profiles and being able to bounce ideas off Doug and ask for his advice especially throughout the offer stage.
As a consequence, we’ve been able to find and retain the right people for our business.
What was the outcome?
We were able to hire Max, a superstar member of the team. He’s a real asset to the business, delivering against everything we need for Pebble’s growth. I’d highly recommend IP to anyone looking to hire at any level in product or indeed as a recruiter to work with as a candidate.
Read other product management case studies
Product Manager placement at Novata
Senior Product Manager placement at Peach
Simply put, Intelligent People are my go-to for product hires. They have always been honest, professional, and considerate balancing the needs of candidates with those of the hiring company. For my recent search - in a very difficult market - they were my first port of call and helped me land the perfect Product Manager for the role, who's doing a fantastic job. The process was simple and straightforward, the shortlist was exactly what I wanted and the advice along the way, including salary benchmarks, candidate profiling and analysis was invaluable and refreshing in the scrappy world of recruitment. Read the full case study.
