How to Hire a Marketing Director
Looking for a manager to develop and execute effective marketing solutions to cultivate growth? Here are some tips for incorporating the best hiring practices into your search.
By Christine Lagorio | Feb 22, 2010
Adding marketing positions can be a tough choice for start-ups and small businesses. In many cases, founders like to personally manage sales and marketing—or else, they designate someone else on staff to handle marketing even if that person has no prior experience in the field. When it comes to hiring a marketing staff, experts recommend that entrepreneurs reach outside of their comfort zones, and find a marketing director with experience in the industry—but also a very different pedigree.
"You might want a few people who come from a different perspective and can challenge you," says hiring expert Roberta Chinsky Matuson, president of the Human Resource Solutions, a consulting company. "If you end up with eight Harvard guys in one office, they may be brilliant, but if you are marketing a product to the rest of the country, it might not work."
The ideal new hire should bring to the table a slate of fresh ideas, new uses for technology, and contacts from the industry. But before starting your search, it’s important to identify exactly what the position entails. The simplest method: Take the time necessary to carefully craft a job description and clearly define what you’re looking for.
"Sometimes when you think you need a sales manager, you actually need a marketing manager, and vice-versa," Matuson says.
Dig Deeper: A Hiring Checklist
Hiring a Marketing Director: The Job Description
The first item under the job title should be a summary overview of what the position entails. Depending on what your company needs in a marketing director, that list could include identifying opportunities to launch new products or to enter new markets; managing marketing budgets; projecting revenue and growth potential; identifying technology and marketing partners; conducting necessary market-research studies; and building and overseeing the company's marketing staff. Bullet points work best for organizing these responsibilities.It’s important not to forget a catch-phrase line to include additional "duties as assigned," just in case the job morphs over time or a meaningful duty is accidentally omitted. "Basically, it’s so a hire doesn’t come back and say 'that wasn’t in my job description," Matuson says.
When the job description is clearly laid out, it's time to decide the budget for the position in term's of compensation.
Dig Deeper: View a Sample Job Description Template
Hiring a Marketing Director: How to Determine Compensation
To arrive at a competitive salary, an entrepreneur should check out the latest HR salary studies and look at information on sites such as PayScale.com or Salary.com. Browsing current job listings posted online by companies you consider to be in your peer group can help to paint an accurate picture of what candidates are expecting.
That said, it's perfectly acceptable to ask applicants about their salary expectations including whether they expect some sort of bonus or incentive compensations. It's also worth asking what sort of salary scale the candidate expects for the rest of his or her staff.
And don't ignore the power of benefits to affect a marketing director's decision to join your company. In small companies, benefits send important signals about culture and stability. "If you're like Google and have incredible benefits, then you might not need to pay that much. But if you don’t offer health insurance, you might need to pay more," Matuson said.
Location matters, too. Workers living in or near urban centers will demand higher salaries to cover their much higher living costs, while those in rural areas will demand less. An experienced marketing director would likely expect a base salary of between $140,000 and $208,000 in New York City; in central Wisconsin, a salary range between $113,000 and $170,000 is more common, according to Salary.com.
Dig Deeper: The Right Way to Pay
Hiring a Marketing Director: Attracting the Right Applicants
When the job description is clearly laid out and agreed upon by management, and a salary range is set, it’s time to write and post the job listing. In addition to the overview and list of responsibilities found in the job description, a great job listing highlights the behavioral characteristics you hope to find in a candidate.
For a marketing director, admirable behavioral traits could include self-direction, motivation, high energy, financial ambition and persuasive communication. Lines in the resulting listing might read: "Ideal candidate will couple strong managerial skills with detail-oriented research ability, and will work well in a fast-paced, energetic environment while striving to meet high goals."
You must also consider how to convey what kind of candidate will be a strong cultural fit. Performance-management expert Jamie Resker, president of Employee Performance Solutions, suggests looking for characteristics that already exist in your office. "It’s not an exact science, but you want to find out whether this person is going to be a good fit culturally in the office is important," she says. "For that, you just need to tap into the best qualities your existing employees share."
Saturday, April 17, 2010
How to Hire a Marketing Director
via inc.com
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