101. Series 4 | Episode 1. Reality of Job Searching as a Senior B2B Tech Marketer Today with Lisa Vecchio, Enterprise Marketing Director at Veed.io

Speaker A: I'd also say I probably had less clarity than I've ever had in my life. And I think that's because the job that's being asked of marketers and senior marketers, as you said, with the bean counters and whatnot, is changing. It's evolving. You know, there's so many WhatsApp groups and Slack groups that I'm on with senior marketers going. It's tough for us at the top at the moment with the executives, with the investors, and so really asking a business, what, what are you hiring me to do? You know, what's the job of marketing in your eyes? And is it just, you know, bottom of the funnel, pure roi, or can we actually, you know, tell stories again and breathe life back into our brand? You, uh, know, across the funnel?

Speaker B: Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Market Mentors podcast. I'm, uh, Matt Dodgson, co founder of Market Recruitment, and we connect B2B tech and SaaS businesses with marketers to help them grow. This week we're joined by Lisa Vecchio. Lisa, just been hired by VEED as their new enterprise marketing director, and I wanted to catch up with her and discuss the current job market. What is it really like, how did she approach it? And so much more. If you're a senior leader looking for a job right now, then I hope this episode offers you some reassurance, but more importantly, gives you some insights and tips from someone who's been looking for

Speaker C: a new job recently.

Speaker B: Let's get into it.

Speaker C: Lisa, it's great to have you back. I think this is now the third time I think we've done this, isn't it? And congrats on the new role at VEED.

Speaker A: Thank you.

Speaker C: So you've spent obviously the last six months looking for a, for a new senior marketing role. And, um, I wanted to catch up to speak to you to see how it's been. So today I've got on my list of questions, things for you, like, you know, what channels work best for you and how you structured your day and the experience you receive from companies as a job seeker. Um, but before we dig into that, and I've spoken to lots of senior B2B tech marketing leaders over this last year, but, um, for your perspective, I mean, how good or bad is the job market for senior marketing roles right now?

Speaker A: Yeah, a great question. I would say we've seen better times. We've seen better times, but it's optimistic. I would encourage everyone to keep an optimistic outlook. You know, I've spoken to I mean, handfuls and handfuls of recruiters, senior marketing, specialized recruiters in the last couple of months. And hands down everyone says this has been the toughest year ever. Right. But I think in B2B we're, we're a bit luckier than maybe some of our friends in B2C where still still in need. So I'd say there's been steady conversations. We're just not seeing the volume that we probably saw maybe post Covid after that peak. And more importantly, I think businesses are being really risk averse. So the few roles that are out there, they are out there, you know, keep, keep looking are going to be very, very specialized. You know, I think employers aren't really taking risks with maybe transferable skill sets or transferable industries in the same way they used to. And I think that just makes it that much harder and much more competitive.

Speaker C: Yeah, and I think it has certainly from our side, I think the senior end of the market's probably been impacted more so than the junior end. You know, actually for us, when you're trying to hire somebody who's a marketing executive with maybe one or two years experience, that can be almost as tough as hiring a senior person right now. Because off the back of COVID I don't think there were many tech companies actually giving grads the experience in the first place. So there's a bit of a lag there. And of course we've been through this kind of, you know, decent period, haven't we, of sort of 10 years. Obviously there's a little blip with COVID where there's been lots of investment in tech and there's been lots of people progressing their careers into more senior roles. And of course you get the bean counters in certain companies that look at numbers only and think, okay, well we can save a reasonable amount if we take out a layer of our directors or a layer of our head off. So it has been, you know, it's almost a perfect storm really unfortunately. I mean, when you went into your job search, you know, it gives you time to reflect, doesn't it? I mean, did you have a clear idea of kind of what you were looking for then from your next step or did that kind of evolve as you started to have sort of conversations? I think sometimes when you, when you're out of work, the tendency can be to, let's talk to as many people as we possibly can, whether or not it's going to, in the area that you're looking for or not.

Speaker A: I think you're exactly right in the approach. I think it's important to have lots of conversations to get a sense of m. What. What's out there. Also more maybe self awareness in. In what you think you want. I mean, in a tough market where there's not a lot of choice, it's also difficult. You know, people have bills to pay and mortgages to pay and things like that. So I feel very fortunate that I was able to sort of take the time and to answer your question, yes, it was purposeful. You know, I definitely took a step back and wrote down, okay, what are the things I, uh, what are the things that I think I'm good at? What do I want for my next role? But I'd also say I probably had less clarity than I've ever had in my life. And I think that's because the job that's being asked of marketers and senior marketers, as you said, with the bean counters and whatnot, is changing. It's evolving. You know, there's so many WhatsApp groups and Slack groups that I'm on with senior marketers going. It's. It's tough for us at the top at the moment with the executives, with the investors. And so really asking a business, what. What are you hiring me to do? You know, what's the job of marketing in your eyes? And is it just, you know, bottom of the funnel, pure roi, or can we actually, you know, tell stories again and breathe life back into our brand, uh, you know, across the funnel? So, you know, centering on. Did I. Did I know what I wanted? I think it was really sticking with my values. And I had a list, you know, to be very tactical. I had a spreadsheet where it was like, title, salary, location, job span, industry. And I had a, uh, sort of great, good, and no. And I was able to kind of benchmark the conversations I had into those categories. And I'd recommend, you know, really good at practicing. And, you know, when I. When I jump on a call with someone like you and you say, what are you looking for this time? To be able to kind of roll off of my tongue. Okay. These are the types of, you know, things that I'm looking for in a role. And for me, it's like, hey, you know, I've got a lot of global experience, so I love working for global companies. Um, I'm, you know, a generalist, and I love working holistically across the marketing mix. And then also the leadership piece, you know, do I have a seat at the table to help make strategic decisions, but also leading A team that was for me always been, you know, the things that don't change, the things that change this time were, are my values aligned to the leadership team? Right. What's going to be expected of me in terms of travel or time in office? And I got really, really far stage with a role that was amazing. It ticked all my boxes from a, I guess more superficial standpoint. And then I realized only as I got to the very end, um, I don't want to fully remote work, you know, I really want to be able to spend time with the team again and build a team around me. And that wasn't on my piece of paper as high as I thought it was until it actually became real. So if I didn't talk to as many people as I talked to, I probably wouldn't have come to that conclusion on what really was important to me.

Speaker C: Okay, and that is a great answer. What struck me actually in terms of what you just said there was the fact that you almost had like a scorecard. So, uh, you have worked with talent acquisition closely before in some of the companies you've worked with, I'm sure. And from a company perspective, when they're hiring people, they have a similar thing, don't they? They've got their skills and then, you know, the values of the cultural side. And again, they have, okay, what does good look like? What do the answers look like when candidates are answering these questions? You're essentially flipping that, aren't you? You're essentially approaching it very much like, uh, a company would do when they're hiring a candidate. And you'll approach it very much as a job seeker when you're hiring a business to hire you. Sure.

Speaker A: We always say it's a two way street. Right. It should be mutual in terms of you're interviewing a company and they're entering interviewing you. And so why shouldn't a candidate be able to really assess what's most important to them? And part of that's going to be the experience, Right, that you have, uh, as part of the interview process.

Speaker C: Yeah. And it's a gut feel. I mean, I spoke to a lot of candidates where they were like, you know what, When I was interviewing for them, they said certain things that made me think, is this really the one?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And again, that's where those answers come in is, okay, what's a, what would a great answer look like to this question when we're talking about alignment across all the teams in terms of the belief of marketing? Um, I think sometimes you've got to trust Your gut instinct rather than thinking, okay, well, it sounded okay. Ish. Let's hope it turns out.

Speaker A: I believe that so much, you know, I've taken roles, maybe in the past for the wrong reasons, it was the title or the money, where I had the gut feeling of something's not sitting right, to be transparent. Where, where I landed. Now, I had two offers in the same week and one of them gave me a gut feeling that, you know, I woke up energized and smiling ear to ear. And the other one gave me a feeling of dread. I couldn't explain it because again, on paper, ticked all those boxes and, um, you have to trust your gut. You got to trust your gut.

Speaker C: Yeah, indeed. Indeed. And is there in a way, in terms of sort of your job search, the mechanics of it that, I mean, we did. How did you structure your day? Did you treat it like a job? What were you doing sort of day to day, you weren't in work.

Speaker A: Yeah. So I think we should, we should take advantage of this time off and not overly stress ourselves. You know, it's also a blessing to be able to reset, spend time with your family, you know, your loved ones, exercise, look after your mental health. But you also have to put the hard work in. And I think as long as you get a structure to your day, you're able to do both. So everyone's going to do things differently. You know, I'm a big fan of LinkedIn. I'd say my job search was probably like a third, A third, A third between me still getting inbounds in my inbox from, from headhunters, me really investing in my relationship with marketing, you know, specialist recruiters, and then also me applying directly on LinkedIn. And so every morning I had my search criteria set just using my phone, the LinkedIn app. I would just kind of VP of Marketing UK every morning and just see what last 24 hours, what came in and I would just save them. If I could easily, easily apply, I would then and there. If there were long, really, really bad, um, application processes that required you to sign in and fill out your life's history. I benchmarked Friday, you know, an hour and Friday afternoon to just do all the hard ones. So that was every morning and every evening I would, I would refresh that LinkedIn feed. So if there was a new job, I would have seen it. I don't want to, you know, and I think there's a timeliness part of these jobs being posted. The volume of applicants is so high that some jobs are posted and closed within, you know, 48 hours because of the volume of applicants. So I definitely think you want to be early doors. And then I would also leverage my network, of course. So if I saw someone I knew worked there or had worked there previously or a friend of the hiring manager, I was using LinkedIn, you know, directly to inbox, um, to people at the, at the company. I'd say in my current role I did the same. I inboxed the CMO and I got an interview. So always useful to, to use your network and be proactive there. And then I also spent a lot of time in my community, right. Like I was attending the events. So a lot of recruitment companies are hosting events for those looking. I would show up to those, I would show up to the webinars and all the other sort of conferences that were taking place throughout the summer. I think just being around other people who are in your same, same circumstance, you never know, you know who's going to hire who, who to pop up. So yeah, my day was def, ah, spent on LinkedIn. And then the other thing quite tactically is, and there's gotta be a better way to do this, Matt. I've gone through my LinkedIn and I've gone through my entire network and the first thing I did was focus on those recruiters. And I actually have a list of people you're on that list. I'm proud to say that you're the first person I call when I'm starting to look for a role. And those are the people that I spent time with and probably once a month had to catch up with. Right. Just to keep my finger on the pulse of what was happening in the market? You know, am I benchmarking my salary at the right range? Am I, you know, is there anything I need to know about? And so I think it's definitely worth people spending time with the recruiters, uh, in the market. Even if they can't help you, they're, they're there as a resource to learn from. And then of course when you get hired, they're also the first people you call when you want a role filled. So it works both ways, I think.

Speaker C: And did you have the green open to work banner on? Did you, did you go that far?

Speaker A: I did not have the green open to work banner on. So I would say that my thinking is, you know, first thing I do is, you know, reach out to my recruiter network. I did that in batches of two. The people I really put high in my list and then maybe the long tail people who haven't really been able to help me in the past, but I know they've got a good network. So I probably did the first at the start of my search, waited a month or two when I was still looking, then I went to the second batch. And then the third thing I didn't have to do at this time is I really would have gone through my list of contacts of people I've worked with in the past, people I've, you know, really respected, and inbox them, um, to just go, hey, I just want you to know about my situation, if you hear of anything. So I did that again with my close network, but I didn't do it to my wider network yet. I think probably if I wasn't at offer stage before the end of the year, I would have made an announcement on LinkedIn in January and put that green banner on. I don't think it's anything anyone should be embarrassed of or shy to do.

Speaker C: So, yeah, um. Uh, did you find that you were a little bit more focused in terms of the roles that you're applying to? I mean, from my perspective, I think what makes a great marketer is applicable to any industry in any role. But obviously we live in different times. You mentioned at the sort of start, companies are quite specific. Were you quite aligned in terms of the sort of size of businesses, the types of areas that you've kind of worked with before then, or were you a bit broader than that?

Speaker A: Uh, so as I said, you know, this is the first time I kind of threw all of my parameters out the window. I. I really thought my sweet spot was in those scaling companies, like 100 million-plus. And what I realized is those are the ones probably going through the toughest times at the moment with investment. I looked at everything from, is it VC funded, PE funded, you know, privately owned, public. And at the end of the day, those weren't really the signals that were kind of drawing me to anything. I then said, I'll work in any industry. Maybe it's time to move away from SaaS because it's so volatile. At the end of the day, what I enjoy is I enjoy marketing to marketers, I enjoy martech, I enjoy SaaS. It's what I'm good at. And in the end, that's where I ended up. So as much as I tried to almost do something different, a, the market wasn't letting me because they were being so specific, and B, when I actually figured out where I get joy, when I was offered opportunities in fintech or health tech or you know, I don't know other sort of industries. I was like, I just can't get excited in the same way I get excited about Martech. So I tried to do something different, but ultimately I followed my gut.

Speaker C: You need the passion, don't you? So, uh, an interesting point you made about applying early. I mean, I'm in quite a few sort of talent academics, acquisition groups and you made a good point about the volume of CVS as well. Acquisition can work quite differently to sometimes recruitment agencies in that, uh, they do tend to stop after a little while sometimes. They don't necessarily want to put too many choices in front of a hiring manager, so actually they will. And I've read a few posts on LinkedIn about there being kind of like a maybe pile where candidates sit, unfortunately who've got the skills but perhaps were maybe a bit late or whatever it might be. Um, it's interesting to hear that you felt like getting ahead and applying early is actually an advantage, which I think probably is as well. Really. Because, you know, if you can get into that or get those early conversations with those talent acquisition, those internal teams, then you can often find you get through to the hiring manager a bit quicker. And maybe some people are on the back burner because they're a little bit late into that process.

Speaker A: I agree. I mean, especially if people are moving, I think businesses are being intentional. You know, they don't want to miss hire. It's too risky right now. Hence the roles and the profiles are hyper focused. But even, even my own recruitment, you know, I'm, I'm hiring at the moment for three roles. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm screening fast and uh, it's, it's, it's a quick no if it's a if it's a no. But there, if I'm not saying yes, I am kind of leaving this maybe pile there of, uh, okay, maybe I'll come back with a fresh perspective on these profiles that aren't a hard no, but they're not an immediate yes either. So I think you're lucky to get in that pile. But it just takes the one or two yeses. That means I won't even go back to that maybe pile sometimes.

Speaker C: So yeah, yeah. And at your level, that, I mean senior marketing roles, sometimes they're hired by people like ourselves. So we're kind of niche marketing recruiters, sometimes they're hired by executive search type businesses. So a startup could be thinking, okay, well we need somebody on our leadership team. Let's speak to an executive search business that operates across lots of different channels. And then obviously you mentioned you've got LinkedIn jobs from this search. Then where did you see most success? Was it sort of distributed fairly evenly or did you have a little bit more success in exact search or.

Speaker A: It was a mix. So I did work with some exact search firms with some really, really exciting roles. Do you know what I found? That being picky. Sometimes I didn't get them because my profile wasn't right for them. And also, sometimes even with exec search, I'd get really deep, you know, spend a lot of time with these businesses and realize it wasn't right for me. So executive search, especially at the senior level, can be really, really valuable because some of these companies are only using exact search firms because they don't have the time or the capacity to go to market. I definitely think, um, embedding time and relationships in exec search firms is important. I also see, you know, VC companies that are leveraging their investors. Right. And their investor networks to bring people in. And I think that's a great avenue as well, because if you are kind of on their radar, they could move you throughout their portfolio of companies as well, which is a great opportunity. So I would say you kind of need to be looking at everything. Specialized recruitment firms, exec search, proactive with your own network and then proactive with direct applications as well. Unfortunately, you have to kind of be across all of it because it's such a challenging market.

Speaker C: Great stuff in the pro. In terms of the sort of process itself. When you engage with companies and interview with companies, obviously you've got your kind of scorecard, which sounds amazing, but what about the actual experience you receive through the interview process? So it's all good and well, companies saying, hey, look, we're like a family, or all this sort of cliched sort of stuff. But when that doesn't kind of marry up to actually how you treated as a candidate throughout that process, it's sometimes a bit jarring, isn't it? But, um, but from your side, I mean, it's all good and well, having somebody talking about this sort of stuff. But how important to you was it how you were treated throughout that.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Interview process as a candidate?

Speaker A: Super important. I've had, I have some amazing conversations. I met with some amazing companies that it just didn't work out. I, uh, like I said, on either end, but then I've also had some pretty atrocious situations as well. You hear a lot about people being ghosted. You hear a lot about, um, you know, hiring managers not really knowing what they need or really clear expectations from the role. And so I'm finding that even some of the conversations, great for them, M. That they were using our time to explore what they think they, they needed or didn't need. But also not great for me where I kind of thought I was going in to fill a need that clearly wasn't what they wanted or looked for. So I think for me that was more of the jarring. Like that was a red flag. If you really weren't sure what you needed and if my profile did or didn't match that, then it wasn't something I wanted to invest more of my time in because I don't want to be set up to fail. Right. I don't want to enter a company being hired for X, but then ultimately not delivering on Y. So there, there was, there was that. I've had some, some. Some ghosting going on as well for some pretty senior roles where I've met founders, I've met investment companies, and then crickets and, you know, even following up, going, well, are, you know, are you still hiring for this role? Or. Feedback, just feedback would be appreciated. It's okay if it didn't work out. So, yeah, there, there was quite a bit of funny business going on.

Speaker C: Why do you think people get ghosted?

Speaker A: I think again, either, either it wasn't the right fit and they just didn't have their things together to politely decline, like, you know, moving ahead. Which is just silly because you're, you're probably not a great hiring manager if you just can't get back to people in time.

Speaker C: 2.

Speaker A: I also think they don't know what they want. Right. And so they don't necessarily want to say no and they want to kind of simmer. But after that's been going on for months and months and months, like, you know, it makes me think of a candidate. I don't think I wanted to join this company because you don't have your stuff together, you know. So I think it's probably a combination of both. Bad hiring practice, maybe just bad recruiters on one end and then the other is that you don't know what you want. And so it's like that maybe pile you described. You've just got people kind of sitting in limbo and ultimately they're going to. Yeah. Find something else.

Speaker C: Such an easy. It's just such an easy thing to do though, isn't it? Even to say, look, hey, look, we're not quite aligned in terms of exactly what we need. Uh, you know, let's keep in touch. Okay, great. At least I know where I stand. I mean, that doesn't take too long, does it really? But, uh, cool. You mentioned some of the red flags. I mean, are there any other red flags? And you were sort of thinking of as you were sort of going into this sort of stuff as A senior, uh, B2B tech Mark, do we know how volatile it is? We know you've been in this industry for a while, so you'll have the battle scars and stuff, so you kind of know what to be, to be looking for.

Speaker A: But I think asking the tough questions around profitability, funding, asking around NRR and GRR is really important because, you know, a lot of businesses have realized they've had, they've been leaking out the back door in the last handful of years and that's limited their profitability. So just being really smart on the metrics. And then I think as, uh, a senior marketer talking about that leadership team, kind of what some of those rituals are, you know, what, what the CEO thinks of marketing and marketing's job to be done. Like, you know, if you're being told something that's the complete opposite of what drives you as a marketer, it's not going to be a good fit or who marketing is reporting into. Are we reporting into sales and the CRO? For me, that's a big red flag. Or, um, you know, founders who've been leading the marketing function and now want to bring in a new senior marketer. What's that transition going to look like? Right. Are they really going to be able to let go and trust this person to kind of build out and expand the thinking of the function. So those are just little things that were on my mind that I'm like, you know what? I don't know if I come in, if I would be successful if some of these things aren't necessarily aligned.

Speaker C: Yeah. And did you find you got given enough time by companies to get asked these questions? Because sometimes you see inexperienced companies that spend 90, 95, sometimes even close to 100% of the time, uh, actually asking what they want to get out of it. And then there's like enough time for maybe one or two questions. Did you find you had enough time?

Speaker A: Generally, I'd say if I didn't think, if I didn't, if I didn't have enough time, I'd ask for it, you know, and if someone tells you no, then that's a red flag. If they can't jump on another call with you just to sort of validate some of this. Even in my, in the role, I accepted, you know, I had a great, great experience, but I also, at the end felt like I wanted to spend more time with the CMO one on one. And we did that, right? We did, we did another session just to talk more about, hey, how are we going to work together? You know, what do you think these, some of these first projects will be? Talk to me about kind of our cadence in office versus at home. It's not because there was a right or wrong answer to that, but I just wanted to make sure the chemistry was there on a much deeper level. And so, yeah, if someone's going to tell you no, they won't jump on a call for another 30 minutes with you, that's a huge red flag that, uh, you're not really going to have the relationship you would expect.

Speaker C: So. You make a great point though. I think the best companies are those companies that will just give you the time. Hey, look, you want to speak to somebody who's in the team, speak to somebody who's in the team. Set up a half an hour call. You want to have a, an informal catch up during some lunch. You can ask all the questions you want to ask. Let's just get it organized. You know, that's, that's the, that's the kind of company I've, I've had, uh,

Speaker A: I've had other great experiences where I was put in front of customers, I was put in front of sales team members. And that was also a great opportunity where, you know, because I wasn't sure and they kind of opened up their black book to me to say, well, who else can you meet? That will help reassure you. And I just, I still value that, even though I decided not to go in that direction.

Speaker C: Cool, Cool. You've been super generous with your time. Um, I know you've just started your role at VEED, so thank you very much for carving out a bit of time for us. Any last final tips then? Just from your side, for anybody who's in this position, I would just say,

Speaker A: you know, keep going. As much as you may not have the luxury of time, you know, I was getting to the end of my own timeline, actually. And you can, it's natural to kind of want to panic or go, oh, should I settle for something? Because, you know, you got, you got to pay your bills. But keep asking yourself those, those tough questions in terms of like, what brings you joy, you know, what you think you will get excited about, because at the end of the day, you're spending so much time at work settling for something that your gut is telling you no. It means you're going to be in the same position probably in six months time because you quit or, you know, you're chasing the thing that you knew in your heart you really wanted. So try and give yourself the time to make it purposeful and be really targeted because ultimately you'll enjoy what you do more.

Speaker C: Well, if any, I'm sure you don't mind people reaching out to you if you've got any questions. Lisa, you're always very generous with your time, so thank you.

Speaker A: Please do send me a LinkedIn, uh, message if I can help anyone in any way.

Speaker C: Awesome. And obviously you've got some roles as well, so I'll make sure I put a link to those somewhere as well. Good stuff. Cheers, Lisa. Thank you.

Speaker A: Thank you.

Speaker B: So that's a wrap for this episode. Thanks for listening and stay tuned for more episodes this year until next time.