Studiohawk

StudioHawk

StudioHawk is a globally recognized SEO agency, originally founded in Australia by Harry Sanders.

The brand has since expanded to the UK and the United States.

In the US, the agency is led by Sophie Brannon, who grew the US division to over $1 million in ARR within its first 10 months, a story Josh Peacock explored in depth on The Agency Growth Club Podcast.

StudioHawk’s culture is built around “wholesome nerds”: people who are genuinely passionate about SEO, not just treating it as a job.

The brief

As StudioHawk US continued to grow, Sophie needed to make her first senior hire in Atlanta.

The new Senior SEO Specialist would be responsible for taking enterprise clients off Sophie’s plate, mentoring the junior team, and leading the SEO department in Sophie’s absence.

The role required a candidate who was both technically strong and a natural leader, and it was a full-time, in-office position in Atlanta, a market where remote and hybrid roles are the norm.

The challenge

This was StudioHawk’s first senior hire in the US market. The role carried significant responsibility: enterprise client ownership, junior team mentorship, and department leadership in the founder’s absence.

Finding a candidate who combined that technical depth and leadership maturity with a genuine cultural fit for StudioHawk’s ‘wholesome nerd’ environment, and who was willing to commit to a full-time, in-office role in Atlanta, was the defining constraint of the search.

The process

Search For Hire’s relationship with StudioHawk predates the US launch. Having already worked with the Australian and UK branches, the team had a deep understanding of the agency’s culture and standards.

This allowed for a proactive approach: months before the role was formally opened, Search For Hire began building a pipeline of qualified candidates in the Atlanta area.

By the time Sophie was ready to hire, five candidates were already prepared and ready for interview.

The team specifically sought out candidates from agencies with a similar culture: multi-location, high-performance environments where SEO was a genuine passion, not just a profession.

Additional Differentiator: Golden Recruitment Formula

Before any candidate was introduced, they were sent a link to Search For Hire’s Agency Growth Club podcast episode featuring Harry Sanders.

This gave candidates a deep understanding of StudioHawk’s culture, growth plans, and expectations, adding cultural pre-alignment to the search as part of the Golden Recruitment Formula approach.

The outcome

StudioHawk hired one of the five candidates within a two-week interview process.

The placement was seamless, and the new hire has been instrumental in the continued growth of the US office.

“Wanted to share a big thank you to Daris and the SEO for Hire team. We’re so excited about the senior joining us in the New Year.

Daris was awesome at being so flexible with my ever-changing needs and wants, and still finding the right fit!

The process was super efficient and the team always deliver. Looking forward to hiring more awesome people through you in the near future.“

— Sophie Brannon, Co-Founder of StudioHawk US

Why this matters

This wasn’t a reactive recruitment process, it was a relationship-led strategy.

Because Search For Hire had partnered with StudioHawk across multiple continents, the team deeply understood the agency’s culture, performance standards, and growth ambitions.

That understanding made proactive pipeline building possible, and pipeline building is what turned a challenging, in-office-only search in a competitive market into a two-week placement.

For growing agencies expanding into new geographies, the hardest part of a first senior hire is often the constraint that makes it feel impossible.

In StudioHawk’s case, that was the in-office requirement in Atlanta. A generalist recruiter unfamiliar with the agency’s culture would have struggled to attract the right candidates to that brief. A long-term partner who already knew what ‘wholesome nerd’ meant could build a pipeline that met it.

The result was a seamless senior leadership hire that unlocked Sophie’s time and accelerated the US office’s growth.