How to Hire Your First Growth Marketer

The best growth marketers possess a combination of the following characteristics:

• Curiosity: Growth marketers continually have to come up with novel ideas, then test and learn from them.
• Impact-driven: They are motivated by the economic results of their campaign.
• Will get in the weeds: They work through all the details to ensure experiments are useful and the customer experience is good.
• Quantitative & understands your customer. They measure results and focus on understanding the customer.
• Works well with others: They can partner with creative, finance, product and data-oriented people.

Look for someone with experience in business, marketing and products.

They should also possess the following:

• Growth marketing, management consulting, or finance experience (investing or banking)
• Managed 1-2 priority marketing channels, ideally someone with hands-on experience.
• Experience with marketing tools, such as Google Analytics & Excel. Knowledge of tools such as email, paid search, social media, AB testing, BI.
• Worked with a product team.

The ideal growth marketing candidate:

• Understands how to create value - the impact of accelerating customer acquisition, boosting retention, and improving conversion rates.
• Expert at building business cases that estimate the impact of new campaigns.
• Knows growth marketing tactics.
• Adept in marketing analytics.
• Understands human behaviour. The best growth marketers know about professors like Kahneman, Tversky, and Ariely,

During the interview, test for characteristics, experience and knowledge.

Initial conversations

• Are they curious? Ask: "What was the last thing you taught yourself?" Curious people like to learn.
• Will they get in the weeds? Ask about a time they had limited resources to get a project off the ground. Did they take ownership? Do they remember small details about the project?
• Will they understand your customer? Ask about personal experiences with terrible companies. Good growth marketers will remember details and think about how to improve customer experiences.

Case studies are effective for screening candidates.

Present your candidates with a prompt, including a business goal, and ask for a 90-day plan and a prioritised list of new campaigns to test. While the candidate discusses the case study, pay attention to:

• How detailed is the plan?
• How good are the proposed marketing tactics?
• How strong are the business cases?
• Can they operationalise the ideas?
• Did they consider what motivates your customer?