Top 5 Candidate Traits

Last week I was asked by fellow blogger and marketing whiz Jay Lipe to field some questions from the students in a University-level marketing class he is teaching.  In the next few days my responses will apprear on this blog.

What are the top 5 traits you look for in a candidate for any marketing job?

1. Business orientation.  Marketers must think holistically about their business and address their company's constraints to growth:  There's no point in developing a slick "brand promise" that cannot be brought to life with your company's current operating model.  Everything from legal, to finance, to accounting, to purchasing, to manufacturing, to warehousing, to logistics, to customer service, to marketing and sales must be in alignment with your company's Unique Selling Proposition.  And if your company's sales process is out of step with how the customer actually buys -- forget it.  That's why the best marketers are literate in all areas of business.  These are the pros who truly understand that marketing is a means to an end -- not an end unto itself.  No margin, no mission.


2. Humility.  If you have a massive ego, forget it.  I don't say this because I can't handle people with big egos.  I say this because marketing people with big egos always think they know better than their customers.  That's "death" in the marketing business.


3. People skills.  I do my job on the phone, which means that I am effectively blind.  Minus the corn rows, there's no difference between me and Stevie Wonder.  Therefore, if you aren't warm and empathic on the phone, then it's hard for me to imagine that you will be warm and empathic in person.  People, including my clients, want to do business with people they like, and they always do a phone screen before bringing a person in for an interview.  So relax and have fun.  Otherwise, you are wasting your time.  See the paradox?  Have fun or you're dead!


4. An inquisitive nature.  I'm no genius, but I have gotten by on my obsessive compulsive desire to learn.  Marketing is too dynamic a field to be stagnant.  If you think you can skate by on the "Four Ps" you're wrong.  Keep learning.  We are just in the top of the second inning of this Internet thing, and it promises to completely change not only marketing -- but the way we think about marketing.  Don't get attached to any one marketing model or "one-size-fits-all" way of thinking.  Think integrated multichannel marketing ... and remain channel agnostic.


5. A track record of accomplishment.  You can't talk your way out of problems you behave yourself into.  If you have job hopped, or if you have walked off a job, or whatever, then no amount of my God-given sales talent is going to help you land a job.  If you hate your marketing job, stick it out until you generate a sensible alternative for yourself.  Nobody wants to hire a diva or a baby.

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Comments

[Harry Joiner]

RG: "Harry, my name is Rav Gagan..."

HJ: Nice to meet you.

RG: "You show a three dimensional depth and expertise of how this segment of business should be conducted."

HJ: Thanks. Always humbling to hear people say that. I'm just one guy trying to make a living.

RG: "I moved to the US a few years ago. My thoughts were that it would be easy to fit into a culture of upward mobility and synergy. So far, I have been let down."

HJ: Keep after it. Read, Listen. Change. I was the smartest guy in the poor house for the first three years of this century as I iterated my business concept. I got into recruiting as an offshooot of a marketing consulting engagement. Sometimes it takes a while.

RG: "Most product oriented and service companies seemed to find success from the process of "volume" rather by excellent services and practical attitudes."

HJ: Maybe. A lot of people here think that lower prices result from scale on the production side of the business. But you can have lower prices provided you don't spend too much money marketing to the wrong prospects -- who are both more expensive to serve and higher to raise prices with because they don't appreciate what you do. Bad prospect are also much less likely to generate good referrals. You've read all this before.

RG: "Companies that I have worked for and done business with in the Caribbean and Asia seems eons ahead in terms of their business models as well as their manner of conducting business and employees treatment."

HJ: I have worked in those places, and sold to wholesalers in those countries. They are very business oriented, and their is MUCH less of a sense of entitlement among workers in the far east. That's just the way it is. Hang in there. Know your goals and play your game. Over time things will work out in ways you can't possibly imagine. But you've got to stay the course.

[Rav Gagan]

Harry, my name is Rav Gagan and I like the manner in which you prescribe and present your knowledge.You show a three dimensional depth and expertise of how this segment of business should be conducted.
I moved to the US a few years ago.Having worked in International Business,both as a former business owner and as an executive. My thoughts were that it would be easy to fit into a culture of upward mobility and synergy. Once which always seemd to profess "out of the box" thinkers.So far from what I have been exposed,limited that it may be to some,I have been let down.Most product oriented and service companies seemed to find success from the process of "volume" rather by excellent services and practical attitudes. Companies that I have worked for and done businesss with in the Caribbean and Asia seems eons ahead in terms of their business models as well as their manner of conducting business and employees treatment. For me great employees though hard to come by ,build companies, without whom there would be no "bottom line" to achieve.