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What Are the Best Ways to Evaluate Marketing Candidates?

evaluate marketing candidates

Evaluating whether a marketing candidate will be a good fit on your team can be challenging. The concept of marketing is both vague in definition and broad in terms of what activities and strategies it encompasses.

For example, a Social Media Strategist and UX Designer have very different skills and job functions, but both are part of a marketing team. Despite these differences, you can still use similar criteria to evaluate these marketing candidates.

Discover 5 criteria that will help you evaluate marketing candidates to ensure they are the right fit for the position and for your company.  

PORTFOLIO

marketing candidates

One of the best things about hiring marketing candidates is that most marketers have a portfolio or compilation of previous projects and marketing collateral they have created. Reviewing this content can give you an idea of the quality of work the candidate can produce.

Evaluating a marketing candidate’s portfolio can help you identify their strengths and weaknesses, what software and programs they have experience using, and the range of their skills.

For example, if you need a marketer with experience in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, you can quickly review any marketing collateral they have created using those programs.

MARKETING CONCEPTS

Whether you’re hiring a graphic designer or a PR Manager, it’s important to know how the candidate perceives marketing in their role and how they would approach specific marketing challenges.

For example, when reviewing a blog post a content marketing candidate has written, the candidate should be able to explain why they chose the topic, how they did their research, who their audience was, how they optimized it for search, and what processes they used to write the blog post.

Diving deeper into why the candidate made certain decisions when creating their content will help you understand how they use marketing concepts in their work.

SKILLS ASSESSMENT

It’s one thing to review a candidate’s work from previous companies and clients, but having the candidate perform a skills assessment can you give you a completely different perspective on how the candidate works.

For example, having a candidate participate in a mock creative process will give you an idea of how they think and create concepts in their mind. Another assessment might be a timed writing test on a specific topic.

You can then review the quality of content, their strategy behind it, and how much they were able to complete in the assigned time.

WORK ETHIC

In addition to skills and strategy, marketing candidates should also be evaluated on whether or not they have a strong work ethic. Oftentimes, employers won’t have an idea of a candidate’s work ethic until they’re already hired and working at the company.

One way to figure out a marketing candidate’s work ethic during an interview is to evaluate their previous work history and ask questions about how they approached specific tasks. How often did they go the extra mile? Have them describe a specific project that they worked the hardest on and how they approached the task.

You can even ask them about their first jobs and jobs they held while in high school or college.

A candidate’s work habits early on in life often set a precedent for how they approach work as they start their career. Even if the candidate’s job in college has nothing to do with the job they’re applying to now, it still shows you they were able to work while also attending school.

TIME MANAGEMENT

Marketers often juggle many different projects at once and have strict deadlines to meet, so it’s important that they have good time management skills.

One way to learn about a candidate’s time management skills is to ask very specific questions about past projects that had tight deadlines and how they were able to meet them. Also, you can ask the candidate to tell you about a time where they didn’t meet a tight deadline and how they dealt with that.

If you’re hiring a freelance marketer or a remote contract marketer, it’s critical for them to be able to manage their time outside an office environment. Ask them how they typically plan their day/week and what tools they use to help them stay on top of different projects and appointments.

These 5 criteria for evaluating marketing candidates can help you avoid making a bad hire, and instead, hire the best marketer for your business.

Although many different job titles and positions fall under the marketing category, you can still use all of these tips to help you in your evaluation.

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