Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Are you employing the right digital staff?

As I speak to various companies in my consulting travels around the UK, I meet a lot of boards who are looking to hire senior digital staff.

They look internally and then externally, but don't find the people they think they need.
In my opinion this can be for a number of reasons including:

1. There is nobody else in the organisation to benchmark senior digital people against. The digital 'all rounder' often needs to be a combination of creative marketer, technical geek and strategic thought leader. But often they might also call themselves a planner, architect or programme manager (and a lot more besides).

2. Internal staff and HR interviewing them might not be up to speed on all the latest tools, techniques and technologies. So therefore the selection and interview process is flawed.

3. The small number of truly good people in the market means that candidates are thin on the ground and snapped up quickly.

Therefore my advice for those organisations looking to hire someone like this is:

- focus on what candidates have done, rather than what their titles have been

- consider bringing in an independent specialist just to help you define, search, filter resumes and interview candidates

- move quickly when you think you've found the right person

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