How to Hire a Marketing Manager: A Step-by-Step Guide for Small Hiring Teams
A first marketing hire is asked to do everything and measured on nothing, which is why the average tenure is short. This guide is the process for hiring a marketing manager with a defined job, a budget and a number, and for deciding beforehand which of the many possible marketing jobs this one is.
- Pick the one channel that matters most right now: Content, paid, product marketing, events, partnerships: a small company cannot do them all well and a first hire cannot either. The role description is the first screening step, and it decides who applies.
- Give the role a number and a budget. Pipeline, signups, qualified leads, revenue attributed: one number, agreed with sales, with a budget to pursue it.
- Source where marketing managers already are: marketers at companies one stage ahead who want ownership of the whole function, and agency account or strategy people who want to work on one product they believe in.
- Screen every CV against a written rubric of the four things the job cannot be done without, then interview for evidence: what the candidate built, decided or fixed, scored against notes written before the interview.
- Decide within a week of the final interview and make the offer with reasons. The common mistakes below, starting with hiring a generalist and expecting a specialist result in every channel at once, are how good candidates are lost.
The process
- 1
Pick the one channel that matters most right now
Content, paid, product marketing, events, partnerships: a small company cannot do them all well and a first hire cannot either. Decide which one would move the business most and hire for depth there with breadth as a bonus.
- 2
Give the role a number and a budget
Pipeline, signups, qualified leads, revenue attributed: one number, agreed with sales, with a budget to pursue it. A marketing manager without a number becomes a producer of things.
- 3
Source from people who did the work themselves
In a small company the marketing manager writes the copy, runs the campaigns and reads the analytics. Candidates from large teams may never have done any of it. Look for evidence of hands, not only of management.
- 4
Screen against a rubric, not a feeling
Write down the four things the job cannot be done without and score every CV against them before reading any further. Three minutes per CV with a rubric beats fifteen without one, and the decisions can be explained afterwards.
- 5
Interview for evidence
Every interview question should ask for something that happened: a system, a deal, a decision, a failure. Score answers against what a strong one contains, written down before the interview, so two interviewers agree.
- 6
Decide fast and tell everyone
Candidates judge a company by its process. Decide within a week of the final interview, tell the ones you passed on, and make the offer with the reasons you chose them. The best candidates have other offers.
Where to find candidates
- Marketers at companies one stage ahead who want ownership of the whole function
- Agency account or strategy people who want to work on one product they believe in
- Content or growth specialists who have shown range beyond their specialism
- Referrals from your sales team, who know which marketers sent them good leads
- A posting that names the channel, the number and the budget
Mistakes that lose good candidates
- Hiring a generalist and expecting a specialist result in every channel at once
- No number, so success is measured in output and everyone is unhappy
- A budget of zero and a target that assumes one
- Not aligning with sales on what a lead is before the first campaign runs
- Judging early work on brand feel rather than on whether the number moved
Running it well
Interview with campaigns. Ask for one from start to finish: goal, audience, channel, budget, result, and what they would change. Ask for one that failed. Ask them to explain attribution to you as if you were the finance lead. The candidates who have owned outcomes answer all three easily; the candidates who have produced marketing struggle with the first.
Set a short writing exercise. Whatever else the role is, the marketing manager will review or write everything the company says in public, and an hour's sample tells you more than a portfolio of team work.
Agree the lead definition with sales before the hire starts and put it in the onboarding. Most first-year marketing conflict is about whether the leads were any good, and the argument is avoidable if the definition exists.
Frequently asked questions
Should our first marketing hire be senior?
Senior enough to set strategy and hands-on enough to execute it: usually someone with five to eight years who has run a small team or been the whole team. A very senior marketer with no hands will need hires you cannot afford yet.
How do we assess brand and taste?
Look at what they shipped and ask what they would change about your site. Taste shows in what they notice. Weight it below the number, unless brand is the job.
Product marketing or demand generation first?
If the product is unclear to buyers, product marketing. If buyers understand it and there are not enough of them, demand generation. Ask your sales team which problem they have.
Related guides
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