Digital marketing ‘micro agency’ created in Leeds to shake up graduate recruitment

Leeds University Union is looking to shake up conventional approaches to graduate recruitment in a new partnership with local digital agency Epiphany.

The two organisations are offering graduates the chance to create, shape and run their own not-for-profit digital marketing company.

They have set up a new ‘micro agency’ that will initially provide digital marketing services for the Union before rolling out across Leeds as the venture develops.

Each year, two graduates from Leeds University will be employed to run the company. The first intake, recruited this year, face the added task of defining the enterprise and getting it up and running.

Those hired will have support from the university’s undergraduate base and a board drawn from the two organisations.

Leeds University Union chief exec Aidan Grills said: “Leeds is an entrepreneurial city and a centre for digital marketing excellence, which we are constantly seeing through the demand for talented and innovative graduates.

“We’re confident that the students of the University of Leeds can help cement this reputation, and this partnership has been designed to create a stepping stone into the sector for Leeds’ future digital pioneers.”

Epiphany’s managing director, Tom Salmon, commented: “Leeds has some of the best digital talent and strategists in the country and if we are going to take our industry to the next level, we need to bring new thinking and fresh ideas in to the sector.

“We hope that this partnership – the first of its kind – will provide an opportunity for graduates from a range of disciplines to forge a career in digital marketing.”

He continued: “We think like the mathematicians, marketers, designers and coders that we are; we want accountants, geographers and biologists to bring a new way of looking at what we do and challenging the status quo.

“If we get this right, it will be good for our business and good for the Union but great for Leeds and our industry.”