How can you differentiate between a competent marketing director and an outstanding one who will positively impact your organization’s bottom line? Consider these two key steps before you extend an offer to even your “best” candidate.

If you’re in the position to hire a marketing leader for your organization, as a few of my clients are currently, let’s face it–you’re in an enviable position. First, it’s a buyer’s market, with record-level unemployment for highly educated and skilled professionals. As a hiring manager, you can leverage these macro conditions and be picky about whom you hire; You can get the best your labor pool can offer.

Next, never before has marketing been recognized as the critical role that it is within a profitable organization. As corporate leaders finally acknowledge that creating relevant marketplace differentiation is only possible when the entire organization adopts (and maintains) a market-driven focus on a company-wide basis, not simply within an isolated department labeled “Marketing,” your role as a hiring manager has been pushed into the spotlight. As such, your decision as to who should fill a leadership position within your marketing organization is ever more critical and potentially scrutinized. The stakes are higher than ever.

These are among many reasons why it has become essential for hiring managers to quickly and soundly differentiate between a competent marketing pro and an outstanding one. The difference–in terms of results–could mean the difference between “business-as-usual” and a visionary leader who inspires your team to innovate, compete and give competitors a run for their money. Getting from competent to outstanding is possible, provided that hiring managers are willing to completely transform how they select and interview candidates. The good news is, this can be addressed in two simple steps.

1. Examine–and if Necessary, Ditch–the Premises and Assumptions Driving Your Screening Process.

Before you can meet with candidates, you first must sort through applicants and screen out mismatches, which essentially means identifying–usually on the basis of only a resume–potential contenders for the job. Whether Human Resources does this first for you or you do this yourself, the baseline is still the same: A set of prescribed premises and assumptions guide and determine who makes the cut and who doesn’t.

Think about it: Whether you are providing your recruiting associate with the required criteria, skills or other mandates or employing those guidelines yourself, the “parameters” you set are based on assumptions. And from what I’ve seen and heard in the marketplace, some managers could benefit greatly by examining and resetting their assumptions.

Here’s an example: Suppose your criteria for hiring a Marketing Director include the requirement of 10+ years experience. While this isn’t an inherently bad requirement, by any means, it’s essential to be honest about why this is deemed “required.”

First, do you require 10+ years of experience so that you are screening out entry-level candidates? Possibly, and if so, that is fine. Are you seeking overall experience and a seasoned perspective? Also a valid goal. However, phrases like this one raise a potential red flag, because the intent could be something other than disqualifying newbies from the get-go. If you’re really using the requirement to attract candidates who can boast a long-term commitment to a single employer, ah, then it’s a different story. If that’s the case, you might be attracting–and subsequently disqualifying–candidates who bring well over 10 years of experience and that experience is rich and diverse, having grown along a path that includes three or four major employers. What’s more, that type of job history could well demonstrate a solid ability to adapt and assimilate within many organizations and different corporate cultures–a key indicator of a good team player and being easy to work with.

The point is, if you are using screening criteria somewhat surreptitiously, you could be misleading candidates, for one, and worse, eliminating solid, winning candidates who might bring innovation and results. Further, it never hurts to examine and challenge your assumptions: Is it really that important that your candidate show s/he can “last” at a company for 10 years? How do you know why s/he worked at only one other company? Sure, such a job history can indicate loyalty, but are you hiring for the position of personal assistant where loyalty is a “first/foremost” qualification? Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to ensure that wherever your new Marketing Director worked in a marketing context, s/he added value and made positive change?

You get the picture. Outdated assumptions like this can derail your own search and lead you to competent, but not outstanding. The point is, be honest about why you are requiring something from a potential candidate that makes the cut. List the real qualities, skills and abilities you want to hire, and then design and define the qualifications honestly and accordingly.

The following are a few common and dangerous outdated assumptions that I believe are deserving of serious scrutiny and challenge. Why? For the simple reason that many of these assumptions are not rooted in reality, and as such, they could be holding you back from hiring outstanding marketing talent and instead, leading you down the well-worn and familiar path of “competent and qualified.” Further, it’s critical to recognize that “familiar” is not necessarily “safe.” The marketplace is rife with examples of companies and industries (railroads, for one) who believed that “same old” was “safe,” and whose bet went horribly wrong. Some of these faulty assumptions (and a counter-argument refuting them) include:

• “It’s easier, safer and smarter to hire from within first; too risky to take a chance on on external candidate.” (First, familiar and easy do not guarantee a safe choice; internal candidates may be close to burnout, and may have clouded, subjective perceptions when you really need an objectively fresh eye. If you are determined to hire from within, be honest about it as to why. Save on salary? Save you time in terms of training? That’s okay…but be honest, and don’t expect outstanding just because it’s someone you are familiar with.)
• “I’ll be saving the company money and resources if I hire a less-experienced candidate at a lower salary, whom I can train and ‘bring up to speed’ on my own.” (Most marketing leaders are so stretched for time, they barely can squeeze in a one-hour interview. Will you really be able to mentor, teach and nurture a more junior candidate? Seriously?)
• “Older, more seasoned candidates lack technical know-how.” (Rather than rely on a broad assumption that lumps all experienced candidates into one homogeneous group, ask meaningful, detailed questions that will reveal whether this particular candidate can demonstrate s/he has worked to remain technically savvy and proficient.)
• “I’m not comfortable with a candidate who seems overly confident. We don’t want any ‘stars’ on our team…we’re a team, after all.” (If you want to hire a drone, admit that, and then seek out someone who is content following directions and who doesn’t want to contribute new ideas. Otherwise, discard this self-limiting, well, limit. It could be holding your organization back.)
• “Our firm’s culture doesn’t need maverick, weird ideas, we need a team player who can get along with others.” (See counter argument directly above.)
• “Candidates who have a checkerboard job history concern me…not sure why, but they do.”  (First, ask yourself why a varied job history bothers you. Make a list of the potential benefits of a diverse career path and compare that list with your concerns. You may find that if you are seeking an innovative leader who can adapt quickly and work well with many kinds of people, you actually may prefer a candidate with a more diverse job-history background.)
• “A candidate who has been out of work for a prolonged period is likely out of touch with current trends, technology, and therefore, won’t ‘onboard’ as easily as someone who is currently employed.” (Rather than assume someone is out of touch, ask hard questions that will reveal whether a candidate has undertaken steps to remain in touch. Assuming is guesswork not rooted in evidence or even an educated conclusion.)

As you can see, these assumptions can be handily shot down with real-world marketing success stories as well as common sense. If you believe you may be harboring some of these assumptions, consider this quote by renown American writer and futurist Alvin Toffler:

      The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.

Examine your own assumptions, and ask, “Are these assumptions grounded in truth? Am I myself resisting change and refusing to ‘unlearn/relearn’ what it takes today to identify a marketing leader?” Most important, ask yourself:

Are my own assumptions leading me to select an outstanding new hire, or merely a competent one? Or, am I just playing it safe?

2. Discard Decades-Old Interview Questions and Replace Them With Effective, Relevant Questions. 

After over 20 years of either working on-staff in the marketing divisions of large firms or as a consultant to these professionals, I’ve watched hiring managers miss tremendous opportunities when interviewing for a new staff member, particularly if they are hiring for a leadership position. The biggest mistake you can make is to rely on outdated, stale and “stock” interview questions you pulled off the Internet to interview for a high-visibility leadership position that will report to you and ultimately reflect your judgment.

For example, too many hiring managers recycle the same, predictable and largely ineffective questions when meeting with candidates. These tired, listless questions include:

• What are your strengths?
• Why do you want to work here?
• Could you discuss your background in more detail?
• Where do you see yourself in five years?

While there’s nothing unlawful or offensive about these questions (other than the fact that they are dreadfully predictable and dull) their worst offense is that they are ineffective. For example, can you really determine a candidate’s strengths by a 2-minute answer delivered by the candidate him/herself? And in a market such as the current one, asking a candidate why s/he wants to work at your company is somewhat disingenuous, in my opinion, and maybe even a bit cruel. Most candidates today are among hundreds of others vying for the same spot; many have been seeking a marketing-related position for months. It would be preferable–and more creative and original–to ask instead, “How much do you know about our organization and the way we interact with potential and current customers? Share with me some aspects about the way we market our services that appeal to you, or, what you would change, and why.”

The difference in approach will be evident in the answers  you will receive; From the answers delivered to that question, you will be able to discern whether  a) s/he did at least a moderate amount of online/in-person research about your company’s marketing machine and has given thought to how to improve or innovate; or b) the candidate is winging it because s/he didn’t expect a real, substantive question like this.

Instead of reusing “Where do you see yourself in five years,” which doesn’t tell you anything other than how well a candidate can keep a straight face when asked a rather silly question, why not ask what you really mean to ask? After all, if you are trying to find out whether the candidate is seeking upward movement within the organization, or whether s/he intends to stick with this career choice for the long term, why not simply ask that directly?

Rehashing cliched interview questions won’t tell you what you really need to know in order to discern between competent candidates and ones who will lead change, innovation and produce results. Ditch these tired fall-back questions, and consider instead these (and the potentially useful, necessary information they may reveal):

Content may be king these days, but the “king” is dead if there’s no context surrounding your content.

During the years I spent “on the inside” as an on-staff corporate marketer/communicator, there were a few constants one could count on: annual performance reviews, the holiday parties, and of course, the periodic declaration by organizational leaders that we’d be embarking on a product rollout of sorts, otherwise known as “a launch.” It’s safe to say that all three of these traditions evoked varying degrees of dread, although the biggest offender was undoubtedly “the launch.”

It wasn’t so much that a product/fund/portfolio strategy/whatever launch was a huge undertaking demanding long hours and imposing stressful deadlines. After all, long hours and deadlines have long been a part of my life. Looking back, what triggered the collective groans among us on the team was the fact that product launches, in general, took forever to see to completion. They can be, very simply, a marathon.

Thankfully, recent trends in marcomm have promised a shift from the marathon paradigm to a more exciting, shorter-term proposition, and have forced content to share the stage with a somewhat strange bedfellow: Context. What we say to consumers is no longer the only focus; we need to deliver messages within the proper context. In short, marcomm has become less about finding a perfect tagline and more about finding a way to deliver the tagline at the right time, and in the right place.

I say “thankfully,” because by nature, this trend will inevitably shorten marcomm tactics from a marathon to a sprint. Meaning, marcomm efforts will need to be shorter-term, condensed, and delivered much more rapidly to a variety of channels. The channel, or conduit, will be more important in capturing a receptive buyer than perhaps the content itself. And the days of the marathon, 2-year marketing campaign will inevitably be numbered, soon replaced by shorter-term, delivery-specific and much narrower endeavors.

Think about it: the very nature of the 1990s/2000s product launch was about gathering countless heads of various departments to collaborate (or at least sign-off on) on the proper messaging. Did the message accurately describe the offering? Does it align with corporate branding overall? Will it cannibalize customers from within? Will it pass through Legal?  It was pretty much all about the “what,” and very little about “how,” because the delivery mechanisms were fairly static: Brochures, letters, fact sheets, ads, and yes, eventually, web site content, although in its infancy, web content was fairly static as well. Today, it’s about inserting your brand into the consumer’s life. Catching the buyer at a moment in time when s/he is already contemplating a purchase. Positioning your product/service in a way that is visual, see-able, and relevant to that consumer’s daily life. It’s become about timing, and settling for the right moment in time as opposed to a stationary billboard that sits, and sits, and sits…hoping by virtue of persistence, it will prompt a consumer to action.

Although I detest it, reality television is related to why context marketing works. I know full-well that reality tv shows are scripted and fake, and reveal very little about the characters’ actual, daily lives. Yet, they have captivated viewers, in droves. Why? Because the lure of watching the daily ins-and-outs of a purportedly “real person” is intriguing. It’s personal (or appears to be), it’s a peek behind a curtain of sorts, and whether we admit it or not, we all want to see what goes on behind closed–even if they are scripted–doors.

Context marketing takes this into account. It is a method of reaching consumers based on a quasi reality-tv premise: that by gaining insight into the individual consumer’s day (through data analytics, and other means), the savvy marketer can “place” the message in such a way as to reach the consumer at the ideal point in his/her day, week or life. And by doing so, it solidifies the consumer’s experience. In short, the consumer no longer has to see the brand as important; the brand now reaches out to the consumer, and says, “Your day is important, and we want to be part of this episode. We’re coming to you.”

If this sounds too theoretical or abstract, think about the last time you shopped online. Wasn’t it weird (or just plain creepy) that after you purchased that amazing wine decanter for your niece’s bridal shower present ads hawking online wine sales from Napa popped up? That’s what context marketing is about. It’s narrow, it’s detailed, it’s fast and it’s about the when/how, not so much the “what.”

Content will always be king, in my book, because I believe that messaging still shapes a brand and stamps it in consumers’ consciousness, individual and collective. But no longer can content plug along at a snail’s pace to a finish line sitting miles away. To effectively reach consumers today, it’s about speed, agility, and timing. Turns out, it’s a sprint after all.

It is with great pride, and after much anticipation, that I write this short entry on a topic so familiar to me after my unspecified number of years in the corporate sector that it almost makes me giddy: corporate speak.

Yes, corporate speak, otherwise known as corporatese, still happens, much like that other thing that “happens” to us now and then, at least according to Forrest Gump. I feel very blessed that the fine people I call clients don’t tend to engage in the practice of corporatese, which is perhaps one of the reasons we are working together.

When I was on the inside, working on-staff at large companies, I learned very quickly that corporate speak could be both the boon and bane of one’s existence. Use it, and you can bluff your way through that meeting for which you had little time to prepare. Use it, and you sound like a complete jerk. It is a scimitar that indeed cuts both ways.

Corporate speak served another, more sublime purpose: those of us on staff who detested the gobbly-gook gibberish that is this odd dialect often clung to one another for a whiff of sanity, or, more likely, the sharing of a stifled guffaw when those fluent in corporatese began waxing poetic. In short, corporate speak can be a unifier for the dissent.

Despite all of its unintended benefits, surviving corporate speak was hell. It is not hyperbole when I say that it was among the three worst aspects of working in the corporate sector. The other two know who they are.

Much like sovereign nations, I celebrate my independence from this oppressive practice every year in June, at about the time I broke up with my last corporate employer in 2002. In remembrance, I offer up some of these all-time favorites mainly as a way to implore you to think before you use any of these phrases. Why? Because save for a select few, most people are onto the fact that corporate speak is usually a substitute for clear, intelligible expression. It’s hollow. It is meaningless. Slinging around trendy jargon is far easier and lazier than constructing a meaningful, direct and clear message. And, since a primary focus of my practice is communication, I thought it was important to address the “what not to do” aspect of our work.

While these are not the only offenses you can commit in the name of a corporate title, the following examples get “leveraged” enough to make it to the Top Ten List.

1. “Synergy” – I have to begin with this one, because I still don’t know what people really mean when they use this word, and I have been hearing it for over 20 years. I think it means something like “the sum is greater than its parts,” or that a team of contributors can create a better result than a lone wolf. I still don’t know, and frankly, don’t care, because I’ll never use this phrase. Ever.

2.  “Best Practices” – Wow. Is it really too difficult to say “most effective methods?” Really? I suppose “most effective methods” sounds pedestrian to some. If so, that is a small price to pay to communicate your point clearly.

3. “Drill Down” – Unless you are J.R. Ewing or my dentist, don’t say this. Try “go into greater detail” instead.

4. “Actionable” – This word used to mean anything that provided a viable ground for a lawsuit. Now, it’s been mightily morphed into a commitment-dodging label for anything on which an action could be taken. Saying that something is “actionable” means essentially nothing, because arguably, anything is actionable, depending on one’s perception. Ditch this awful word and be specific. “In this case, we could survey this segment of customers” is far better than “this is certainly an actionable trend.”

5. “Disintermediate” – Good Lord. This one refers to removing the middle man or any intermediary in a given process or chain of decisionmakers, but it sounds more like you’re about to dismantle a ticking explosive. Unless you’re citing lines from one of the Die Hard movies, don’t say this.

6. “Dovetail” – Another word for stealing someone else’s original idea, it also means to expand on an already stated point. Try, “we can expand on this point.”

7. “Gisted” – Here we go again. This is almost always used when a corporate manager is giving orders, such as in “I want this information gisted in a memo by morning.” I believe it means “summarized,” but it’s such a distasteful expression I recommend you avoid it at all costs. Ask for a brief summary of main points. That should do it.

8. “Interface” – Please, make it stop. Say “communicate” or “talk to,” not “interface.” If you’re referring to a software program or database, you could say “connect with/to” or “compatible with.”

9. “Irregardless” – This is not a word, but I believe due to its overuse among otherwise intelligent and educated people, it warrants inclusion on this list. The correct word is “regardless.”

And finally…

10. “Create Efficiencies” – This often pops up in job descriptions and LinkedIn summaries. Why would it be so terrible to write “detect more efficient ways to increase market share” or “simplify our procedures?” Why, oh why?

I’m sure I’ve only scratched the surface of this topic, and as such, I encourage you to think out of the box and leverage your core competencies to create an optimal synergy, peel the onion and allow emerging shifts to uptrend, thereby resulting in a new and measurable actions and results, best-practices systems and an open architecture approach to brainstorming and development.

How’s that for clarity?