Here at Blue Wheel, we love hiring new teammates. (We’re still looking to add some new faces — check out our available openings!) But we don’t expect everyone, especially recent college graduates, to have 3–5 years of experience. That’s why our paid advertising department developed a 12-week training program for new hires!
For new hires who aren’t experts in advertising, we offer a 12-week program to give them a crash course in either paid social or paid search. Think of it as a Paid Advertising 101 course — without the $150 school book 🤪 The goal of this training is to allow each teammate to be in platform doing all of their own work by week 12.
Throughout the course of the 3 months, teammates typically do one week of training, one week of work, so they can practice everything they’ve learned in real time. When they’re first in platform, we make sure to have a heavy-handed approach to help them learn.
We created a template in our project tracking software, which we clone for each new hire. This allows us to keep track of their progress, see what’s coming up in their training, and even have a list of tasks to complete. Everyone is on the same page!
We piloted this program a few times with new hires who had zero experience working in the portal. From that, we learned to implement a structure to the plan (one week training, one week working) in order to give hands-on experience to what they’re learning in training. Throughout the development of this training, our team leaders had to be open to change (one of our YOOCI values) in order to figure out the optimal timing.
Sean Rudy, a new Paid Search Specialist, took part in this training. “The 12-week training program is what sold me on working at Blue Wheel. I previously had only worked in Google Ads to pull metrics and I really wanted to learn how to build and manage successful Google campaigns.”
In addition, throughout their first week, new teammates receive a crash course in Blue Wheel’s values (our YOOCI values), our project tracking software, and copywriting training from our Director of Advertising, Tayler Carpenter. (She is the queen of witty ad copy.) And, of course, throughout that whole first week, you’re meeting your teammates individually and as a department, including a free lunch — yes, even though we’re fully remote! Our goal is to make connections beyond just the work.
New hires are working on client projects their first week. From exporting reports to pulling copy, they’re receiving responsibilities in their first few weeks, not just watching training videos. One-off tasks, like creating a campaign, are training opportunities. “We want their first day to have a project of some sort because we’ve all sat through the typical boring first day,” says Tayler Carpenter, Director of Advertising. “We want it to be informational — sometimes overloaded I’m sure — but also hands-on.” Because we only hire people we really believe in, we’re able to put that trust in them early, allowing them to build independence and confidence in their skills.
Sean likes the fact that he’s helping clients straight out of the gate: “This training program is special because I am given all of the tools I need to learn and grow in my professional life while getting hands-on experience helping businesses grow with Google Ads.”
Ragen Cooper, Paid Social Advertising Manager, says that this training has helped many teammates who have completed it. “Team members who are going through these trainings love it and are catching on extremely quickly, especially because they can go back and look at the training if they get stuck working on it with a client.”
Sean adds, “I’ve only been here for a month but I have already learned so much all thanks to Jordan, My, and Tayler, who have dedicated hours every week to train me and answer all of my questions!” We’re happy you’re here, Sean, and we’re looking forward to seeing where this training takes you!
Want to learn alongside industry experts? Check out our recent job openings!
