5 Candidates You’ll Meet in Your Startup Marketing Interviews
After four startups, multiple early stage mentorships and hundreds of interviews later, I have been fortunate enough to meet many impressive marketing candidates. Naturally, mixed in with these desirables were a few “I’m gonna pass please” candidates. Here is my take on “Top 5 Startup Marketing Candidates” you might interview for your next open position. Without further delay, let me introduce the five candidates:
Willie — the Wanderer
Connie — the Communicator
Dannie — the Data Dude
Sophie — the Specialist
Eddie — the Everythinger
Willie: Willie turned into Marketing as he had struggled in his career. Most likely he wanted to join a startup but lacking Engineering and Finance skills, he started helping Customer Support and then joined HR — and then, perhaps, Sales. Besides the discrepancies in his resume, you can tell he does not have a comprehensive grasp of marketing skills. Because re-sharing on Facebook is Social Media Marketing, right? Right? It’s easy to spot Willie by asking a slightly deep-dive question on his resume.
Connie: You probably know a Connie. She writes blog posts almost daily (mostly on her awesome company culture), sends continuous branding guidelines, is friendly with everybody and is always chatty. You can easily spot right-brained Connie in the interview. In the earlier times when Marketing was ONLY MarCom, Connie was a safe bet for the corner office. That was before big data changed the landscape and various mar-tech tools arrived on our doorsteps.
Dannie: Most likely Dannie has engineering or another quantitative background. Alternatively, he might have studied management with an emphasis on analytics. He is passionate about data and is good with all the regression analysis and pivot tables. He can translate your complex product lingo into the language of your target personas and can easily do multi-touch attribution analysis. During the meeting, ask him all your brainteasers and case interview questions, he will survive.
Sophie: Sophie is a skilled expert in a specific domain. That domain might vary: she might be a kick-ass designer, excellent editor or an SEO genius. When you talk to her, you cannot miss her enthusiasm about that particular skill: “Let me show you my UX portfolio,” ”Here, check out all e-books I published,” “Here are the five things I would do today to increase your organic traffic!” Sophie might previously have worked for an agency or for a Big Co. where she honed her particular skill set.
Eddie: Eddie is your jack-of-all-trades. He has a credible and diverse background that not so commonly covers various aspects of marketing. You can learn his vision and three-year strategic growth plan while listening to his expertise in ABM implementation and CRM reporting. He can easily switch from discussing the results of his thought leadership publications to how he improved CAC in his last company. Ask him some curveball questions, and you’ll know he is not BS’ing around. Eddie is the guy who asks you the tough questions in the interview.
Who to Hire:
Willie: If it was not obvious, please pass as soon as you come up with Willie. Mostly you catch Willie while reviewing his resume, but some Willies are not revealed until the interview.
Connie: Awareness is essential for startups and Connie can be an ideal for MarCom roles such as Brand Manager or PR/AR Manager. She will not get you the same qualified leads & opportunities as your data-driven folks, but after you hire those “money” positions, you need a Connie in your team.
Dannie: You need somebody with strong analytics skills hence Dannie probably should be your first hire. Dannie can do a great job in Product Marketing, Digital Marketing, Analytics and Lead Generation roles. Don’t miss Dannie.
Sophie: Hire with extreme caution. If you’re an early stage startup, you cannot afford Sophie for her one remarkable skill. You’re better off using an agency or a contractor. You might need to wait until your organization is scaled before justifying a Sophie. Exceptions apply, i.e., heavily content-driven startups might need a fulltime editor.
Eddie: Most marketers do one or two things very well. Eddie does more than a couple of functions well while leading others and growing your company. Whenever you identify an Eddie, put him in your Tier1 bucket. He can start from pretty much any functions, such as an analyst, PMM, researcher, operations manager, etc. but he will deliver more than his initial job title. Congratulations, you just hired your future CMO.
