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City marketing team reports 2025 recruitment reach and plans for targeted hiring in 2026
Summary
Marketing lead Paxton Powell told the commission the 2025 recruitment awareness campaign delivered about 1,000,000 impressions and reached roughly 400,000 unique users; the team plans continued streaming and social advertising plus targeted campaigns, a hiring-manager training and an entry-level fire recruitment push in 2026.
Paxton Powell presented the city’s 2025 recruitment-marketing recap and plans for 2026 at the Jan. 20 Civil Service Commission meeting.
Powell said the 2025 effort had two primary aims: an awareness strategy to keep the City of Spokane top-of-mind for job seekers and a direct-recruitment strategy for specific roles. "We had paid ads on Hulu, Spotify, and Instagram. Combined, we received over 1,000,000 impressions," Powell said, adding the campaign reached about 400,000 unique users who saw the ads an average of 2.42 times and generated roughly 11,000 clicks.
On direct recruitment, Powell said the city’s contracts with LinkedIn and Indeed produced more than 60,000 post views and around 5,000 apply starts combined; Indeed produced about 687 more apply starts than LinkedIn during the period reported. Powell noted that the city’s NeoGov applicant-tracking platform does not provide full "funnel" attribution (connecting ad clicks directly to applications) without paying an add-on fee.
Powell said the city attended 17 job fairs and community events in 2025 and expanded internal communication efforts, including two newsletters and a merit tour reaching staff in 107 departments. He also said the city paused some paid ads in October after learning of planned layoffs so the outreach optics would not appear inconsistent with layoffs.
For 2026 Powell said the office will continue the two-pronged advertising strategy, refine direct recruitment on Indeed, partner with City Cable 5 on spotlights when capacity allows, and launch a hiring-manager training course through NeoGov Learn. He singled out a special marketing push for entry-level fire recruitment as the city shifts from an external testing provider to in-house testing.
Commissioners asked how the city reconciles recruitment activity with recent layoffs. Powell and staff said most layoffs were at the professional/exempt level, while many recruitments are for entry-level roles; staff confirmed laid-off employees were made aware of application options and that recruitment choices were partly driven by ongoing operational needs and budget constraints.
No formal actions were taken on the marketing report; commissioners thanked Powell and staff for the work and for increased internal engagement with departments.
