At a glance:

The Creative Services Manager is a strategic talent partner supporting the work of the agency’s creative teams. The Creative Services Manager must have both a creative and a business mind, which is crucial for keeping the creative operations running smoothly. They must effectively communicate across multiple departments involved in creative initiatives to ensure smooth processes, effective collaboration, assign skilled resources, and provide on-time reporting especially within a remote workforce.

While a remote position, consistently working Pacific Time hours is expected.

What does a Creative Services Manager do at Rain the Growth Agency?

Team Leading, Coordinating, Managing

• By attending daily Creative Resource Management meetings, maintain constant knowledge of current and upcoming projects and new business development activities as they relate to resourcing
• Work collaboratively with project managers and key stakeholders to understand and respond to creative resource needs, ensuring positive workflow.
• Collaborate with Creative Directors to assess talent needs and make creative allocations against current and future projects.
• Monitor staffing and resources against assigned projects to meet deadlines and budgets around creative staff assignments. Support the escalation of project risks and issues to SVP, Group Creative Director as required.
• Champion internal systems for higher productivity and efficiency; recommend process improvements for Resource Management.
• Nurture a creative group that is not only superbly talented, but treats people with kindness and respect, keeping in line with our agency culture.
• Work with SVP, Group Creative Director ensuring on-time performance plans for Creative team members.
• Work closely with non-creative Department leads (Production, Post, Project Management) to estimate all new projects and or change orders.
• Generate all creative requests for Executive approval when freelance resources are needed.
• Manage all contracts with freelance resources, independent contract agreements, deal memos, efficient and thorough onboarding, timesheet, and invoice approvals.

Planning, Analyzing, Evaluating

• Actively pursue top industry talent - locally, nationally, and globally - at all levels of experience using a variety of social media sites, online industry associations, and networking.
• Proactively build and sustain relationships with creative talent on a pre-existing network of contracts; track, manage and add to talent database for future resource needs.
• Develop and manage relationships with universities and outside recruiters to ensure awareness of Rain the Growth Agency.
• Work closely with Talent Management team on recruiting full-time employees, evaluating candidate portfolios, and supporting the interview and hiring process including writing and updating job descriptions.
• Partner with Talent Management to identify target salaries based on candidate’s experience, internal equity, and market rates.
• Work with SVP, Group Creative Director on creative forecasting/budgets based on input from weekly meetings and new business developments.
• Manage overall utilization by monitoring day-to-day project activities, identifying potential instances of underutilization and actively work with CDs to address and solve those issues.
• Recognize internal creative needs or project risks on an ongoing basis, escalate issues and facilitates resourcing issues / conflict resolution with appropriate department heads.

Financial & Administrative

• Manage administrative operations of the creative department including timesheets, personal time-off (PTO), and expense approvals.
• Manage freelancer approval process using Rain’s proprietary system
• Collaborate with Finance to improve tools for accurately tracking approved hours through project completion.
• Using proprietary tools, ensure complete and accurate weekly freelance labor billing
• Lead/support new hire onboarding within Creative team.
• Ad-hoc projects as assigned

What makes a great Creative Services Manager at our agency?

• 10+ years sourcing and hiring freelance and full-time creative talent in an agency setting
• Creative background a plus
• Experience managing teams (1+ direct reports)
• Strong analytical thinking and problem-solving skills focused on operational efficiency
• Proven ability to manage multiple shifting priorities and meet deadlines
• Passionate about brand creative and creative operations; track record of driving operational excellence
• Self-starter and critical thinker who thrives in fast-paced, entrepreneurial environments
• Highly organized, detail-oriented, collaborative, and adaptable
• Strong ownership, accountability, and follow-through
• Partner with Creative leadership to oversee day-to-day department operations, talent planning, and resource management
• Skilled in multi-channel sourcing strategies to attract active and passive Creative talent
• Build a diverse talent pipeline, reducing reliance on external recruiters while maintaining strong relationships with them
• Agency ambassador who aligns talent with opportunity; strong closer and communicator
• Excellent listening, communication, and relationship-building skills
• Exceptional organizational and time-management abilities
• Independent thinker aligned with Rain the Growth Agency’s core values
• Deep understanding of agency business and culture
• Collaborate with Creative leadership on forecasting and budget planning, using insights from weekly meetings and business developments.

Why work at Rain the Growth Agency?

• We are a national leader in DTC marketing and a fully integrated creative and media agency. With a 25+-year history and around 250 employees, we are established enough to have all the bells and whistles, but small enough for an entrepreneurial and welcoming culture where everyone is heard.
• Our Flexible First environment empowers us to work from where we’d like, but still connect with one another virtually and in-person when possible.
• We proudly invest in our employees, technology, and tools, ensuring the best possible work experience. As such, we offer a rich benefits package including the following:

• Medical, Dental, and Vision insurance
• Quarterly profit-sharing program
• 401(K) plan with employer match (and immediate eligibility)
• 4-6 weeks PTO
• 12 paid holidays
• 12-18 weeks fully-paid Family and Medical Leave
• Monthly Work-From-Home allowance
• Additional benefits details can be found here

• Transparency is valued. We actively ensure employees know how we are doing and where we are going. We encourage open communication, share our successes, and hold each other accountable.
• We are passionate about our clients and deliver simultaneously on their brand and sales objectives, an approach we call Transactional Brand Building. To learn more about our work and proprietary philosophy, please check us out here.