As we approach the new year, this presents a natural opportunity for many of us to assess what changes we want to make in our lives – and that includes our work. It’s inevitable that the first few months of 2025 will see a shakeup in your workforce – and indeed, the opportunity to take on some of the fresh talent that is set to flood the market.
For you, the new year might mean planning new marketing campaigns, reviewing the MarTech you’re using and discovering new channels through which to funnel your marketing activity. However, for your marketing team, 2025 may mean looking for new opportunities, which means you may return to your office only to face a resignation or two. As you look to add new people – and skills – to your team, it’s important to factor in the time required to recruit and train them.
The longer it takes to identify, attract and develop your new marketing talent, the more time you spend without a person in place helping you meet your marketing objectives. Here are some tips for hiring great marketers:
Time is of the essence
Time is money when it comes to hiring great marketers, and with the average time to fill a marketing position in the UK totalling a significant 51 days, it’s clear that finding the right marketing team members can be a lengthy process. If you return in the new year to a resignation in your team, move quickly to start finding a suitable replacement. Any position, whether newly created or made vacant by an ex-team member, will take time to get signed off, not to mention job descriptions and adverts written. Once you have your new role approved and you start recruiting and interviewing, you’ll need to keep up momentum – counter-offers are likely in January, particularly as companies try to retain their top talent for the new year, and skilled marketers will be unlikely to stay on the market for long.
It’s important not to slow down once you’ve made your hire, either. With an Oxford Economics report finding new workers take an average of 28 weeks to reach optimum productivity, at a significant cost to your business, it’s important to not only choose wisely, but efficiently.
Get organised
One of the best ways to ensure you hire quickly and efficiently is by being organised. As marketers are more ambitious than the average UK worker, they’re more likely to know what they’re looking for in a new role and less inclined to put up with a slow, poorly organised hiring process.
Don’t let weeks drift by while you’re arranging interviews and discussing candidates internally. According to research by the MRINetwork, the majority of job offers are presented five to six weeks after the successful candidate’s first interview. For top marketing talent, this may simply be too long. With 47% of job offer rejections occurring due to candidates accepting another job, you need to act quickly to secure the best people in this candidate-driven market. Book meeting rooms ahead of time, ensure interviews are entered into diaries in advance and keep in touch with your candidates throughout the process – or you risk them looking elsewhere.
Be open-minded
While it’s important to find the best talent you can for your marketing team, this shouldn’t come at the expense of your entire function. The longer you wait for the ‘perfect’ marketer to become available, the further you push out your wider marketing plans and the more pressure you put on the rest of the team to cover the extra work.
While there are key skills and experience levels that are essential for your team, reassess what is a must-have versus a nice-to-have when it comes to your new marketer. Put cultural and team fit first – while you can teach a marketer how to use a new automation technology or the inner workings of your CMS, you can’t teach them how to fit in and work well with your team. Team members who fit in well at work not only enjoy their jobs more, but also perform better and are more likely to remain with their company. If you have a candidate with less experience than you’d like but who would fit in perfectly with the wider marketing team, don’t rule them out.
Be competitive
Just as you wouldn’t launch a new product or campaign without first doing your research, you shouldn’t present an offer to a marketer without understanding what a competitive salary is for your location, industry and position. According to Marketing Week, 40% of marketers say that pay is the single most important factor when considering a new job, however nearly three quarters of marketing professionals would take a pay cut in exchange for better workplace culture. It’s clear that marketers are driven by both money and their work environment, so make sure you’re presenting them with an attractive offer that ticks both boxes.
Develop your employer brand
In order to stand out in a competitive market and attract the attention of the best marketing talent, you need to focus on your employer brand. As a marketer, you’ll naturally understand the power of brand – but how strong is your own, and how are you promoting it?
Your employer brand is your reputation as a company, and encompasses everything from your social media channels and company benefits through to candidate experience and the information you share about your working life online. Your website should have pages that focus on what it’s like to work with you, with video interviews featuring your staff, details of training opportunities and career progression, and information on any perks you offer such as social days, flexible work and sports teams. Three-quarters of candidates will consider your employer brand before even applying for a job, according to CareerArc, so make sure you’re active on Glassdoor and other social network platforms, presenting your employment opportunities in the best light in order to attract the best talent.
As one component of the increasingly-important business tool that is recruitment marketing, employer branding is everyone’s responsibility. While your HR and marketing teams may drive it, it’s important to encourage all team members to share company content and their own experiences of working at your organisation.