The Elusive Unicorn: The VP of Marketing

Where do executive talent recruiters hang out in their time off? I envision a club where they get together and commiserate about searches commissioned by uninformed executives. Stories of searches that lead to a trip down a deserted road lined only with the remains of great candidates who were “missing just one thing". And in this club, the topic that produces the greatest anger, unity and humor is recruitment of a startup’s VP of Marketing.

The stories likely start with the candidate specification meeting where the job description of the perfect candidate is narrowly defined as:

A strong product marketer
Mathematical approach to marketing and obsession with metrics
Ability to manage the entire funnel
Has been an individual contributor in email marketing. And SEO. And graphic design.
Category or market relevant experience. Should have worked at a financial institution, retailer or packaged goods company.
Needs to be a spectacular writer
Can speak well in front of small client meetings
Has successfully delivered keynotes at global conferences
Successfully took three products to market with an end to end marketing campaign
Senior but not too senior.
Needs start up experience but isn’t a “startup guy"
Can take needs and requirements from the market to relay to product
Changed an industry or two
Can speak Latin fluently and reads Sanskrit
…you get the picture. You’re looking for Steve Jobs to join your lightly funded startup. To paraphrase the movie Chasing Amy:

If you put this candidate, Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny and my grandmother at the starting line of a foot race… who wins?

My grandmother would win because none of the others exist!

Unfortunately the founder, CEO or executive responsible for this search doesn’t see his expectations as too demanding. He hides behind high expectations and says “Shouldn’t we hire only the best?” Yes of course you should… we will produce a slate of candidates.

The interviews start and every candidate is good but missing one thing or another. Everybody is 95% perfect but cannot pass the scrutiny of the other executives on the team. Everybody has veto power and nobody wants to take a risk. To avoid losing candidates, you simply drag out the process doing endless comparisons between executives. You never hire anybody but never cut them lose either.

The search continues and the eager, qualified candidate pipeline dries out. You have successfully burned the market and lost several candidates who were probably the right fit for the role. Unfortunately now your company has built a bad reputation of dating too much of the market without committing to a candidate. Your odds of finding the right candidate just dropped an order of magnitude and you will be forced to do what you should have done all along - focus.

You are in a recoverable situation. You will first need to distill the category list down to three columns: disciplines, industry and company experience.

Traits (pick 2):

Content marketing
SEO
SEM
Social platform expertise
Branding and design
Presentation skills
Demand Generation
Industry (pick 1):

Retail
Finance
CPG
Company experience (pick 2):

Marketing Technology
Ad Tech
SaaS
Media company
Big Company
Small Company
You now have five attributes to define the perfect candidate. Only interview candidates with these five attributes. If they don’t have these attributes, do not interview them and don’t waste the time of your team interviewing them. Rate the candidates on the criteria that you have highlighted and add an adjustment for the ability to successfully lead and motivate a team (this is difficult criteria in a pre-screen).

During the interview process, ask the candidates about her gaps and how she would hire or partner to fill those gaps. Ultimately ask them to make a 30-60-90 day plan and see if you can come to agreement on their hiring plan, partner strategy and go to market specifics. This working session will show you if you will work well together before either of you makes a decision too difficult to undo.

Don’t wait until you have seen an arbitrary number of candidates (many executives need to interview five or ten candidates before making a decision) as your first candidate may be a fit on an absolute scale. Waiting to compare her to other candidates who may not be better will only increase your chances of losing her to a competitor.

Now that you have clearly defined your hiring criteria, discussed a 90-day plan and conducted a successful working session, it is time to make an offer and allow that candidate to execute her vision.