How to Hire a Modern Marketer Not a Marketing Dinosaur

It’s hard to find the right balance in a new employee of experience in the field and the wide array of technical skills and broad knowledge that a modern marketer must posses in 2015. How do you go about hiring someone who is a modern marketer ready to take on your marketing plan?

Define What You're Looking For

You’ll first need to clearly define what it is that you’re looking for. What goals and metrics will you use to track this person's success? What skills must they possess? Have you developed a marketing strategy which this person will implement or will they be tasked with creating the strategy? Define all this ahead of time before you even go looking.

Write a Compelling Job Description

The job description needs to be interesting enough to capture the attention of your ideal candidates. HubSpot actually created created 37 pre-written inbound marketing job descriptions that are a pretty awesome place to start. Customize them to fit your company character and specific needs and benefits.

Understand Some Training May Be Necessary

Most colleges and universities today still teach very traditional marketing courses. While social media and web content skills have crept into many of these classes, few will teach truly inbound strategy. Fortunately, HubSpot's Inbound Marketing Certification is free and open to anyone (even if you're not a HubSpot customer) Check it out now. The certification covers the fundamentals of modern marketing tactics. This is usually a good first step for anyone you hire to be sure you’re on the same page. Find someone who is already Inbound Marketing Certified? Even better!

Look for Character Traits Not Just Skills 

While technical chops are great, the ideal marketer must possess a few key character traits as well. A truly modern marketer must be flexible and able to move between multiple responsibilities and types of work. This may mean being at a trade show one week, followed by analyzing data the next, followed by writing blogs and ebooks the next.

Plus, the world online is constantly changing. Your ideal marketer will be naturally curious and always be looking for opportunities to learn. This person should question marketing strategies and tactics continuously and always be looking for ways to improve.

Use Modern Marketing to Attract Modern Marketers

Posting on job boards is a great place to start. However, you can also use some of the same marketing tactics you use to attract leads, to attract potential employees. Create great content showing what it’s like to work for your company. Use social networks, blog posts, emails and your website to promote that content. Be sure to have calls-to-action and a form to capture candidate information!

Stephanie Casstevens is the Marketing Manager for Duo Consulting, located in Chicago, Illinois. As a HubSpot and Inbound certified marketer, Stephanie spends most of her day creating uniquely valuable content for Duo and Duo's clients. Read more from Stephanie on the Duo Consulting blog.