The 3 Quintessential Qualities to Look for When Hiring a Growth Marketer

In the entertainment world, there’s often mention of the elusive triple threat, an individual who can sing, act and dance with endless talent and effortlessness.

Example one, our very own Aussie heart-throb, Hugh Jackman.

Today, I am here to help you hire Hugh Jackman of the modern marketing world. So what does a growth marketer look like? Here are just three examples.

  1. Sean Ellis, CEO at GrowthHackers.com — “I’d ask things like “what is the main benefit you get from the product, why is that benefit important to you, what would you use if the product weren’t available?” I would then try to develop a relevant/appealing promise statement based on the must-have benefit.” says Sean.
  2. Nir Eyal. is the Author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products — Has taught at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Design School. Since 2003 he’s sold two technology companies and now helps teams design more engaging products.
  3. Karol Pokojowczyk, CEO and Founder of Colibri. With more than 20 years of coding and 12 years of growth hacking experience, Karol brings software development to business growth more than any other growth hacker.

The biggest and best start-up successes in the world like DropBox and AirBnB, hire growth marketers. It can sometimes feel like you’re chasing a unicorn but trust me, not nearly as impossible as it sounds!

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Cheers to that, Hugh!

Forget hiring based on the sturdiness of a candidates handshake, this is the best way to hire (and ultimately a far greater measure of a candidate).

No lie, hiring for a role in digital marketing can be really tricky. For one, today, it’s a very multi-disciplined field.

You may think you want a Social media manager, but what you really need is a Graphic Designer, who knows how to write killer copy, knows SEO best practice, how to send killer emails, understands product, how to improve on last months results be reviewing data and insights and is brave enough to think outside the box when it comes to marketing initiatives and channel activations. Whoa, that’s a lot…

What you’re really looking for is a ‘Growth Marketer’.

WHAT IS A GROWTH MARKETER?

Growth Marketers have a hybrid mix of technical, tactical, and strategic skills in product, data, and marketing. They use data-driven, unconventional, and experimental approaches to fuel the growth and scalability of organisations.


For someone to be a Growth Marketer they need to exhibit certain qualities. Remember, skills can be acquired and nurtured, qualities are often innate and so this is what you should look for when hiring:

  • Curiosity
  • Creativity
  • Analytically-Minded

Yes, very buzzwordy and airy-fairy indeed. But let me indulge you!

Hiring a Curious Person

Think about milk. Most of us would consume dairy on the daily (sorry, I don’t mean to discriminate against vegans and the lactose intolerant! Please hear me out!)

Once upon a time, god knows how many years ago, somebody had the curiosity (and the guts, let’s be honest) to approach a cow and squeeze its teet because they were curious. ‘These baby cows must be sucking at something right?’ And voila! We have milk and the god-sent miracle that is cheese! Mmm cheese… Sorry I digress…

Source: Giphy

​Now, I wouldn’t suggest you go around squeezing the teets of random animals. In fact, please don’t. The point of my analogy is to highlight the fact that curiosity has led to our greatest findings and most innovative ideas all throughout history.

Don’t hire the person that would happily take on the ignorance is bliss mentality and drink water all of their life. Find the person that striving to for something better. Milk that tastes like real milk.

Whoops, I got distracted. Such a good ad though

A curious mind knows there is ALWAYS a better way to do things and will ask the hard-hitting questions that need to be asked. 

How to Spot a Curious Candidate:

  • Are they asking you questions? Offering suggestions? Challenging the way you do things? Don’t hire a yes-person!
  • You can also ask them questions that will spark their curious-side, like: How would you increase revenue and activate a campaign on a $10 budget?

​Hiring an Analytically-Minded Person

​When in an interview it’s easy to get caught up in a person’s grand ideas.

Interviewer: We have a goal to make peoples lives easier, what kind of a campaign would you create to solve their day-to-day problems?

Candidate: Idea… blah blah blah  

Interviewer: That example is good! However, it sounds risky…What makes you believe it will be successful with our customers?

Candidate: Because I saw another brand do it…Because today’s customer likes…Gary Vee told me to do it…

There’s one simple thing omitted from the candidate’s enthusiastic campaign pitch…DATA! Now it’s unlikely they’ll be able to rattle off the exact data points and processes they’ll use to validate and test their campaign, but they should understand the data sources and points that will come into play.

An analytical person understands the importance of utilising data at every point in the customer’s journey and will always look to validate their ideas and test before flushing your marketing budget down the drain.

Marketing Analytics can be taught, it’s more of an awareness around the importance of data in marketing that you should be on the lookout for.

How to Spot an Analytical Candidate:

  • When you ask them to unpack past campaigns listen out for mentions of the key data points? How deep is their understanding? Are they looking beyond Google Analytics and vanity metrics?
  • Ask them simply, ‘How do you measure the success of a campaign?’

Hiring a Creative Person

Did they show up the interview in a pinstripe suit? No? Rip their resume up and throw it in their face. A creative person would never wear a standard suit to a job interview!

Source: Giphy

Just kidding! You cannot judge a person’s creativity by the way they look, you judge it based on how they think.

Their superpower is creative problem solving, the mental process of searching for an original and previously unknown solution to a problem. ​People with this quality basically have great ideas on tap. A never-ending supply.

They are great at working with what you have and turning it into something truly remarkable. Better yet, they won’t require an exorbitant budget in order to achieve it.

How to spot a creative candidate:

  • When you give them an example scenario, watch to see if the identify the problem before offering a solution
  • Are their solutions unique? Are they willing to give something a go that hasn’t been done before?
  • Do they possess the vulnerability to propose out of the box ideas?

One Final Note

Remember this, skills can be taught, but it is incredibly difficult to fine-tune a person’s qualities. So what they’re not a whizz with Excel, or they’ve never used a CRM before, you can teach them this, hell, GOOGLE can teach them that!

Hire on the qualities of curiosity, analytical thinking and creativity and you’ll find they’re are equipped for any challenge and will always bring the best ideas to the table.

If you need help hiring your very own marketing-Hugh-Jackman, email us. We’ve got a fool-proof template to help you write the job description that will attract the right kind of person,

PLUS, we will share your job listing with our network through our Community Noticeboard, you deserve the cream of the crop!

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