The Talent Land Grab In Marketing Technology: How To Win

Answer: Just 3%. Yikes!

This stat comes from a Career Xroads survey of 50 companies who collectively hired thousands of new employees in 2013.

So, ‘posting and praying’ is not likely to be successful. Instead, companies are taking a more personalized and proactive approach to talent acquisition.

This is especially the case when hiring marketing technologists, as I also discovered in my recent research on The Talent Land Grab In Marketing Tech: How To Win.

For this research, I interviewed several executives who have hired marketing technologists, at companies such as dunnhumby, Dun & Bradstreet, Clorox, MDC Partners, Slalom Consulting, and Sage, to name a few. My research was also informed by my experiences with recruiting people at the marketing/tech intersection.

Wait, you say! What the hell is a marketing technologist?

Here’s the definition I give in my research:

Marketing technologists infuse technology capabilities into the marketing and customer experience bloodstreams, with the goal of making marketing faster, smarter, leaner, and more stable. As the wizards behind the transformation of marketing, marketing technologists’ responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Marketing automation
• Marketing resource management
• Integration of tools and processes across marketing and sales
• Customer data management and analytics
• Social media monitoring, analytics, and automation

By definition, the ideal marketing technologist is fluent in marketing and technology, blending the creativity of marketing with the process and scaling orientation of IT.

This report explores:

• The 3 A’s of the ideal marketing technologist: Aptitude, Altitude, and Attitude
• The movement away from ‘post and pray’ recruiting to ‘scout and sell’ recruiting
• How hiring executives are finding marketing technologists in creative and proactive ways
• Suggestions for evaluating marketing technologist candidates