Regardless of how good of a fit a marketing candidate is for one of your jobs, you risk missing out on a great hiring opportunity if you’re not exposing them to the right people in your organization.
The interview process is an opportunity for you to learn more about a candidate and evaluate their qualification. But rest assured that for every bit of scrutiny you give a good potential marketing hire, they’re examining you with just as much of a critical eye.
Extremely talented marketers with high-demand skillsets can afford to be picky right now. So just like you market your product to your best audience, so must you also be able to market your team and opportunities to top talent.
The Ultimate Goal for Your Interview Environment
As a rule, you should aim for an interview experience that is so positive and compelling; your interviewees all want the job.
To get the best possible candidate pool to choose from, you ultimately want a hiring strategy that leaves every single one of your candidates wanting to work for you, even if they end up not being very strong options. The more options you have, the better.
By going out of your way to positively engage all your candidates, you can be consistently sure that your first choice is as interested in you as you are them. And if for whatever reason you’re not able to make an employment arrangement with that top marketer, you’ll know you can confidently offer the role to the next most qualified individual.
Honestly Assessing Your Hiring Experience
It only takes something relatively minor to turn a prime marketing candidate off from your organization. One poor interview with an unenthusiastic or underinformed interviewer can overcome two relatively positive ones.
The first step in developing a more effective interview experience requires a thorough evaluation of where it is now. In an active business environment, it’s easy to lose perspective on how engaging your interview process is and where your employment brand stands in the eyes of top potential hires.
One poor interview with an unenthusiastic interviewer can overcome two relatively positive ones.
The hard truth many organizations must be able to accept and work around is that, at least at first glance, their brand isn’t necessarily the most exciting, sexy thing on the market from an employment perspective.
And that’s perfectly fine. Your company doesn’t need to be trendy to be profitable and a great place to work.
But when your employment brand isn’t making your company THE destination for highly skilled marketing talent, you’ll have a hard time attracting the best marketers if your interview and hiring process isn’t exceptional.
Selecting Your Interview Panel
Marketers like to talk a lot about customer experience and brand consistency. Well, that kind of care and consideration needs to go into your marketing interview experience as well.
That counts for a lot of little things: optimizing your application process, maintaining a reliable interview schedule and keeping all the basic boxes checked for a professional interview. It also means carefully selecting who, exactly, will be interacting with your candidates.
Your interviewers will be the human faces candidates attach to your company as an employer. If candidates don’t can’t make a connection with those personalities and don’t sense any enthusiasm, they’re unlikely to walk away from their interviews dying to get the job.
So what makes for a quality interviewer? Ideally, it will be someone with a combination of:
- Deep understanding of marketing in general and the needs of the role in particular
- Readily apparent passion for your company and working with extremely talented professionals
- Well organized and able to take the time needed to properly prepare for the interview
Unfortunately, it can be harder than you might think to find people with all those qualities. Standard HR personnel and internal recruitment teams might not fully understand the demands of the role or the intricacies of high-level marketing qualifications. Expert marketers sometimes lack the business presence or practical knowledge to conduct a professional and productive interview.
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And neither may possess the personality and charisma to get the candidate engaged and interested in the role. Even very good employees that are passionate about their work aren’t always able to translate that into a demeanor that positively rubs off on your candidate.
Other Important People to Consider in the Hiring Experience
While the interviewers themselves will probably make the most important impressions on your potential marketers, in reality almost everyone in your organization can play a role in improving the hiring experience.
A rude receptionist or dismissive HR contact could be a swift dealbreaker.
For instance, a secretary that’s particularly responsive during interview scheduling or an especially friendly employee encountered in an office hallway can create a lasting positive memory. Take steps to ensure anyone who might encounter an office guest knows how to appropriately interact with them.
Finally, if you work with a recruiter, choose them carefully. When selecting marketing recruitment agencies, ensure you partner with someone who has a long track record of success engaging marketers, who fully understand your needs, and has the same passion for marketing that you expect out of your new hire.
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