Hiring a marketer

Recently a couple of founders have asked me about how they should think about hiring their first marketer. I've come back at them with very old advice, from when I worked at MarketInvoice a few years back and grew the marketing team there from just me to eight people.

I've decided to repost a couple of short blog posts I wrote at the time here, just in case it proves useful to anyone else.

First time entrepreneurs often toil away alone, or with a technical cofounder, for months or years at the start of their startup journey. Some hire teams of engineers next, or product people, or designers, or even salespeople.

But at some point, most startups are going to need a marketer.

If you're looking for your first marketing hire, you've got a challenge. Most marketers come from inside an agency or from corporate life. Success in these environments doesn't necessarily mean that these types will be successful in a startup.

You want someone smart, someone who can move quickly and get things done, but who can also think strategically.

For me there are three key attributes to look for when hiring a classic startup 'full-stack' marketer.

Are they creative?

Yeah, I know it seems obvious. Most people think marketing is all about writing blogs, tweeting and designing pretty brochures.

Creativity means a lot more than this. Is your hire able to come up with awesome campaign and press release ideas? Can they work with designers, photographers and videographers? Without 'aha' moments and creative spark your marketing will fail to differentiate your startup from competitors.

These people can write punchy copy. They're valuable.

Are they commercial?

There are two key components to most businesses- making a product, and selling it. Marketing is all about building a scalable acquisition and retention strategy.

Startup marketers need to be able to understand how any one campaign links back to revenue, and to track back how a pound spent in one channel measures up against any other channel.

Are they analytical?

Heard of 'growth hacking'? It's basically analytical marketing. Get a marketer who can structure campaigns as tests, coming up with smart hypotheses and designing experiments to prove or disprove them.

Analytical marketers will be able to pull a mailing list into an Excel, run a VLookup against CRM data, define the key metrics such as CPA and revenue and work backwards from campaign results to see if they have seen a significant uplift.

The best startup marketer

If you have someone who is creative, commercial and analytical, great. They'll be able to map the funnel against company milestones and revenue goals. They'll be able to design an in-depth monthly insight report in Excel to track progress against those goals. Plus they'll be able to design compelling campaigns with engaging messaging targeted towards your key audiences.

However, most marketers will have a weakness. But be careful if you have to compromise...

Creative + Commercial (- Analytical) = will make progress but without data-driven decision making

Creative + Analytical (- Commercial) = won't understand the audience and objectives enough to design effective campaigns

Commercial + Analytical (- Creative) = will be strong on media buying and channels such as PPC, but won't come up with differentiating content

Designing an interview process

I used to do a lot of hiring when I headed up the marketing team at MarketInvoice. Here's a quick rundown that I wrote at the time of how I ran the interview process there.

1- The Phone Screen

Candidates apply on the website, which pulls their details through to our tracking system (we used Workable). They receive an automated email from my email address as the hiring manager (that I set up using Zapier triggers). The email tells the candidate about the process, and gives them my details in case they have questions.

For the most promising candidates I set up an initial phone call over email at the earliest opportunity, arranged over email.

The phone call is around 10-15 minutes long, tops. I ask the following questions and take notes on the answers in Workable:

• What are you up to at the moment?
• What do you know about MarketInvoice?
• Why are you interested in the role?
• What could you bring to our team that's unique?
• Availability (notice period) and salary expectations
• Do you have any questions for me?

At this stage I want to feel excited to continue the conversation. The best candidates convey why they'd love the role, they confirm that they've done some good research into the company, and they ask smart questions.

2 - Face-to-face interview (sometimes via Skype)

The next stage is a 45-60 minute face-to-face interview either in our office or on Skype, with me (the hiring manager).

I try to make this as informal as possible while keeping a consistent structure. With the best candidates this is an opportunity to 'sell' to them, as well as quiz them. I want them to leave feeling really excited about MarketInvoice.

The structure varies according to the specialisms of each role, but for a generalist I'd recommend asking questions around four key themes:

• Motivation to join this company and for this particular role
• Creative ability (coming up with ideas, design, writing)
• Commercial acumen (talking through the funnel, linking campaign ideas back to revenue, asking candidates to work out profit margins)
• Analytical and technical skills (ask about software used, Google Analytics, Excel functions, coding skills)

You're looking to try and measure key attributes and competencies for the role, as well as make sure that this person is motivated to perform well if you hire them.

At MarketInvoice we score candidates for each question answered in order to make comparison easier, although many questions are more subjective than objective. So as well as a score, there'll be notes on each interview that are typed up in Workable.

I'm also looking out for red flags:

• Poor communication (not concise, not clear, avoids answering questions)
• Basic lack of understanding around MarketInvoice
• Clear embellishments of the truth (says they're good at Excel, can't name a function)
• Too much arrogance

At the end of this interview I take candidates on a tour of the office to show them where they might be working. The best time for this is around lunch or towards the end of the day when there are people hanging out in the communal area, playing table football, or attending a lunch-and-learn. Hopefully they leave feeling like MarketInvoice is the place for them.

3 - Tasks and group stage

Great candidates are asked if they're alright to prep a task to bring in for the next stage- a group interview. Tasks, again, vary from role to role. Graduates might write a blog, specialists might prepare a presentation (say, on proposed changes to the website homepage), potential CMOs write a 90 day plan.

At group stage I bring in another 2-4 of my team and, with the candidate, we talk about the task. The candidate has time to go through their plan or presentation, then we ask questions. It takes perhaps 30-45 minutes.

At this point you're assessing what it would be like to have this person in your team full time. How do they interact with other team members? How defensive or accepting are they of feedback?

For the best candidates you'll get a brilliantly delivered task, great energy and ideas, but also you'll see that they work well in your team.

Important note - after this interview takes place I ask all team members present to email me separately (without discussion) their feedback in a few sentences using a simple template- pros, cons, and summary. Asking each individual to come up with their own independent feedback limits the bias that is the bandwagon effect, meaning that if someone has concerns they are more likely to voice them. Once this feedback is gathered we make an effort to discuss together before the final decision is made by the hiring manager.