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Marchex goes on a hiring binge, looks to add 100 employees

July 21, 2011 at 10:54 am by 18 Comments

The call-based advertising business must be doing pretty well these days. After all, Seattle-based Marchex just opened positions for another 100 employees, most in software development and engineering. That’s a serious commitment for the publicly-traded company.

After all, Marchex currently employs 390 people, so 100 new employees would mark a nearly 25 percent boost in staff. Roughly 80 percent of the new hires are expected to be added in Seattle, with the remainder at the company’s offices in New York City.

Marchex believes more ad dollars will be spent on paying for phone call leads

Of course, especially in this climate, there’s no guarantee that Marchex will be able to find 100 qualified candidates. But Marchex spokesman Jim Cullinan said they’ve had some success recruiting out of Microsoft and Amazon in the past.

“Clearly we will need to expand our recruiting channels to find this many quality recruits,” said Cullinan, adding that the company has already tapped five recruiters to help with the hiring push.

“We want to add these folks ASAP, but realistically, it may take 3-4 months,” he said.

Cullinan said the company is searching for candidates with specific talents such as Java developers with telecom infrastructure experience; advertising optimization capabilities; and mobile technology experience. It plans to double the engineering staff as part of the new hiring push.

As we reported in May, Marchex posted net income of $513,000 on revenue of $29.1 million. The company also boosted its revenue projections for the year to $137 million to $141 million, largely on the strength of call-based advertising.

Google also recognizes the opportunity, and just this week unveiled its own system to incorporate phone numbers to online ads.

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  • James

    I would advise anyone to go elsewhere….unless you’re a developer, you’re gonna get 10/hr and treated poorly.  If that’s worth it to you….

    • EJ

      It’s true.  Not livable wages for the Seattle area for sure.

    • Greg

      Sounds like a v-dash

  • http://www.facebook.com/shannon.barbour Shannon Barbour

     

    The comments here are certainly
    an opinion, but we have 390 employees who are enjoying the culture and attitude
    of a start up with the resources and commitment of a successful company –
    including great offices with free snacks and soda.  We are more than
    competitive in the compensation area, but most importantly is our culture of
    innovation and empowerment where decisions are made quickly – without
    significant bureaucracy.  Before listening to a few comments, come talk to
    us.  Today’s Marchex is a completely different company than we were three
    years ago.  We are one of the first companies in this new, exciting market
    – call advertising – but we need to continue to invest in our technology
    platforms and products to keep being leaders.  You might be another important
    asset at a company where you can make an impact and difference right away.

     

    Shannon Barbour

     

  • Scott

    perhaps if Marchex wasn’t such a horrific place to work, then they would have people *staying* there, and they wouldn’t constantly need to be recruiting to try to stay ahead of the revolving door.

  • KC

    Be sure and ask for the results of a recent employee satisfaction survey.

    • Courtney

      Ask what the current turnover rate is while you’re at it.

  • Matt

    I’ve been at Marchex for a little over a year now.  I can honestly say that it is refreshing to work at a company that values and rewards its employees.  Even better, the people that are here want to be here, and they want to help each other succeed.  I haven’t had this much fun working in quite a long time!

  • Alex

    As an engineer I disagree with most of the comments here. I’ve found Marchex to be a great place to work with much opportunity.

  • Another Alex

    I cannot really speak to other roles in the company, but as a developer, Marchex is a great place to work.  This is the first company that I’ve worked for that not just allows but actually encourages employees to contribute to open source projects.  We frequently submit patches to the open source software we use, and also frequently release supporting libraries that we’ve developed and found generally useful.  Having come from one of the large employers in the area, I was pleasantly shocked the first time I heard, “That’s really cool!  When will it be on CPAN?”.

  • Frank

    There’s two Marchexes.

    If you’re interviewing for an hourly wage, entry level campaign manager job, that’s what you get.

    If you interview for a full-time salaried role, you should bring your A game and be ready for awesomeness.

    • Tom

      At Marchex, we pay at or above market rates pretty much across the company. We would not have so many former Microsoft and Amazon employees if we did not. If you have drive and want to work for an exciting growing company pioneering the next wave of digital advertising, step up. As to the comments about campaign manager pay, I believe the company has made some improvements and is continually working to improve it’s framework for it’s temporary workforce. It should be noted that many campaign managers with the juice are promoted into management roles within the campaign management organization (many in a matter of a few months), or other roles across the company.

    • Guest

      There are two Marchexes.

      The one where you are part of the “in club”, with absolute freedom to regularly produce chaos, change things just to change them, bask in self-importance, and live for the aspiration of joining the executive fraternity where you get hundreds of thousands of $0 stock options each year.  (Which are then sold consistently, inflating your net worth continually, while suppressing the stocks value and bleeding the shareholders.)

      And the one where you’re the help.

      If you’re part of the help – whether you are in an hourly wage, entry level campaign manager job, or whether you are in a full-time salaried role – your “A game” matters for career longevity and opportunity for advancement only if you are able to sublimate rationality and personal goals for servitude in satisfaction of the whimsical desires and directions of the moment that emerge from the gilded ivory towers.

  • Paul

    Regardless if you’re an engineer or an assistant, if a company treats it’s employees decent, everyone should be happy across the board. To feel the need to air grievances in some article clearly shows something isn’t quite right.  Then again, a lot of companies are using the bad economy to their advantage, knowing employees don’t have much choice.  From my experience, high turnover rates isn’t a very good indication.

    • Th3r1ck

      “To feel the need to air grievances in some article clearly shows something isn’t quite right.”

      Yes, but is something not quite right with them, or the company?

      “From my experience, high turnover rates isn’t a very good indication.”

      Usually true … what IS the turnover rate among salaried employees?

  • Curious_George

    @Johncook based on these comments, is there a follow up story for you to write here?  

  • Travis

    We are a new and improved company built on the backs of world class people, technology and management – recent big hires from Google, Microsoft and Idearc. Most importantly we are focusing on the biggest digital advertising market through calls. It’s calls, calls, calls. Come talk to us and decide for yourself. You need to have the juice, no question. Forget about Facebook, Zynga, and Amazon.