Hiring marketers is hard.
You want a professional ‘jack-of-all-trades’ in marketing as well as a critical thinker, high achiever and someone sociable.
The perfect employee doesn’t exist. We wish they did too – but they don’t. So we’ve put together our top 10 things you should be looking for to give you a helping hand with your next hire.
1. Adaptability
The number one hiring aspect for a marketer should be their ability to adapt. Whether that means they’re more comfortable taking the lead in a B2B campaign or getting dirty with HTML or SEO, the important thing is that they at least have some experience and are comfortable in a wide range of situations, which is what marketing presents us with.
2. Charisma and “Soft Skills”
A people-person is easy to find. What’s harder is someone that will understand what those people are doing/saying and to make everyone feel valued. A team leader is desired, but a team player is a rare diamond that should be coveted within your organisation.
3. Patience
Not everything will happen straight away. Whether you’ve got a B2B client with a long buying process or a consumer group that don’t engage right away (for whatever reason), marketing – particularly the inbound variety – takes time and effort to succeed. When hiring a marketer for your business, a patient individual will create a calming work environment and ethic that will infect your team in a good way.
4. Critical Thinking
Problem solving and critical thinking are essential parts of everyday adult life. Marketing is a problem in itself: how do we get more leads for this client? Thinking about all your marketing problems critically is the trait that one needs in this industry and one of the most important aspects you’ll need to be on the lookout for when it comes to hiring a new marketer. We suggest providing them with a few tests during the hiring process to see how they approach problems.
5. Enthusiastic
Happy and bright people with a great work ethic make life better. Why would you want to work with ‘Debbie Downer’ over ‘Enthusiastic Eddie’? You wouldn’t. Your outlook at work has a huge impact on your outlook in life. Your next marketing hire should bring this same enthusiasm to work every day and you’ll notice just how much they can improve morale right away.
6. Analytical
Analysis is a key part of any marketing position. Not only the ability to report on findings and outcomes from any campaign, but analytical skills to think about ‘why’ and to question ‘how’, behind certain items of a campaign. A good analyst will be able to figure out what’s working so you can scale it. In other words – bottling lightning. This aspect goes hand-in-hand with critical thinking, and if you find a marketer with both of these traits, hire them right now!
7. Good Storyteller
At CLCK, we value storytelling extremely highly. Being an agency specialising in inbound and content marketing, we constantly want to talk to our clients’ audiences on a personal level through stories and build relationships. As we progress into a more consumer-centric world with micro-segmentation, storytelling is becoming the bridge with which to connect individuals with your brand to form your “tribe“.
8. Confident
Confidence: the food of the wise man, but the liquor of the fool. It’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance in the marketing world, but there’s possibly nothing more important than a marketer that knows when to admit that they can or can’t figure a situation out. Big wins in marketing often come from taking big risks – trying new things and not being afraid to fail. Having the confidence to stick to your guns and try a new idea is important, and will yield big results.
9. Learner
Not only is the ability and desire to understand and learn new skills important, but the drive to be taught is paramount. To gauge a new hire’s desire to learn and be taught, ask them about any times they may have engaged with mentor opportunities and see what they learnt along the way.
10. Competitor
No one likes second place. So make sure when hiring a marketer that they have a drive to succeed – not just in their specific role, but in your workplace as a whole, and even in their general life. It’s an important quality to have and when you differentiate this in a new hire from the rest, you’re getting a determined and driven individual who will endeavour to compete for you and your business.
Wrapping Up
Your organisation might need specific skills alongside the above, or maybe even one marketer with a focused niche in one of the qualities – for example, a great storyteller. At CLCK we strive hard to hire the best all-round marketers with a combination of the qualities listed above and the ability to push themselves to get the job done.
Have any other qualities you look for when hiring? Tell us in the comments section below!