Here are 7 insights to kick off our week:
1. The journey beats the title
A person who have been to the trenches, which are highly relevant to the positions we’re hiring for is much more relevant than the a head-of ‘field’ in an already established company and completely different trenches.
The latter may be an amazing fit to another marketing department — but don’t be mis-guided by the title — the journey counts more.
2. Years in profession doesn’t equal Years of Experience
I am less keen of having a must-have demands for 5+ years in any senior profession because it only tells a very specific portion of the story.
+ That’s what everyone else are looking for when recruiting for a senior position.
There might be someone who had:
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- 2 years in marketing but 7 years as a developer for example — maybe that’s the best recruit for your B2D team (+9 years’ career is higher 5)
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- Been promoted quickly to lead a team in the relevant profession
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- Received bigger responsibilities — a PMM which received ownership of a more robust product ; a performance based UA manager managing 3X the budget ; Social media manager getting the keys to create a completely new channel and nails it
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- And more
There a must-have experience to be gained and there’s a reason to search for X years of experience — but who said 2 years in the specific niche is not enough?
3. Reverse engineering is key
Think to yourself —from your existing team — the dream team you already have been working with achieving KPIs and reaching crazy milestones:
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- What would make them better as a team?
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- What is great about them which you’d like to assure your team gets with its new addition?
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- What would you avoid?
I strongly recommend doing the actual science here — gather the data, map it (I like using SWOT), reach conclusions and plan accordingly.
Then build the next chapter of your team.
4. Model the position, before modeling the candidates
I like to model the dream candidate for a position — listing the current my expectations from a right-fit candidate in high level — dividing must-haves, nice-to-haves and must-not-haves
I recommend doing so both professional level as well as personal / behavioral (DM me / comment freely if you’d like a template of that)
5. Avoid judging based on non-relevant facts, at all costs
If you mis-judge someone because of any irrelevant factor who’s not part of assessing their fit to your team, the damage and harm can be dramatic — to you, to the candidate and to your organization’s reputation.
You can use this “Sandwich” approach to keep things in order:
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- No room for prejudice
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- Be relevant to your model of a great candidate
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- If / when you suspect that something won’t match the model — raise a flag, ask about it, find out — don’t assume
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- Get the answers you need to establish an estimation of a great fit
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- No room for prejudice
6. Measure the right things
To conclude — I try to keep an open mind, and when it comes to recruits — I aim to narrow-down on the true must-haves — not limiting the rest at all.
Recruiting Marketers is more street smart than book smart — the paper (i.e CV) doesn’t provide you enough from what you need.
And results speaks volume.
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- Focusing on milestones achieved vs. years of practice
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- Focusing on multi-dimension experience vs. a specific niche (thought open to specific niche experience as well)
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- Focusing on responsibilities development vs. title changes
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- Focusing on KPIs and revenues generated vs. client name dropping
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- Focusing on data and a solid-impression vs. un-based assumptions
Recruiting is always a bet. It also has limitations around budget, timelines, market pressure, etc.
Because of that — it’s better to stop wasting time on vanity metrics of recruiting process — focus on what really matters — and find your company’s next rising stars.
And once they arrive and indeed meet expectations — nurture and develop as if your business depends on it — in many ways, even for the largest teams and most known brands — it does.
Ah yes. number 7 — that’s yours to contribute — feel free to comment with additional lessons so we can all gain from it.
Thank you and have a good productive week
