Want to know a great way to build skills and get hired in marketing when you don’t have decades of experience? A lot of highly skilled candidates find it hard to put out applications when there’s so much competition, and it can often feel like there’s a huge amount of weight on number of years worked. I had a coffee chat with a hiring manager from Coca Cola recently. He told me a story about a hire they were making in social media. They had two candidates. The first looked great on paper. Years of experience. Relevant jobs. They could do the job for sure. The second was less conventional. Less marketing experience. Lower credentials. What they did have? 100K followers, great engagement, and gorgeous content. The manager ultimately decided to trust what was on paper. Until their immediate supervisor disagreed with the decision. They picked the less experienced candidate. Why? The second candidate, with an incredibly strong personal brand, proved that they understood effective branding. The second candidate proved that they single-handedly understood how to engage an audience and hold attention. The second candidate proved that they were highly skilled at videography, scripting, photoshop, and copywriting through the production of their own videos. Moral of the story: a strong personal brand is an opportunity to prove your skills in depth. Sometimes the best on paper isn’t the best for the position. #personalbranding #cocacola #hiring #experience #marketing #personaldevelopment #branding #content #socialmedia #socialmediamarketing
Alright, I'll bite. This logic is deeply flawed to me, and I find this hiring practice frankly irresponsible. Using someone's personal Instagram as a barometer for their ability to work as a marketing professional for a multinational corporation is wild. There are so many factors involved in gaining a large following on social media that have nothing to do with skill and strategy. A lot of these people come from profound wealth—they have the ability to pay for expensive software and equipment to create high quality content. They have aspirational personal style—another high cost. Not to mention, they're typically above average in conventional attractiveness. I mean, you can buy 100k followers if you want to. This is why smart marketers know that followers don't matter—engagement does. I think it's a slippery slope for us to go down where people with less training and corporate discipline are more qualified based on vanity metrics than skills and experience.
University Instructor, Board Member, Marketing geek, I love learning and teaching
1yHere's a different take: what if the person without the wonderful execution of a personal brand just doesn't value that in their personal life? Perhaps they have 5 kids, or elder care, or they read books, or actually get sleep (!). They choose, deliberately, not to pursue a visible life of personal branding. The context of what it takes to be a good marketing professional is multifaceted...and importantly, when you manage marketing teams, it is about your ability to impart skills and coaching more than whether or not you can jump into Final Cut and put in a killer effect. My read of this story is that the hiring managers didn't really know what they were hiring for. So what wins? The person opinion of the person with the highest rank.