Proud to be part of a great community

As we are closing 2023, I'd like to take the opportunity to express my gratitude to be part of the media, adtech and gaming community. As we know, it comes down to the people, always. I started first in the music industry in 2002, an industry that was struggling to innovate and paid the price for that. I joined AOL in 2008, thanks to Jean-Baptiste Goujon , someone I'm still very grateful for trusting me as this move changed my career dramatically. Having held predominently sales role, I have met hundreds of clients, partners, job applicants, sales people, media buyers, advertisers, competitors... and really, that's what i love about sales, it's about building trust, understand people & their challenges, building long lasting relationships & eventually making industry friends along the way.

It's not my typical Linkedin post, but this time I felt the need to share more personal things, for once. In 2021, I had the chance to be hired by the great Dima Roznouski at Unity to lead the EMEA Monetisation team, my plan was to stay long term. My team was incredibly sharp, expert in their field and highly motivated, we had a great product and we were growing. I discovered a fantastic community of game developers in Turkey, Tel Aviv, Barcelona, Paris & in the Nordics region. Unfortunately, I have been laid off last June part of a global 600 people layoff, which was due both to the global & economic situation but also to the merger (acquisition really) of ironSource .

It's been more or less 6 months that I'm on the job market now, applying and thinking about what's next for my career, and it's tough. I personally call 2023 the winter of adtech. Most large companies have been through layoffs, as a consequence majority of companies are on hiring freeze. This means a very unbalanced market, more supply and than demand, and of course the more senior you are... Also, remember, i'm a french person living in the UK and even after 7 years in this country, i'm still learning the cultural but also fundamental differences between France & the UK. One example is the job seeker allowance, i don't understand how folks navigate this as basically you cannot be unemployed, it's pretty much: work or die.

There are two main things about job hunting that I found hard in 2023:

1. It's getting harder and harder to speak to a human being. The automatic filtering, now done by AI, have put the bar higher to even engage with the hiring company. Hence, now as a job seeker, you have to pay services like jobscan to help you "beat the bot". Machines are speaking to Machines first, then maybe, human beings can connect. A good % of the interviews are done have been unlocked by people I know, not by the 200+ applications i sent.
2. Resilience: job hunting is basically selling yourself, one of the hardest product to sell I think, and consequently dealing with rejection. It's hard to entable your skills, professional persona to your person, to yourself. Remember what your parents told you when you were a student, when you have a school grade , it's not you as a person that is being judged, you don't worth 0 out of 20, it's the work you have delivered. We learn to separate our work and our person, very much like the feedback culture in large corporate orgs. For job hunting it's a bit harder to separate, the fact that you do not fit exactly the company's need doesn't mean you worth nothing. Still, each negative answer you receive is still felt like a punch in the guts.

My advice and learnings so far are:

1. Start contracting right away. Since I've set-up my own legal entity, I have inbounds and folks reaching out asking for services. I really didn't think I could have clients interested in my skills on a 'consulting' basis (I don't like to use the word consulting, which is a proper industry in itself, contracting or self-employed seems better suited to me). Most companies offer commission only, low risk for them, high risk for you... stay away from that. It's like an affiliation model, you will burn impressions & inventory (basically your network), without any insurance that their creatives & conversion funnel is strong enough (a strong product to sell & marketing support to continue the metaphor). On this note, a big thank you and gratitude to Nial Ferguson Ben Barokas Brian Kane who trusted me on taking Sourcepoint to market in the Gaming sector. A very strong product, an amazing & very knowledgeable support team, a solid marketing team: it's a pleasure and an honour to work with you.
2. Your network is everything. I'd like to take the opportunity to thank my industry friends who helped me the past months. They took the time to speak to me, answer my calls, referred me, let me in at their conferences, gave me advice and supported me. I appreciate it, very much.

I'd like to thank Gamesforum John Speakman , Ciarán O'Kane , Anne-Marie Sheedy , Rachel Smith , Lindsay Rowntree from ExchangeWire , the amazing crew at Bluestripe Group James McGowan , Andy Oakes Justin Pearse Rebecca Duffin Gillian McCusker and the great Lynn Lester and Vincent Flood !

Jon Walsh for building such a great community of adtech job seekers.

The Ad tech recruiters & long time contacts Adam Dineen Lee Walker Rodney Crouch Kate Nash Mark Woods Luke Tyrrell Melina Jacovou Ed Steer James Everett Riqaz Ashraf Nicola Fitzgerald

Simon Halstead Matt Barash Noam Yasour Amine MELOUK for their mentorship & advice.

Jean-Vincent Chardon Vincent Pagnard-Jourdan Cadi Jones Aline Reiniche Dima Roznouski for their friendship & support.

Thank you to those who have referred me: Vanessa Bourdillon Keith Millsopp 🤖 Fred MOUSSA Fabien Couasnon Ilona Lubojemska François-Xavier Le Ray Ashley Bateman Maxime Cotin Kim Bolsoni Pagel COLIN Edmund Mullins Cyril Caël Delphine Pommereul Nicolas Rieul Denise Breslin Adam Morgenlender Sezgin Saltik Jack Salisbury Andreas Dooley Tamsin Powell Lyndsi Plummer Romain Heili Anthony Yazbeck Moritz Natalini Chloe Grutchfield Gina Cohen Steve Webb

All the great people who took the time to help me during all my deck presentation & interview prep Anne-Marie Kalinka @ Austin Scott Richard Brant Ross Harvey Andre Kempe David Philippson Nicolas JAIMES Paul Ripart Tina Rižnar Philippe Boscher Dominic Jacynas Parminder Singh Gill Valérie Latronche Paul Gubbins Vihan Sharma Mathilde Verron Guillaume Périé

A big thank you to Maria, my tax advisor & accountant, who is incredibly helpful on top of being a fantastic person.

The unconditional support I have from my family is precious, thank you Céline TESSIER , Tatiana Stacke !

Finally, everyone else you helped me in some capacity Guénolé Le Gall Felix Braberg Vincent Février Joel Livesey Dee Frew Shalom Michaeli Merve Sahin Hadrien des Rotours Olivier Le Bas Ross Webster Jonathan Métillon Gonçalo Alemão Martins Barış Tığlı Ryan Davies Ritesh Gohil Mickael Ferreira Keenan Timko Simon Baptist Janae Redmond Alexandre Pham Stephen Jenkins Vanna Bains Sandrine MAINEMARE Genelle Hung ...the list can go on and on.

Have a great Christmas break my friends & see you in 2024!

Vincent Tessier