Kelly Barcelos — February 4, 2019 — February 4, 2019
Building a top-notch marketing team that efficiently meets business goals requires constant scouting for the brightest B2B marketing talent. So, if you want to tap this elusive category of talent that is both analytically gifted and creatively skilled, then you need to optimize your recruitment and selection process on an ongoing basis.
Follow these 7 steps during your search to spot and source top-choice marketing talent:
1 – Identify Your Needs
Before you start headhunting make sure you’ve clearly understood the specific needs of your B2B marketing team. List down all the responsibilities your potential employees will be performing and audit the skills and experience that the current team has. This will help you identify the skills that are entirely missing at the moment or need massive improvement so you can complete your current marketing lineup.
These insights coupled with the growth you expect in the coming years will make your search more focused, enabling you to find the right fit much faster. When you have a clear idea of the role and its responsibilities, you can tweak your job descriptions and conduct your interviews more efficiently.
2 – Initiate an Employee Referral Program
Sometimes top-choice candidates come through job boards or social networks, but most often they come through referrals. So ask your existing team members to recommend suitable candidates who can fill your current vacancies.
When you make your own employees the brand ambassadors of your talent acquisition process, it makes for a strong selling point and accelerates your time to hire. Engaging your in-house team in the selection process will also ensure that you make fewer hiring errors and increase the sense of belongingness. Finally, it promotes a strong work culture and makes the onboarding easy for new hires.
3 – Look Beyond the Resume
The standard resume may not always coincide with the actual candidate so shift your focus from the candidate’s personality to the projects they’ve handled. Look at their work performance based on the business goals and check how well they’ve collaborated during the campaigns they worked on.
Understand their marketing approach and the methods they use to achieve their targets on timelines. If your potential candidates have been learning through their roles, you know can end your search right there!
4 – Identify Exceptional Talent
A knack for learning combined with a growth mindset is way more important than the previous experience a potential candidate has. A candidate, who is adaptable and open to learning and change, is sure to add value in a dynamic B2B environment.
You can tap these learners by looking for candidates who are regularly reading industry publications to stay current with emerging tools, trends, and techniques. Any professional training that they may have undergone is always a plus.
5 – Scan Your Talent Pool for Strategic Thinkers
B2B marketing requires solid strategies so you need to look for someone who strikes a perfect balance between business goals and creative marketing. Your best fit is the one who can see the bigger picture, has a clear direction in mind to follow and is equally efficient at collaborating with internal team members.
6 – Consider Culture Fit
If your potential candidate has all the skills you are looking for but his/her personality is a complete clash with your current marketing team, your new hire is sure to be unhappy and unproductive.
Use the interview to identify the traits and characteristics of your potential employees so you know they will blend well with the larger team members and also get the collaboration they hope for.
7 – Create a Compelling Offer
The interview is the recruiter’s final chance to pitch so you need to show the candidate that your offer is irresistible. Use this opportunity to build a convincing case by showing why you make a great employer with ample growth opportunities. Top industry talent needs autonomy and ample room to experiment, innovate and grow professionally. If your job offer can provide all of this, the odds are highly in your favor!
Always be on the Lookout
It is never too late to be an assertive marketer if you want to build a competent team with coveted talent. Go to industry seminars and marketing events because that is where you can meet up with marketing leaders. As a recruiter or hiring manager responsible for sourcing top B2B marketing talent, you need to be networking always. An easy way to find time to do all of this is through automation. You can put all the manual tasks of your hiring process on the autopilot mode with HR tech and stay focused on implementing these 7 tips to maximize your conversions.
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