A Sustainable Leadership Hire Starts with Creating an Ideal Candidate Profile
As you contemplate your next marketing leader hire, take some time to understand what you truly need for the next phase of your organization. By creating an Ideal Candidate Profile, it will help you zero in on the perfect candidate, in turn, increase employee retention, strengthen your employer brand and reduce the time to hire.
This starts with conducting a thorough analysis of the Ideal Candidate and I don’t mean, just updating the job description since the last time you hired for this role.
As a starting point, you’ll want to get team alignment by conducting discovery meetings with key stakeholders, top performers, and cross-functional leaders to understand what they need from marketing to achieve the company goals. During these meetings you’ll want to dig into these key areas:
- Culture: What are your company values and what are the traits or attributes of a leader that fits into the culture. What is the attitude and mindset of the leader that will fit well into the environment?
- Soft Skills: What type of communication is needed in the department as well as across the organization for this leader to be successful. What type of business acumen is needed, such as executive presence and C-Level presentation expertise?
- Technical Knowledge: What technical knowledge is needed for this role and how will you screen for this knowledge throughout the interview process.
- Developmental Expertise: What is needed to develop their teams such as hiring talent, growth of talent, organizational restructuring, process improvement, talent turnaround and agency management. What type of strategic expertise is needed: strategic planning, long-range planning, and Budget/P&L management
Once you have conducted your interviews, you’ll want to gather all your data, dig in and see what trends emerge. Once you find the trends, create your profile and share with those who will be part of the interview and hiring process. Ensure they understand and buy into the ideal profile and then start networking and sharing your findings both internally and externally.
By creating an Ideal Candidate Profile/Matrix, you’ll you have zeroed in on exactly what you need and now you know how to find the right candidate and sell the role and company to them!
