No matter what industry you're in, how you market your business matters.
But building the best marketing team can be easier said than done. From social media and content specialists to event marketers and marketing managers, each role comes with crucial responsibilities.
Looking to fill an executive marketing role? Working with an executive recruiter can speed up the hiring process, help save your company money, and help you find the right talent for the job.
The Role of Executive Recruiters in Hiring Marketing Talent
An executive recruiter is a specialized staffing professional who can help your business find the best candidates for your open marketing roles. Common positions filled by an executive marketing recruiter include, but are not limited to:
- Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)
- Vice President (VP) of Marketing
- Director of Content/Head of Content
- Director of Growth Marketing
- Director of Demand Generation
- Marketing Manager
- Marketing Director
- Lead Brand Designer
- Creative Director
An executive marketing recruiter then takes on a number of responsibilities to expedite the process of finding the right marketing talent for your growing business. Here are just a few.
Understanding the Client's Needs
The right executive marketing recruiter will take the time to get to know your company, its marketing needs, and its unique culture. This will ensure they have the insider knowledge needed to recruit the right talent for the job.
Candidate Sourcing
The executive marketing recruiter will then source qualified candidates for the role based on your criteria. This will include tapping into their own expansive network of professionals, using passive recruiting methods, and other innovative strategies needed to find the best marketing leaders for the job.
Candidate Screening and Assessment
Executive marketing recruiters also handle the early stages of screening candidates, identifying those who may not be a good fit for your company. These experts have access to a wide range of screening and assessment tools to narrow down your options, including:
- Background check software
- Candidate score cards
- Marketing-specific skills assessments
Interviewing
When it comes time to start interviewing top marketing professionals for your open role, an experienced executive recruiter will also be able to either conduct early-round interviews on their own and/or support hiring managers through every round.
These professional recruiters will understand the most important and relevant questions to ask marketing talent during an interview to gauge whether they're a good fit for your company, freeing up time and resources for your hiring managers and human resources team.
Check out our interview questions for different types of marketing roles:
Candidate Presentation
Once your executive recruiter has a shortlist of the most qualified candidates for the job, they’ll present them to you and your hiring team. From there, you can review the top marketing talent, learn more about what each professional brings to the table, and make an informed decision on which candidate will receive a job offer.
An experienced, reputable marketing executive search firm can also provide guidance on the salary and benefits package to offer the candidate and send the formal job offer.
Offer Negotiation
When it comes to hiring for marketing leadership roles, it's not uncommon for negotiations to occur after the initial job offer is submitted. This can be a stressful time for growing businesses — but with help from marketing executive recruiters, it doesn't have to be.
An experienced recruiting firm can handle offer negotiations on your company's behalf so your internal teams don't have to. These expert negotiators have the skill and experience needed to coordinate an offer that both parties are happy with — and that the candidate accepts.
Post-Hire Follow-Up
A marketing talent acquisition specialist’s job isn't done when the job offer is accepted. The best executive recruiting firms will follow up with you and your new hire in the coming weeks and months to ensure that things are going as smoothly as possible. This may even include meeting with your marketing team to be sure that your company's marketing strategy is being supported and carried out by your new leadership hire.
Market Intelligence
The executive recruiter you work with should have a strong familiarity with the market in which your business operates:
- Industry and consumer trends, including competitor behaviors.
- Popular/current marketing software and tools.
With these insights, your recruiter will narrow down their pool of candidates to only those who will best support your company’s specific marketing strategy and efforts to help you make the right hire.
Specialized Recruiting vs. Traditional Recruiting For Marketing Roles
Compared to a traditional recruiter, these professionals have an in-depth understanding of the nuances and unique challenges involved in hiring top-level marketing experts.
Specialized executive recruiters understand the ins and outs of the marketing industry — including not just the responsibilities associated with different marketing roles, but the hard and soft skill sets that candidates need to succeed. Executive recruiters who specialize in marketing will have:
- Familiarity with current marketing trends (SEO, affiliate marketing, user-generated content, influencer marketing, etc.).
- Familiarity with current and emerging martech tools.
- Ability to comfortably speak and understand marketing concepts, metrics, and jargon.
- Proven track record of successful long-term executive and C-level marketing hires.
- Comes from a marketing background with some technical experience.
With this level of highly-specialized knowledge, an executive marketing recruiter is able to put their skills to use, handling everything from recruitment and interviewing to job offers and negotiations.
5 Strategies That Executive Recruiters Use To Fill Marketing Roles
Whether your business is a startup SEO agency or a large digital marketing firm, executive marketing recruiters rely on a number of specialized methods and strategies to fill open marketing roles quickly and successfully, including:
1. Building and Maintaining Powerful Networks
The right executive recruiter won't rely on job boards and social media alone to draw the attention of the best candidates. Instead, these professionals have their own networks and deep pools of talent that they have cultivated over the years. This gives you access to potential job seekers you wouldn't otherwise be able to reach.
2. Harnessing Industry-Specific Knowledge
Executive marketing recruiters also draw upon their own in-depth knowledge of the marketing field to find the best talent for the job. They understand the ins and outs of building a solid marketing team and the initiatives that go into creating a sound marketing strategy — and they're able to combine and put that knowledge to use throughout the recruiting process.
3. Leveraging Technology and Data
The right technology and data can help your business fill key marketing roles faster. Experienced recruiting firms will not only have access to these resources but will also understand how to leverage them during the hiring and recruiting process. From specialized screening tools (such as background check software) to automated search platforms, executive recruiters can use this technology to your organization’s advantage.
4. Engaging Passive Candidates
The best talent for your open marketing leadership role may be somebody who isn't actively looking for a job. This is where an executive recruiter can really put their skills to use, engaging in passive recruiting to source candidates who may be currently employed elsewhere.
5. Continuous Relationship Building
Executive search firms are not just in the business of hiring: They're in the business of constantly building and fostering relationships with industry professionals. They can then leverage these relationships to find the specialized talent they need for marketing executive jobs when they need them most.
Benefits of Using an Executive Search Firm To Fill Marketing Roles
Still not convinced that an executive search firm is right for your growing business? Consider some of these top advantages of relying on an executive marketing recruiter for your next big hire.
Access to a Larger Pool of Talent
Because of their networking and relationship-building skills, executive marketing recruiters have deep talent pools and professional networks from which they can find candidates. This means you'll have access to a larger pool of talent than you would if you handled your recruiting in-house.
Industry Expertise
Compared to a general recruiter who might find not have the inside knowledge of what to look for in a marketing candidate, an executive recruiter who specializes in marketing will have a deeper understanding of what your team actually needs and what type of candidate you're looking for.
Saved Time and Resources
The process of recruiting, screening, interviewing, and handling your own hiring in-house can be costly and time-consuming. By working with an executive marketing recruiter, you can free up that valuable time and resources so your hiring managers and HR teams can focus on other important aspects of growing your business. Meanwhile, you can rest assured that you have access to only the best talent.
Faster Hiring Time
Time spent searching for the right marketing talent can set your company back. According to Forbes, the executive search process can last anywhere from four to 12 months.
Hunt Club leverages automated sourcing technology to cut down on the time spent in traditional recruiting. We automate time-intensive tasks like funnel management and scheduling so we help improve the time to fill and focus on what matters most — getting to know the candidates and finding the right fit.
Accelerate Your Hiring Efforts With Hunt Club
At Hunt Club, we understand that finding today's top marketing leaders goes beyond the funnel.
That's why our executive marketing recruiters put their own networks, resources, and strategic plans to work for you.
Whether you need to hire a CMO, VP of Marketing, Head of Marketing, or any role in between, Hunt Club is here to help.
