Founder-led marketing recruitment · Leadership search · Digital · PR · Agencies
Technology helps find people. Experience and judgement work out who's actually good.
Disciplines: Marketing, Comms, PR, Digital, Agency-side, Client-side, Leadership, Fractional.
The filter
Recruitment has a reputation problem. And, let's be fair, some of it is deserved.
Technology can search a market faster than ever. AI can help analyse CVs, spot patterns and remove a lot of the boring stuff.
But it can't replace judgement.
Essential Resourcing combines smart technology with proper conversations, more than a decade specialising in marketing recruitment and a healthy willingness to challenge the brief when something doesn't stack up.
Why it's different
Usually, it's not because the right person doesn't exist.
It's because nobody properly challenged what the business actually needs, what success looks like, whether the salary stacks up or whether one job description has quietly become three jobs in a trench coat.
That's where David starts.
Take the job description and start searching
Work out what the business actually needs first
Send the same recycled CVs within the hour
Map the market properly and approach people personally
Tell you what you want to hear about salary
Tell you what the market is actually saying
Send fifteen CVs and hope one sticks
Present fewer, properly assessed candidates
Judge people because their CV looks right
Get behind the CV and challenge the evidence
Let the process drift for six weeks
Keep feedback, candidates and decisions moving
Services
Permanent Recruitment, Retained Search, Fractional Leadership and Market Intelligence & Advisory for marketing, communications, PR, digital and agency hiring.
Good people. Properly recruited.
Success-based recruitment for permanent marketing, digital, PR, communications and agency hires.
Explore Permanent RecruitmentWhen the hire matters enough to search the market properly.
A committed, research-led search for senior, confidential, difficult or commercially important appointments.
Explore Retained SearchSenior marketing leadership. Just not necessarily five days a week.
Work out what senior capability the business actually needs, then find the person who can deliver it.
Explore Fractional LeadershipBefore you recruit, make sure the brief actually stacks up.
Salary intelligence, talent mapping, competitor insight, brief design and practical hiring advice before you commit.
Explore Market Intelligence & Advisory
Founder-led search
David Walsh started recruiting in 2013 and went independent in 2017. Essential Resourcing Ltd was incorporated in 2019 — the paperwork caught up later.
It's deliberately founder-led.
No getting sold to by one person and handed to somebody else. No huge team chasing the same database.
Just specialist market knowledge, proper relationships and one person accountable for doing the job properly.
Meet David Walsh, Essential's founder
For clients
For candidates
Proof
Live case study
Managing Partner
Retained Search
James Reddington joined Havas Media Manchester as Managing Partner. James made the move after almost 24 years at Carat Manchester, where he had been Group Business Director.
Later progressed to Joint General Manager.
LinkedIn recommendations
Candidate and client feedback is more useful when it is public, named and easy to check.
Read LinkedIn recommendations“David is incredibly well connected across the agency world.”
Public LinkedIn recommendation
“He has a refreshingly honest approach and believes in doing things the right way.”
Public LinkedIn recommendation
“Professionalism, transparency and deep understanding of both the role and the wider digital marketing landscape.”
Public LinkedIn recommendation
“Supportive, proactive, and communicative. He also really understands the public relations field.”
Public LinkedIn recommendation
Insights
Practical hiring advice and market observations from the work David actually does. No SEO sludge written because somebody said the website needed another blog.
Marketing, digital, PR and agency salary planning ranges for Manchester and the North West, with Fractional leadership rates and straight advice from David Walsh.
Read insightA straight-talking guide to the Manchester and North West marketing market, salaries, briefs and hiring routes.
Read insightWhen contingency is perfectly sensible, when retained search earns its keep and how to choose the right model.
Read insightSpecialisms
Marketing leaders and specialists, from Marketing Executive through to Head of Marketing, Marketing Director and CMO.
Explore Marketing & LeadershipDigital and commercially focused specialists across performance, paid media, PPC, SEO, CRM, eCommerce, acquisition and retention.
Explore Digital, Performance & eCommercePR, communications, corporate comms, content, social, influencer and reputation roles across agency and client-side teams.
Explore PR, Communications & ContentThe people who lead clients, teams and agencies, from Account Manager and Account Director through to Business Director, Managing Partner and Managing Director.
Explore Agency Client Services & LeadershipWhat Essential Resourcing believes
The job title isn't the brief.
A good CV doesn't automatically mean a good candidate.
Salary advice should be honest, not flattering.
Feedback is basic respect, not a favour.
Technology should make recruitment better, not less human.
Fewer CVs. Better conversations.
Better hiring decisions.
- David Walsh
One straight conversation. If Essential Resourcing isn't the right answer, you'll be told that too.