The Marketing Personality

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In a recent post I mentioned that I look for a “marketing personality” when I hire marketers. This is more important to me than a specific degree or where you went to school. Of course, results trump everything, and personality is not always an indicator of talent. That being said, the interview is a small snapshot from which you need to judge whether a candidate can do a job. Personality is going to be one of the factors you will use.

So what is a marketing personality?

The list of traits below are the ones I try to judge when I interview a potential marketer. One exception to that would be in the role of product managers. Product managers in the software industry need to work with developers so their personality can be a little more analytical and perhaps a little less outgoing.

Marketing Personality Traits

1. High-energy, but not spastic. Maybe this is a little bit of my personal energy levels clouding my judgment, but I think marketers should be high-energy. If I’m bored just talking to someone, I can’t imagine they are going to be able to produce anything that wouldn’t bore the customer. On the other hand, if they are a little too high-energy, I have a problem imaging them sitting down and getting the job done.

2. Task oriented. Almost everything in marketing is a project and can be measured. I like it when marketers talk about the different projects they worked on and what was accomplished.

3. Focused. A storyteller is good. It gives me a sign that the individual is creative. But don’t stray too far off the topic. One individual I interviewed wanted to talk about Moore’s law. While interesting, it was irrelevant.

4. Articulate. This may seem obvious but there is one caveat. People who are articulate with the spoken word are not always good writers and vice versa. If I am looking for a writer I will judge them more by their samples. If I need someone who can represent the product verbally, I will judge them by the words they use in the interview.

5. Plainspoken. You may have the IQ of Einstein but don’t let that come across in the words you choose. Marketers need to be able to communicate with all sorts of people. Simple words are usually the best.

6. Meticulous. If you’ve read my previous post you know I take issue with typos and grammatical errors. I know they happen. Given the quantity of content that I’ve written, I am sure you could find a few in my posts. However, marketers need to pay attention to the smallest detail. If I see more than one, especially if they are obvious errors, it’s not a good sign.

These are the traits I look for. I’m sure there are others that I’ve missed, just as I’m sure that arguments could be made against some of these. Let me hear from you.