Resumes are good at revealing quantity but not quality of work. Unless you put a candidate on probation, it’s difficult to assess his qualifications except through interviews and reference checks.
Boma was founded by marketing people who have a lot of experience hiring other marketing people. We often joke, “It takes one to know one.” We like to give tests and make candidates perform on the spot. When possible, we have two people doing the interviewing, so we can discuss the candidate’s answers afterwards.
In our experience, the best marketing people are the ones who can do snap analysis, speak well, and write well. After all, this is what they have to do on the job. So much hinges on their ability to think on their feet and communicate the right message to a targeted audience. So, ask the candidate to give a five-minute pitch on selling ice to an Eskimo. Record it, and later you can go back and critique the quality and delivery of his arguments. Then ask him to write a 150-word advertisement on the same subject. Give him fifteen minutes, but don’t give him any other instructions. See if he can create his own rules.
In both of these exercises, you should be looking for stream-of-consciousness deliveries. Does his analysis and presentation come quickly and naturally? Are his arguments and assumptions about the subject credible? For the ad, did he have the presence of mind to describe the graphic? If he made up the name of the world’s leading expert on igloo architecture and gave the melting point of ice at 10,000 feet, then this is a good sign. You are looking for someone who is creative and spontaneous. More importantly, you want this person to project the thoughts and habits of customers without much effort.
Marketing professionals must have good critical thinking skills. Ask the job candidate what makes Starbucks successful or how WTO will affect first-world vs. third-world countries. First of all, a good marketing person would have pondered these phenomena long ago. Secondly, he should be able to draw some strong conclusions just from everyday information (some cities have more Starbucks stores than stop signs). His answers will tell you a lot about his ability to analyze real-world business conditions without having to pay a consultant or go to the Library of Congress.
Ironically, the most important hiring criteria is chemistry. Someone who is brilliant but anti-social can ruin your organization and cause others to quit. At the very least, he’ll make your life a living hell. That’s why checking with former co-workers and managers is also very important.
If all candidates are the same with respect to the above criteria, you should give more weight to those who have strong hands-on or production experience. This includes writing, programming, graphic design, and project management. Most marketing programs fail for lack of resources (that’s why Boma is in business). A person who was a strong individual contributor and is now a marketing manager is more likely to know what it takes to produce projects. They are the ones you can trust to schedule work, commit resources, and spend money. Inexperienced marketing managers like to impress the hire-ups by promising the world. When it comes to delivering, they expect too much too soon from their groups and set them up for failure.
Other interviewing techniques include:
. always asking open-ended questions, not yes/no questions. The former brings out more information (“How are you different from other marketing people?”), while the latter tends to give away the answer in the question (“Are you good at project management?”);
. asking the candidate to project the opinion of his former boss or employees, “What would your old boss tell me about your leadership skills?” or “What would your former employees say are your best and worst qualities?” With these questions, you are likely to get an honest answer, because the pretext is that you can verify;
. asking the candidate to bring in a portfolio of projects that he worked on. Ask him to explain his role in project, how his team was organized, and what the most difficult aspect of the project was. His answers will reflect just how involved he was and how much he knows about process; and
. making sure there is a career fit. The candidate may be overqualified for the job. He may end up bored and unproductive.
In today’s volatile economy, marketing people are the last to get hired and the first to get fired. Yet, the good ones love what they do and will put their creative and intellectual best in the service of your business. Now it ‘s your job to find out who they are and to hire them.
Ted Fong, General Manager, has worked in high-tech marketing for most of his career. He was Director of Marketing at Interwoven, Inc, an nterprise software company, where he ran marketing communications and web operations. He also worked for Cognex Corporation and Alcatel North Asia Pacific. Mr. Fong has a BS in bioengineering from U.C. Berkeley and an MBA from UCLA. http://www.bomacorp.com
