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Give yourself to the dark side

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Head of Content

Content is not words. It’s numbers. Running the Content team is akin to running your own business. Responsible for the commercial output, finances, resource, people development, client strategies, presentations – it’s a lot.

We want someone who has a proven track record at this level and wants to contribute to taking an agency to the next level – one that we don’t even know exists.

Writing helps. SEO knowledge too and not just metas. Bonus points for anyone who can amp our tone of voice another few levels. We don’t want a Head of Content who is just strategy but no tactical.

Join us…

Apply
Job File

Business Development

What do we think of Sales? Heroes.

Ask anyone to swap jobs with you and they will decline. There’s a reason for that. You are the cornerstone.

You can not join a company that appreciates the value of this skill more.

It’s never the H&S manager that takes over as CEO.

Join us…

Apply
Job File

Senior Account Manager

This is the front line to clients. Sales is the fluffer. Now clients want money and the good stuff. Whilst money is not everything, clients pay our wages, so we would like you to retain our clients and grow their spend. Get them to buy more. “Go large for an extra 80p?” You don’t get 5 stars on your badge without being able to spot an opportunity.

Comms. It’s a biggie for us. Can you think like the client? Jim and Margaret may not be that interested in Schema Markup so you need to be able to read the room. A decent knowledge of digital is all pretty useful. Ready for the challenge?

Join us…

Apply
Job File

CRO Manager

That hot off the press that we are still writing the job spec for it.

Confirmed – You need to be fucking brilliant at CRO

Confirmed – You need to be nice

Confirmed – You need to think Batman > Superman

You will need to make our clients even more money and not be afraid of their special love that they will inevitably give you.

Join us…

Apply

Shit hot jobs in the best SEO and PPC agency in the North

Dark Horse has two aims – to dominate PPC and SEO in all of the North West and to make our customers happy/rich. We have assembled a team of geeks and geniuses from the world of PPC, SEO and Paid Social to achieve these. We’re out to win a war against mediocrity and average results. We know how to do that, we just need to swell the ranks. To find people who want to have huge pride in their working life and achievements. We believe that continuing on this path will make Dark Horse one of the top agency destinations to work at.

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Why work at Dark Horse?

  • Work with and create the next generation of famous businesses. Make a genuine difference to our clients lives, not just stats
  • Work with a team who has your back, can be trusted in the trenches and is not flaky
  • Evolve our culture to your fit. We embrace ideas and progress. We want your input
  • Joined up goals. Individuals, departments, company – all goals align so you can see your impact on company and team growth. Empowering is the wanky buzzword for this

If you think you’ve got what it takes to make it in Dark Horse, take a look at our current job openings above. If you find one that fits your experience just click, read and apply!

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meet-the-team
SUSPECTS of dark horse

Dark Horse Charter

What’s the Culture like?

Standard recruitment question 101. People used to ask “how many holidays?”. If people were that bothered about culture, they wouldn’t want a pay rise to join us – right? No one is virtue signalling on LinkedIn to include culture details on job descriptions – Nope – it’s salary details.

In reality, people want money first AND culture second but we are told not to admit that we like money. Ridiculous. Our culture is the best in the world so we pay 50% less than what you are currently on. Still want the job?

For many agencies, culture is nothing more than an opportunity for social media posts to make themselves appear great and appeal to talent – culture has become a talent sales pitch. You never see an agency saying their culture is a slightly solid 6/10 or anything other than more important than their first child. To that end… it MUST be bollox. Not everyone can have amazing culture. Despite what LinkedIn says.

Culture. Community. Kindness.

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Our culture is truth, integrity and working hard

That’s  it. No hype

No videos from the founder saying they massage your feet every morning. It’s about giving your best and trying. If you fall, we will try and catch you, help you get up and try again. Everyone falls at some point. You can look around the office and think “I can rely on that person”. Sickies, quiet quitting, that’s not who we are. We are in this together and happy to be so. And we like money. Money for clients. Money for us.

We don’t get pissed on Fridays and go to Junkyard golf for “natural unstaged” photos. We don’t create a faux culture because we don’t need to. The collective personalities and talent here is enough for everyone to be inclusive, develop and get ahead. Our culture is whatever we, as a mixed group, decide it to be. It’s more than a descriptive paragraph here, the team is more complex and individual than that.

Dark Horse has a starting point of truth and listening. We try to make good decisions for the benefit of us all. It’s not perfect… but it is real.

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What’s the pay like at Dark Horse?

More money than what you  are  on  now   as otherwise you wont join.

Where are you guys?

Dark Horse is based in hipster Altrincham. Depending on your pretentiousness, that’s Altrincham, Greater Manchester or Altrincham, Cheshire – we’ll let you choose which. Close to the lights of a super-sized Tesco, are the smells of freshly ground coffee and cut flowers rolling in from the Altrincham Market. There are worse spots in the world. We are like the Northern Quarter or Salford but with a higher cost of living and less spice. We do volunteer in poorer areas to spread our privilege and sparkle to ease our guilt from time to time. <<Ed – Move this to the culture section – This is what people want. Agree?>>

It’s on the tram map, 5 mins walk from the station. Parking also available. <<Ed – Move to benefit section.>>

Office and people

Office and People

There’s no ping pong tables or bar in the office that gathers dust. If that is important to you then can we suggest the SEO and PPC agencies in Manchester who photo these perks for advertising and external validation. We put the staged photo budget into training and your career. Fully appreciate this makes us a bunch of out of date fu*kwits but we can live with that.

We argue about movies, music, celebrities, popular culture, supernatural, aliens and life. We’re united as digital marketing professionals but proud to be different and distinct. You are just as likely to find someone here who uses tables for dancing as another who uses them for Warhammer. Never mix the two. Carnage and the kids in Games Workshop may pop their orks.

Finally… If you are the type of person who considers an interview task beneath you or will bail the day before a 2nd interview because you have not finished said task then please take this carefully considered message to heart. We tend not to overreact but please trust that we mean every single word with conviction. You can stick the candidate market where the sun doesn’t shine and moreover…

We will rain down every agony, every violation imaginable, upon you. We will parade your cold body from every corner of every realm and feed your soul to the vilest filth in Hel, that is our promise.

If anyone makes a member of our team miss a nativity, appointment, opportunity, date, whatever, because a candidate can’t be arsed to put in a little effort for their expected 5k pay rise, they will never work at this agency or future iterations of it. We wouldn’t do it to you.

This team comes first.

It’s an absolute pleasure to work with this team and if that is not respected, then there is zero second chance. This team comes first. No one is doing Dark Horse a favour by joining. It’s a joint partnership. You can rely on the team. We want to rely on you.

Why join Dark Horse?

There is only one reason – to develop yourself but we are all different and apparently, we need perks to sugar coat the obvious dock off important things. Lubing up the development and career biggies are the below:

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Never ask for a Payrise policy

Higher than the living wage, we aim to have a “never ask for a payrise” policy. The aim of this is that the business is proactive so you never feel the need to ask. It’s not perfect but that’s the aim.

Dogs in the office

This should not influence anything but Mills and Baxter knock around from time to time. If you don’t like Dogs – fair enough. Not for everyone. They are easily avoided and keep themselves to themselves. Bit embarassing to mention this really.

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Socials

This is part of our culture or talent attraction advertising. Have a chuckle with the team and pretend that you want to be there. We promise not to make you stay too long and that the awkwardness does improve. Some people actually enjoy them! If you don’t like them, don’t come. No judgement.

Volunteering

We do it too. We just don’t crow about it. Apart from here.

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10 minute Lunch Hours

A lunch hour is a relic from six day working weeks. One of the unpaid grads from the grad scheme can run out and get you a quick bite at your desk. Crumbs on seats.

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Some of the other wanky benefits we have seen from other agencies…

  • Deliveroo allowance… Is this where we are?
  • Free fruit… Stuff yourself on the Deliveroo Kebabs and then detox the next day on fruit. Diabetes straight ahead
  • Cheeky beers… Not beers but cheeky ones. Red flag
  • Gym membership – That’s good to be fair. However, just have better pay and pay for it yourself if you want too. You’re adults
  • Parking a plenty… Wow
  • Living wage employer – Anything less is a joke. It’s bizarre to even mention it. It’s less than £20k pa. Dark Horse is a living wage plus 10% employer
  • Semi remote working… Semi remote? As in hybrid? Or like remote but within 10 miles of office?
  • Paid trips to conferences… Imagine the Brighton SEO trip if everyone paid their own taxi? Tumbleweed
  • Movie and pizza nights… Teams would much rather watch Batman with a Dominos sat with the management team as opposed to their own sofas in their grunds. Either deluded or narcissistic
  • Wear what you want – That’s not wasting anything at the bottom of the barrel. You want to wear a mankini – go for it but just wipe the seats down after you use them and keep the boys in the barracks
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Dark Horse Charter

Dark Horse
Charter  

With the agency perk merry go round in full effect, Dark Horse has decided enough is enough. Agencies are now trying to outdo each other which is a race to the bottom (see above). We wanted to cement our policy on this so we have a Charter which is our commitment to you. A business is an ecosystem, it has incomings and outgoings, if the agency trendline for benefits continues then agencies will soon be paying for naked butlers to do all your cleaning. As great as that is for a spot of polishing, it will leave little in the pot for training or anything that would benefit you in the longer term. Infact, it will kill off some brilliant agencies. The Charter listed below handily for other agencies to copy and paste on the sly.

Oh, we love the flattery of it. Coincidently, so does our Intellectual Property solicitors.

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The growing list of benefits that agencies are continually offering to get in new recruits is harming the industry – at some point it needs to stop. Those agencies who are trying to grow and consciously offer their clients true value are being harmed. The cost of providing all these benefits is ultimately being forced onto the consumer, the same people we promise to help.

Enough is enough. The Charter considers the whole community: the agencies, the employees and the clients.

Aim: To offer a commitment to employees that meet their needs, without detriment to the digital agency as a whole community and eliminate vanity benefits.

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For
Employees

  • To offer fair pay for the job they do, level of experience they have and responsibilities they will be performing
  • To offer health and wellness benefits that enable staff to have the support they need
  • Every employee will bring different qualities and they will be shared within the team. In addition, we will ensure a training & development budget for each staff member to increase their knowledge and continue to build confidence and esteem in themselves and work
  • To build a community in a workplace where staff feel safe and comfortable to be themselves. With team socials to build meaningful connections when wanted
  • Enable trust between employee and employer through open dialog channels – e.g. anonymous if wanted
  • Motivation at work by offering a clear career path which can be followed and achieved and rewarded appropriately

Commitment by Employers

  • To provide clear and visible leadership, with organisational values and expected behaviors to align to the values
  • To provide a positive working experience with opportunities for growth and development available for all. And a process for continuous improvement within the company
  • To ensure a non-discriminatory feedback option is in place and available to all and a chance for collaborative working and sharing good practice
  • To ensure there is a strong induction process for the employee
  • An honest and transparent culture between both employees and employers, so all are open and approachable
  • Ensure we help with any challenges, give regular, constructive feedback which can be two-way
  • To protect employees from any form of discrimination, bullying or harassment through a strict and robust grievance and disciplinary process
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Internships

Work late.
Work latte’s.

At Dark Horse, we espouse new talent. Tomorrow’s captains of industry need a platform for today to showcase their skills. They need a chance. Hope.

Dark Horse believes that culture and learning is more important than money. It’s crass to talk about “cash”. Every 6 months, we take on 3 unpaid, lucky interns to produce incredibly important work for the agency and get up the ladder. Ditch your mocks for mochas. Jen likes hers with a side of pumpernickel bread and chia seeds.

Making coffees is the first step to being a digital Star and making Bucks. The clue is in the name. There will be no Costa living crisis for the Dark Horse bosses with you around. We promote flexibility, variety and adaptability. One day could be ground, the next instant and who knows… maybe one day a cafetiere.

Welcome to Dark Horse Altrincham, stopping at admin central, photocopying junction and plant watering parkway. The office is full of executive mahogany desks and crystal decanters for managers. It smells of sandalwood – like a schooner. We love schooners. The ship within internship.

We love Pledge polish and we think you will get to like it too. If your coffee is good, then you can swap your leather “Record of Achievement” for that sweet, leather-desk inlay with dark wood walnut veneer exterior and trim. Mmmmmm. Success. Career. And a sepia drinks globe too.

If you can remember lunch orders, run errands, remember birthdays, anniversaries, get those hard to reach knots out and be empowered enough to appraise yourself… then we want to hear from you.

If you would like to apply then send a CV with a covering letter. No social media friendly CV’s like a message in a bottle or a cake. Manilla A4, eggshell emboss and size 11 Times New Roman to get ahead. There’s no need for a new Serif in town. CV’s only as well please – If you think that your personal brand gets you into an agency like ours, then think again. We don’t care how hot your selfies are.

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