How to Hire a Senior-Level Marketer

Hiring a Senior-Level Marketing Professional, Part Four

How to Hire a Marketer to Lead and Grow an Existing Team of Marketers

Over the last weeks, I have been offering advice about how to hire the marketing professional who can meet your specific needs. Today, in my fourth post in the series, we will explore how to hire if . . .

You Need a Marketer Who Can to Manage and Grow an Existing Team of Marketers

You might be looking for someone whose marketing background and skills are far superior to those on your current team. But in come cases, you might not be. In either case, here are some factors to consider:

Do you have a sense that they will be good mentors and teachers? Ask them to describe previous successes in building strong marketing teams. Good mentors usually like to talk about the people they have helped in the past.
Do you think they will lead the team toward success, or create divisions in the ranks? One way to evaluate this? If candidates talk about everything that they have personally accomplished, they might not be team-builders. If they talk about what their teams have gotten done, they could be better teachers and mentors.

Try to get a sense of their motivation. If they are more interested in being the boss or having a specific title, you probably have the wrong person. If they are more concerned with giving your team the ability to “fish on their own,” then you have a winner.

A few words of caution . . .

Don’t let a prospective candidate confuse you with marketing jargon, buzzwords, a single success or go into tactical details of areas of opportunity where they know they will have success. All marketers should be able to find the “low hanging fruit” and work tactically to grab it. Being able to spot those people in an interview is not impressive.

What sets good marketers apart is our ability to think about all the marketing tools and how they can work together to move a business forward. If the only solution you hear from a potential hire is about blogging, SEO, content marketing, inbound marketing, CRM or any of the other “hot” marketing topics of the day, move on. You want a thinker, not someone who is just jumping on the latest marketing bandwagon.

A Free Offer to You

Since you have read my four posts on hiring, let me make you an offer . . . feel free to contact me and I will gladly help you review any marketing candidates you are considering. I have interviewed many candidates over the years and I have developed a pretty good ear and eye for top-quality candidates.