Content marketers need to know how to write. Data analysts need to get data.
Not earth-shattering.
But after speaking to four marketers with diverse backgrounds, it became clear that non-subject matter skills, like motivation, ownership, self-driven learning, and others, are what they’re really looking for.
In this quick ten minute episode, we talk to Chen Guter from Lusha.co, Aviv Canaani from Workiz, Amit Daniel from Cognyte, and Yoav Aziz from Yotpo (who you may remember from this episode about the role of reviews in marketing) to hear what makes this marketing hiring process tip.
Oh, and if you liked that comedy skit in the beginning of the episode, you can listen to full Brian Regan skit here.
Episode Transcript
Eytan Buchman: [00:00:00] [00:00:05] This podcast is going to get someone a job. But first a very important message about log trucks[00:00:13] Brian Regan: [00:00:13] See weird things driving. I’ve never understood log trucks. Sometimes you’ll be out on a highway. You’ll see two big giant trucks each loaded up with logs and they pass each other on the highway. I don’t understand that. I mean, if they need logs over there, you need them over there.[00:00:38]Eytan Buchman: [00:00:38] That’s Brian Regan, a comedian, talking about imperfect market dynamics where supply and demand just don’t meet. And that’s kind of like a situation coming up more and more. There are a ton of great companies trying to hire marketers. And a lot of people that I’ve spoken to that are looking for marketing jobs , but there seems to be something that is lost in translation.[00:00:57] Unlike Brian Regan, what I’m about to say is no joke. Okay, sorry. That was a terrible transition. I’m sorry. And before I come back from that tragedy against podcasting, my name is Eytan Buchman. You’re listening to yet another episode of Marketers in Capes with GCMO. And today. In less time than it takes you to make a bag of popcorn, burn it, make another one and eat it, we’re going to get perspectives from four amazing marketers on how they hire for their team. This might be my favorite episode so far because these marketers were able to articulate so many things that I feel and whatever they said that I didn’t, I was able to edit out.[00:01:31] Oh, and a quick note, this episode is sponsored by Strattic, an incredible tech solution that turns WordPress websites into static sites that load blazingly fast and are very, very secure. I know that because I use it myself. Head over to strattic.com in order to learn more.[00:01:47]Also in the spirit of this episode, I’ve compiled over 30 marketing roles available at amazing tech companies. You can find the roles in the link in the show notes. And even if you’re not looking, just go ahead and share it with a friend, do something good. Come on. Now let’s dive in with one of the most important skills that came up again and again from everyone I spoke to[00:02:05] Chen Guter: [00:02:05] so being able to adapt quickly is increasingly important. Learning new things and even getting excited by change is something that we’ll see strengthening more and more.[00:02:17]Eytan Buchman: [00:02:17] That sentiment came up again and again. The channels and tactics of 2021 are so different than 10 years ago. But this is a good place to start because it shows that it’s not about any particular marketing skills. Typically, what an executive marketer would look for when hiring is a mindset. Let’s meet the voice behind the sentiment[00:02:36]Chen Guter: [00:02:36] I’m Chen Guter, I’m the VP Marketing at Lusha, which is a crowdsourced data community for B2B sales people. What Lusha does is enable salespeople to identify their ideal prospects and close more deals .[00:02:49]Eytan Buchman: [00:02:49] Learning is something that Chen knows pretty well. Like every marketer I spoke to, she made a pretty huge shift herself. And as a result, it makes sense that she’d appreciate that as a skillset.[00:03:01] Chen Guter: [00:03:01] I started my marketing career as a brand manager at Proctor and Gamble. I managed some of the biggest brands like Fairy and Pampers. It was truly awesome, cause I worked on global big ideas, like “Smell like a man” for Old Spice and “Run like a Girl” for Always. And after over a decade in B2C, I transitioned to B2B tech with a mission to really bring some of the spark and the glam from B2C into the more gray and sometimes boring world of B2B.[00:03:31]Eytan Buchman: [00:03:31] So I’m in B2B freight and actually find it pretty exciting, so I’m not sure I can comment on that. What I can say is that it looks for a lot of different things when she’s hiring.[00:03:41]Chen Guter: [00:03:41] I try to identify the operating system of the candidate more than targeting specific skills. The best team members and also new hires that I have, have this sweet spot between their strengths, their passion, and my organizational needs.[00:03:56] Eytan Buchman: [00:03:56] A learning mindset is not really worth that much if you don’t have the grit to push yourself to learn more.[00:04:02]Chen Guter: [00:04:02] Self-driven people are the ones that have this internal engine that drives them to make an impact. They don’t need anyone to keep them motivated. They always ask themselves, what do I need to do to make my marketing stronger? These are my best players.[00:04:16]Eytan Buchman: [00:04:16] Now as I said, a lot of these top skills that marketers look for came up a couple of different times in my interviews[00:04:23] Yoav Aziz: [00:04:23] The most important skill I’m looking for is learning skills. In the modern world, every few months, things are changing. New tools are coming out, the company is changing the way they approach marketing. So I think the ability to learn new things and to adapt is super critical.[00:04:39]Eytan Buchman: [00:04:39] So you never miss one episode of my podcast and obviously you recognize that voice. That was Yoav Aziz, the VP of Growth at Yotpo.[00:04:46]Yoav Aziz: [00:04:46] As time goes, new tools will come out, new channels You see now how TikTok is rising, so you need to adapt and learn how to advertise on TikTok, is like completely different from doing Google AdWords or all the product led growth initiatives that you need to be like a bit more dev oriented, so that adaptability and learning skills are the most important skills for me.[00:05:08]Eytan Buchman: [00:05:08] Don’t worry I’m not going to just play ten minutes of different marketers saying that it’s important to learn. Yoav mentioned another skill that is also technically marketing agnostic[00:05:18]Yoav Aziz: [00:05:18] All the emotional aspect, actually understanding what motivates people, if this word will make someone click or not click and how they will feel. The emotional aspect is really important. And generally people that are passionate about everything they are doing in their life. I dunno, playing music or cooking or sports, whatever, if you’re a passionate about the other things in life, I’m sure you’ll be passionate about the things you’re also doing at work.[00:05:44]Eytan Buchman: [00:05:44] Yoav’s background here is actually really relevant.[00:05:48]Yoav Aziz: [00:05:48] My first marketing role was the conversion manager at Fiverr. I was in charge of all the marketing’s AB testing. Super fun position, tons of data to play with, I think we ran like over 400 AB tests in one year, learned a lot about microcopy, design, and everything related to conversion optimization and AB testing.[00:06:08]Eytan Buchman: [00:06:08] Despite all that data across hundreds of experiments, it’s still about that emotional connectivity. That’s what he’s looking for. And he’s not alone. Meet Amit Daniel.[00:06:18]Amit Daniel: [00:06:18] My name is Amit Daniel and I’m the CMO in charge of marketing and strategy in Cognyte, formerly a variant company. Cognyte is the market leader in what is called security analytics for both government and enterprise organizations. I initially grow within product management and led different product management teams. But I then moved into marketing and I led the marketing team starting from product marketing, and then the entire spectrum of marketing, including writing and PR and marcom, and then after demand generation.[00:06:56] Eytan Buchman: [00:06:56] In product as in marketing, there’s something that remained consistent. The need to communicate.[00:07:01]Amit Daniel: [00:07:01] When hiring a marketeer, I really believe that there are tons of important skills that I personally look for, but I think that the most important one is to really have excellent communication skills. So they need to be open-minded, they need to be creative, they really need to be able to juggle between different organizations and planning abilities between the different teams. One of the main important part is combining all of that with leadership and being a team player. Because I do believe that, the best marketeers they drive processes and they are really required to motivate everybody in their organizations to see the end goal in order to complete all the tasks.[00:07:44]Eytan Buchman: [00:07:44] And there’s really only one way to help people unite around an end goal.[00:07:48]Amit Daniel: [00:07:48] I find myself coming across fantastic people with extensive years of marketeers, but they don’t know to convey the story, that don’t know to tell the story and to engage the relevant audience. Even today, being a communicator and storyteller is one of the top top criterias.[00:08:05]Eytan Buchman: [00:08:05] And that brings me to our final participant and I leave him for last because he brought up something so near and dear to me.[00:08:11]Aviv Canani: [00:08:11] I’m a Aviv Canani. VP marketing at Workiz. At Workiz we help service professionals become business professionals.[00:08:18]Eytan Buchman: [00:08:18] Everybody is shaped by their background, everybody. And that means that Aviv was definitely shaped by his as well.[00:08:24] Aviv Canani: [00:08:24] My first marketing role was as director of communications for a member of parliament in Israel . I had a blast kind of a24/7 role, super energetic. Had to read like all the newspapers in the morning, try to get the politician that I was working for in the different radio shows, TV shows and so on. I think it’s like a crash course in everything that has to do with PR and also probably crisis management.[00:08:50] Eytan Buchman: [00:08:50] So i happened to come from a PR background as well and you get this really cool shift when you read the papers, see something is wrong and realize that it’s on you to find that journalist and fix it. It creates a sense of ownership and that is incredibly important[00:09:05] Aviv Canani: [00:09:05] The main thing I’m looking for when I’m hiring someone for a marketing role on my team is an ownership mentality. And what that actually means is that I’m looking for someone that is passionate about the role I’m hiring for, and they really want to own what they do. They want to be proud of their work. Ownership mentality I think, is make or break for me when I’m hiring.[00:09:27] Eytan Buchman: [00:09:27] In marketing your job is never done. There’s always more things to do, more ideas that you can have, more ways that you can implement something and ownership means that the person will take it that extra mile to really make it happen. So far we’ve talked a lot about soft skills. Communication, empathy, ownership, learning. But at the end of the day, they still need to converge on hitting actual goals.[00:09:48]Aviv Canani: [00:09:48] When you work in a startup you need people that can hit their numbers and not just be good at one specific thing and just say, okay, I made amazing copy, but people that can say okay, I did a lot of different things, let’s say in the world of content, but eventually we were able to get to that goal, a goal that is driven by numbers , like organic conversions and they can do whatever they need to achieve that goal, even if they know that they have a blind spot in the use of freelancers, that’s fine as well, but I need people that can really just hit their goals.[00:10:25]Eytan Buchman: [00:10:25] Here different people I spoke to were split on whether it’s about finding generalists that can forge the path to hitting goals or specialists. I’ll let Chen wrap that up.[00:10:34] Chen Guter: [00:10:34] I think a good marketing team has to have both full stack marketers that can execute an idea by themselves without needing anyone else, and also the crazy specialists like SEO or content that keep optimizing their work until perfection. It’s always a mix.[00:10:52]Eytan Buchman: [00:10:52] This all makes me much less embarrassed to admit that on the first day of my job, I looked up “marketing strategy” on Wikipedia. Nearly every single person that I spoke to told me that the number one skill they hire for is the ability to learn. That, and a sense of ownership that pushes you to learn even more. As I said, you can see some of the incredible marketing jobs available from other GCMO members in the show notes at buchman.co.il/hire, as well as the list of my favorite resources for someone just starting out their journey as a marketer. And now I have to go learn how to subtly end an episode if i don’t have anything smart to say. Bye. You can go now.