The Skills Getting CMOs Hired: Insights from an Executive Search Specialist on Senior Marketer Roles and AI

Speaker A: Welcome to the Whole Marketer podcast where we look at the holistic skills and behaviours, the technical skills, soft and human leadership skills and personal understanding that marketers need to grow the brands and businesses of tomorrow. I'm Abby Dixon, your host, author and founder of the Whole Marketer and director of our marketing Capability and transformation consultancy where we work with passionate marketing leaders to provide the clarity, support, empowerment and inspiration needed to be build successful, fulfilled marketing teams.

Speaker B: Hello and welcome to the Whole Marketer Podcast. Today's podcast is part of our miniseries where we're looking at shining a light on the job market that many marketers are experiencing whilst also looking at the changing roles of marketers with a focus on marketing leadership. Shortly we'll welcome today's guest Rowan onto the podcast, but before I do, let's talk about why I wanted to bring him on and talk about the this more Today marketing leaders roles are multifaceted. We need to be inspirational and set that uh, all important clarity to lead the long term commercial agenda whilst looking after our teams, making sure that they are empowered with the skills, behaviours, ways of working and processes to deliver their job whilst having those important board conversations, securing investment and gaining alignment and buy in across the wider organisation with also making sure that the work we deliver is effective, galvanising all of that, it's no small ask. And given that we know that no two roles are the same in marketing, especially for businesses who uh, are startups or rapid growth or entrepreneurial businesses, that senior role looks different. You're often having to grow a team whilst grow a business. So I thought it'd be interesting for us to understand more about the requirements of senior leadership within these types of organisations. I also felt it important that we discuss the realities for those that are going through a job search are facing to support marketers that are going through this process. Today's guest is Rowan Fiske. He is the founder of growthkind, a specialist executive search firm, um, focused on senior marketing, digital and growth leadership roles for VC and private equity backed scale ups. With 20 years experience in search and over 300 appointments delivered across the UK in EMEA, Rowan has built one of the deepest networks with CMOs, CCOs and CGO ecosystems. He meets thousands of growth leaders every year giving him real time insight into the trends shaping marketing leadership and talent. He's a trusted advisor to many founders, CEOs and investors navigating critical leadership hires. Rohan also runs the growthkind, a private community for senior um, marketing leaders and growthkind, giving a pro bono service connecting experienced growth Leaders with charities and not for profit organizations. So, Rowan, welcome to the whole marketer podcast.

Speaker C: Hello. How are you?

Speaker B: I'm good. I'm glad to have you here today.

Speaker C: It is my pleasure. It's really nice to spend some time.

Speaker B: So spending that time, that first big juicy question and it's a big one.

Speaker C: I'm ready.

Speaker B: You ready? Tell us, what do you see is the role of marketers today?

Speaker C: Well, I mean that's um, just a small one to get.

Speaker B: Just a small one to start you off, isn't it?

Speaker C: I mean, just to give you a bit of context, I mean we typically focus on scale up businesses going through an investment round or going through transformation of some sort. Um, so I think the role of marketers is growth and transformation. Ultimately your goal is to move a business forward, as is the case with the finance department, the IT department, the engineering department, the people department. And I think the role of a great marketer is to know the role that they play within an organization's ambitions. Um, I often say the people who go from head of marketing to marketing director to cmo, they don't become better at, uh, marketing. They're not better technicians necessarily. What they're better at is understanding business objectives and then working out. Yes, of course, the role that marketing has to play in moving their department forward, but actually it's also about interconnecting the rest of the business and understanding what you need from the business to make your role effective and also what other people need from you to ensure that they can thrive as well. So you can talk about campaigns, you can talk about awards, you can talk about all sorts of good stuff, but ultimately if you're not driving growth or transformation in a business, then what's it for?

Speaker B: I couldn't agree more. I believe that marketing should be the growth engine of the business. And the role of marketing leadership is to galvanize the support and gain clarity around the role of marketing and clarity about the long term vision about where the business is looking to get to, how are they going to strategically get there, Whether they're doing that in collaboration with a board or they're leading their marketing team to find the strategy to deliver the commercial objective like it is, about that forward momentum and galvanizing the support of your team of the cross functional businesses, of the alignment for sure.

Speaker C: And as we all know, everyone's got an opinion on marketing, right? Um, fewer people go to the CFO and have been saying, I've really been thinking about your balance sheet recently. Um, and that's an amazing thing if you can harness it, if you can bring the rest of the business on the journey. But um, it's also a super challenging thing. I do a lot of hiring first time CMOs for businesses and my advice to candidates who are in those processes is you have to remember you're not the first cmo, you're the second cmo. And the first CMO is the founder, uh, and it's their baby. And I do a lot of work with founders and I spent a large part of my career tearing my hair out when they pivot every 15 minutes. And now I'm like, oh, now I'm a founder, uh, and I'm changing my mind and I'm really emotionally attached to my brand. So I think marketing is an amazing function. I mean I'm super passionate about it. I found my love in headhunting marketers over the last 20 years. Um, but I think it's an incredibly challenging department uh, to bring on the rest of the business's journey and the people that can deliver that, ah, deliver really amazing results.

Speaker B: And it is about bringing people on the journey. But also the point that you made there around how different that role of marketing is when you're in a founder led business because they are passionate and most founders have founded that business based on their own personal values or something that are passionate about or a problem that they've identified and they're really passionate about solving. And so there is, I often find a level of emotion connected to decision making that you potentially wouldn't find in larger corporates for sure. And that can be challenging for the marketer when they are trying to set the vision. Maybe that founder has a vision so doing it with them. That founder has different views about where the growth should come from or how we should get there and um, feels emotionally connected to the work that goes out and the products and services that get delivered. When you're trying to provide subjectivity and bring the insight and bring the customer's voice. You know, as you mentioned earlier, marketing is really difficult because everyone thinks they're a marketer. Everyone's got an opinion on the work that you create. Everyone's got their straw pole of one opinion on whether they would buy it or if even though they're not the customer. And all of those awkward and annoying conversations that we have, yeah, you're now going to have that plus the emotional response and connection and have to have potentially more balanced view and remain more balanced in times that can be emotionally fueled.

Speaker C: Such a skill, isn't it? And of course Every single role, regardless of um, where you sit in a business has a huge amount of IQ and EQ attached to it. So marketers totally sit at the intersection of managing challenging stakeholders, um, and getting everybody on the journey, uh, and aligned to the mission. Um, ultimately they are the representation of the customer within the organization. And those that harness that and do it in a really effective way create amazing results for businesses.

Speaker B: Definitely those are able to understand the perspectives of those individuals that are sharing their perspectives but able to bring it back to the customer and their needs. And it's not about what I want or what you want, it's what they need.

Speaker C: Absolutely.

Speaker B: Doing that in a balanced way when it can be often emotionally fueled is really difficult.

Speaker C: Yeah, I remember speaking to the CMO of one of the big global banks and he tells this amazing story where the CEO of this big global bank had come up to him and said, oh, my wife has seen one of our uh, billboards and she doesn't really like it, she doesn't really get it and he's an amazing guy and he was like, I don't care, I don't care because your wife is one of our customers. But ultimately I've got the data, I've got the insight and analytics and we are creating activity that is reflective of our customer. And I think when you come from a perspective of insight and data, uh, you've got an incredible superpower to be able to leverage.

Speaker B: I completely agree. And as I always say, when people say, well, what's the thing that I can do to edge us closer to a true marketing orientated business? I would always say have that insight that no one else has. Yeah, have the voice of the customer that no one else has. Of course share it once you've got it, but that's going to get you at the seat of the table to give a different perspective against what people think and what actually we need to do. And it moves us from gut. And I think often in founder led businesses, what's got them, there has been a lot of guts. Right. Has been a lot of intuition and response and maybe there's not data and maybe there's not insight. So, so there's almost a ways of working education piece that needs to happen that goes. It's less about what you think and I know that's got us where we are and we're doing really well. However, we are now going to be insight led and this is the insight and this is what they're telling us and this is what we're going to do. And I think the patience for that is going to be really key for someone in a role like this.

Speaker C: Yeah. And that's a really tricky thing to communicate. Right. Because as you rightly say, to get a business to the point where they need to hire a CMO or a marketing director, the company's been incredibly successful and it probably has relied on its gut. So you've got this um, positivity bias, right. You're like, well, if we've made all the right decisions so far, why shouldn't we continue to keep trusting our gut to then be able to m make the right decisions? And I think the marketers that can take businesses on that journey in an emotionally intelligent and kind and intuitive way. But also I often say great marketers are the people that they put their arm over your shoulder and then they give you a cuddle and then they shove you in the direction that you need to go. And I think the people that can do that are awesome.

Speaker B: Um, I've not heard that before, but there is definitely a special skill that comes with those that go, you know, I hear you, I've got you the patience that comes with it. And actually I spend a lot of time with mark marketers that are in that situation where you have got founders or directors that have had success. You know, it's almost like the success bias. It's like, uh, what I, what I've done has got us here. The decisions I've made have given us the growth that we've experienced. That need to reframe that belief of what get us here won't necessarily get us there.

Speaker C: Absolutely.

Speaker B: And taking them on the journey and the belief and overcoming all their biases is a really difficult job. A really difficult job.

Speaker C: There's an interesting theme to be pulled out of that. If I think about a lot of the hiring that I've done over the last five years or so, it's had a massive, massive bias to performance, uh, marketing demand generation. If we put a one pound into our slot machine, we're going to get two pound out. I would say, um, each of the cmo VP marketing marketing Director hires that I've done In the last five years, I would say for every 10 of those, nine have either said, um, we want somebody who's got a performance marketing spike or if we are to hire somebody and give them a step up into a full stack marketing role, we would want them to come from performance marketing. And I think part of the reason for that is it's safe. Right? We know pound in, pound two out that's great. Very difficult to substantiate that with brand activity. Um, but also, uh, a lot of these businesses have grown to a certain point because they've got hold of meta, it's been super hot and they've suddenly grown like crazy. And I love that point of what's got us uh, here isn't necessarily what's going to get us there. And I think what's really interesting, and I think an amazingly positive trend that I'm seeing change is, is partly through, sorry to use AI, but AI is homogenizing performance marketing capability, partly because people are now maximized on their meta efficiency. I'm now speaking to brands who are saying, look, yeah, we've got all that stuff set up, but we need to be a bit more bold and we need to be a bit more creative and we need to recognize that the only point of differentiation that we've got is human creativity. And so I'm now starting to see a bit of a resurgence in brand marketing roles as a functional discipline, but also interest in true full stack CMO roles where a part of the role is brand building. And I think there's some amazingly healthy downstream effects from that. Firstly, I think it's great for consumers. I think we're going to start to see much more interesting content. Um, but I also think, um, we've had a huge amount of volatility over the last couple of years. It's been really scary for a lot of marketers. Um, they've been in, they've struggled to get a role, then they've been in a role, then they've been made redundant nine to 12 months later. And I think a part of the challenge is that, um, people are defaulting to the channels that they've only that they've got license to use to keep their job. I'm not going to do the brand building activity because even though I know in my heart of hearts it's the right thing to do, I might not be here in three years time to see the fruits of my labor. And so I'm just going to focus on the things that I know are going to drive results. And of course the irony in that is you do that, it's very successful, it lasts about 18 months and then the performance tends to dip off and businesses start asking questions. So I just think it's been such a tricky landscape for marketers to thrive for a number of different reasons. And I mean my crystal ball is on the fritz unfortunately, so who knows what's going to happen. But I feel really positively that the mood music is really starting to shift around this stuff now.

Speaker B: I agree. I've also seen those that albums like inherited marketing if you will from others or from a founder or from a director and they have historically used channels that they have access to. Right. And also channels that provide us with insight and analytics easily to allow us to understand the effectiveness of that work. As you described, $2 in, $4 out, $1 in, $2 out. But as we all know that short term, and it's very sale orientated, it's not necessarily going to allow us to stretch for long term brand building. But I don't think that's just in startups and scale ups. I'm seeing that challenge of focusing on short term impact because of market performance because of that's all that I can get away with because of that's the confidence levels. Because the job to educate on the long and short, the job to get the data and the insight and do the test and the learns and gain the investment to think about long term brand building or test long term brand building and show that it is, it will come, you know, gain the belief that it will come is a really hard part of the role particularly for organizations that maybe are on that growth entrepreneurial agenda, have had investors and have to demonstrate what they're investing, the return that it's giving, that they're hitting the numbers that they projected that they were going to hit. So sometimes it's almost like they stay in that proven space as opposed to proven space with tests and learn and the education needs to come with long term brand building.

Speaker C: Yeah. And look, I think a part of that is evolving, right? Like the um, the historical private equity journey has been one of three years and there's very few private equity journeys that have liquidated in the last three or four years and an incredibly small number that have liquidated within the three year time window. So um, I think increasingly we're going to start to see a bit more patience from funds as much as they're willing to commit to. But I think um, I mean investment directors of private equity funds are some of the smartest people in the world and I think they are getting wise to the fact that the environment is changing and their expectations of um, time frames for transaction are just going to have to be a bit more pragmatic. And so uh, I think there's a lot of really positive stuff that we can speak to. And look, I don't think the market is recovered yet. I think it is recovering and I still think It's a really scary place to be if you're without a role and actively looking. But I do see a lot of cause for positivity.

Speaker B: So I definitely want to get into how you're finding the job market at the moment. But before I do I'm curious as to what other cultural aspects that you find in marketing roles in those environments. So we've talked about the need for patience, we've talked about the emotion, we've talked about short termism and performance marketing and obviously how that's changing with the education. What else are you seeing that marketers that enter into those roles are going to need to appreciate?

Speaker C: I've been thinking a lot, we've talked a bit about EQ and IQ and I've been thinking a lot about CQ over the last six months or so. Um, so that is the intelligence of curiosity, the willingness to change an opinion if you hear something better come along, the willingness to think a little bit differently. Um, the recognition that um, businesses are constantly developing and evolving and I think have probably developed and evolved through AI in the last 12 months more than they ever have done in the history of time. And I am a very very strong believer that the underlying qualities of what's going to make a future CMO amazing is curiosity, empathy, um, the ability to test and learn, to have a continuous thirst for learning and development. I mean I think marketing org structures are massively going to change in the next couple of years. I don't think anyone can say they're the AI expert at the moment because that's totally unsubstantiated. But what they can have are the qualities that will allow them to continue to develop. We're running a project at the moment for a consumer fintech business and it's actually not an executive search process, it's talent intelligence process. They've come to us and said we need to rethink what the future of our marketing org structure looks like. Um, who owns the P and L where it sits? What are humans going to do? What's technology going to do? And so we're surveying a number of marketing leaders and getting their perspective on how things are developing and evolving and just a really fascinating project. And so yeah, I think that curiosity of thinking and challenging yourself and um, being able to uh, adapt to new tools and technology is just absolutely crucial.

Speaker B: Absolutely crucial. Curiosity is one of the skills that I outlined in the whole marketer philosophy. It's like the curiousness around the humans, curiousness around the organization. The questions, the why something's Happening, not what's happening. And you know, almost to add that if that was multiplied with humility to say I don't know yet, with a bit of growth mindset thrown in for good measure and tell me more, help me explain. Can you explain how quicker uh, we would close some of those knowledge gaps that we have? And I know easier said than done given the current landscape of the market. As you said, many people are kind of going, I'm just going to do what they want me to do because it means I stay in role the job market out there and which we're going to talk about in a sec. But I think it really is, you know, there is the technical ability to do the job, to be able to lead that long term commercial agenda. There's definitely the emotional intelligence was I call the soft and human skills. So the empathy, the curiosity, the humility. But then there's also the ability to have that flexibility of thought as well. You know, to be curious, to understand why, to solve those problems. Problems, those questions that you come up. I often give this piece of advice when someone's enrolled is like take a fresh notebook. And when you're doing your little one to ones and you're meeting everyone for the first time where you're never going to remember their name until you see them again, write down everything that you go, why do they do that? That's a bit random. That's a problem that needs to be solved because as time goes on, as you're in that role, you'll be ingrained in the ways of working and things that people are doing. And that's your book to go back to and go, right, I've addressed those four what am I going to next? Are those still problems? Because we need to keep that level of curiosity to keep evolving, to keep edging forward, particularly in businesses that need to transform quickly. And as you just mentioned there, with that landscape that people are looking at, what those structures look like now with AI in mind, I'd love to hear a bit more about that before we jump into how you'll find in the job market.

Speaker C: It's a massive question, right? And I don't think anyone has figured out the answer to this. And I've been spending a lot of time speaking to CMOs over the last 12 months who are trying to get inspiration for their org charts. They're having pressure put upon them from above to rationalize. Understandably. They don't want to let people go, they want to create new skills. And um, yeah, I don't think there is a right or wrong way to restructure a function. I think the first honest question that you have to ask yourself is, are we thinking about growth or are you thinking about rationalization? And unfortunately I have seen many, many businesses use AI being their reason for cutting departments down. And I think it's really, really scary to be a junior to mid level marketer at the moment. I've seen marketing teams go from 20 people to eight. I was speaking to a uh, CMO the other day who has a performance marketing function underneath them cut down from 15 people to three. So the reality is technology can do a huge amount but it can't replace is creative thinking. So um, I think brands and creative ah, has a moat around it and it can't replace, um, critical judgment. I type something into Claude, it spits me an answer back out and I go, what are you talking about? You got that all wrong. That takes years of experience to be able to navigate it. I would say more senior roles are probably a little bit more secure than more junior roles in these functions. I've seen a lot of businesses looking to rationalize creative and content. When I was at my last firm a few years ago, we saw this massive swell in content hiring. But it was content strategists, senior content leaders whose job it was going to be to build the systems to then get rid of the people. And I think like everything else, AI is a tool and it's an amazing tool, but you have to think of it as m a tool to achieve a result rather than the be all and end all and outcome. And the businesses that I have seen who've rationalized down too far are now really starting to see um, some stress and pressure both in their commercial output, but also in the engagement of their teams as well. Um, so I think content, I think creative, there's a huge opportunity to leverage there. But I also think for any aspiring marketers who are developing, if you can get a hold of this stuff and if you can be AI first, you've got this amazing opportunity to create a differentiated, positive skill set. Because I do think there's very, very few people out there who can legitimately call themselves AI experts.

Speaker B: Definitely. And I think it's about that. I appreciate there's a lot of, uh, applications of AI that may eradicate some content creation role. However, um, my hope was always that, you know, with, with a lot of people having recruitment freezes and you know, doing, having to do more with less, that it almost would speed up some tasks that took a lot of time to Allow us more headspace to do the creative thinking and the analytical thinking that you mentioned. Um, so, yeah, I think it's going to be an interesting one to, to watch unfold.

Speaker C: I mean, uh, we use it loads, you know, and, and I feel really blessed to have founded a business in 20 where AI runs through our foundations rather than being bolted onto the side. Um, but ultimately we're in the human being business. I build relationships with people, I get to know them on a personal level. And a huge amount of the value that we bring is through intuition. And that intuition is gained from years of experience speaking to people. One of the things that's very hot in the recruitment space at the moment is, is creating an AI version of yourself to interview candidates. I probably get five people a day reach out to me on LinkedIn saying, how would you like to create Roboroan? Because it's going to save you 20 hours a week. And it makes my skin crawl. Uh, because I think if we've worked really, really hard to track down an amazing candidate who may not necessarily be in the market, and they say, go on, then I'll have a chat. And it's like, great, go and talk to AI Me just turns them off immediately. And so my advice generally is, of course, use it to, um, empower what you're doing, but just never at the expense of the quality and particularly at the expense of human judgment. One of the things that we do, uh, with our, um, custom GPTs, we've built one where we load the transcripts and the CVs of the people that we've longlisted for a search process, right? We load all the data into it around the client, the context, the conversations that we've had with them, um, the scorecarding. And then we will get the custom GPT to score the candidates. That's from the long list, like, right? Rank these 10 individuals, 1 to 10, substantiate, give me the reasons why. And I would say a decent proportion of the time, it's like, here are the best people and these are the reasons why. And the beauty of that is it's objective, right? Like, I've got personal biases. There are people that I've known for years that I like and I would will them to succeed in the process, but they may be less relevant than I would kind of hope for them to be. Um, but equally, uh, it's not picking up on nuance, it's not picking up on human behavior, it's not picking up on culture. So we ran a search a few Months ago where it said, this one's getting the job. Absolutely. Booking the interview tomorrow, send the invoice the next day, you're golden.

Speaker B: Um, loving the confidence, loving the confidence of AI.

Speaker C: But it didn't feel right. There's something niggling in the back of my head where I was like, I'm not sure about this. So did a bit of soft referencing, did a bit of asking around and it was like, no, this person is a charlatan and you definitely shouldn't put them through the process. Right. And so I think we've all got to think about what role AI can play to empower what we're doing, but never at the expense of the quality.

Speaker A: Did you know that the Whole Marketer is not only a podcast and book but also a marketing capability and um, transformation consultancy. We're trusted partners to many leading households brands, empowering their marketers with the holistic skills and behaviours through our training courses, workshops and leadership programs. Providing support and fulfilment through coaching, mentoring and our trusted advisor work and providing inspiration through our talks and keynotes. We work with passionate marketing leaders helping them define and gain that all important clarity through vision, setting and strategy development. Through our co bursity consultancy, we define the future role of marketing to find the required skills and behaviours, the ways of working, infrastructure, processes and much, much more to ensure your team are able to deliver against that future role aspiration. We partner with you through each stage of the transformation journey to step change not only your team's capabilities, but also to empower those marketeers in your care to lead that long term commercial agenda, uh, and deliver on the true potential of marketing. So if you're a passionate marketer or marketing leader who wants to develop themselves and the marketers in their care holistically to help them not only be successful in what they do, but also fulfilled,

Speaker B: then we're here to help.

Speaker A: Find out more@thewholemarketer.com right, let's get back to that conversation.

Speaker B: So talking there around the process from you, receiving a brief from a client, what they're looking for and then obviously looking out for candidates. I'd love to just hear what you're experiencing from the market, what people are looking for, what advice you would give to people that are in that stage of either looking for their next role or without work, looking for the next role. So let's start with what you're seeing as far as briefs and the market.

Speaker C: Yeah, so I think the market is improving. Well, I know the market is improving because I interviewed somewhere between 100 and 150 senior marketing leaders a month. Each person's perspective is individual, but actually if you talk to enough people, the feedback gets aggregated. We track this pretty closely. So I know that the number of vacancies for senior marketing leaders in the market is rising. I know that the people that I'm speaking to who are in interview processes on aggregate are in more interview processes at the same time than they were six months ago, certainly 12 months ago. I know that those processes are moving more quickly and I know that the uh, propensity for them reaching offer, uh, rather than, oh, we got down to two people and then we couldn't make our mind up, which there was a lot of over the last few years, is lower. So as I said before, it's recovering, it's not recovered. And it is not lost on me that it is a really scary place to be. And if you're out of role and you're looking for something and you can't find something that is frustrating, it is soul destroying, it's really, really hard. Um, but objectively I can say that the market is moving in a better direction. And on this theme of the type of role that we're looking to hire, I do think that, um, the briefs that we're getting on aggregate are more full stack in scope. I think there's uh, more patience allowed to the market to build what they need to build. I still think there's a high expectation to deliver some things quickly, but I don't think there's this huge, um, weight of pressure imparted from funds, imparted from investors of we need to bring somebody in and deliver a quick fix and hey, if you can't do that for us, you're out the door straight away. So I think the mood music is shifting and I think what's really interesting about the market is, um, so typically there are two types of candidate. There are active candidates. I need a new job, I don't have a role and I'm looking for a new one or I'm employed currently, but my God, I'm tearing my hair out. Please find me something else. Um, that's the minority of the market. It's typically less than 30% at any time. The much larger majority is the passive pool of talent people who are like plug norm. It's all right here, but if Rohan picks up the phone to me, I'll gladly have a chat and hear what he's got to say. I think one of the challenges over the last few years Is businesses have been very conservative with their hiring. They've been scared. They wanted to make the safe bet rather than the bold bet. And so they will hire. But they'll hire if the perfect person comes along and slaps them in the face. Unilever, uh, are looking for a marketing director. Uh, if one of the marketing directors from Diageo comes along and puts their hand up, they'll hire them. But realistically, if you're a passive candidate, you're working for Diageo, and Unilever comes along and says, hey, how do you want to do the exact same thing over here? All that's really going to change is your email address. You're probably not going to take that job. So we've had this friction over the last few years where businesses have been willing to hire, but only if the perfect person comes along. Perfect person hasn't felt compelled enough to move because actually it's a bigger life decision moving jobs than it is hiring somebody. And I think the businesses that recognize that and factor that, uh, into the process tend to do really well. What I think is changing now is that passive pool of talent is just fractionally becoming a little bit more active. And I think a part of the reason for that is, um, the last time the job market was really buoyant was 2022. That's four years ago. Um, how long is a vesting schedule? Generally it's about four years. How long does a marketing transformation take to deliver? Typically three to four years. So I have found a lot over the last six, um, months or so that people that I hadn't spoken to for a little while were like, just give me a call if something comes up, why don't you? Um, and what that means in the short term is there is going to be a bit more competition out there. There are going to be more people that are willing to throw their hat into rings. Um, but the longer term outlook of that is a, businesses are going to have more choice, and so they're therefore going to feel more confident in their hiring decision. And therefore they're more likely to make a H. And we can talk a lot about macroeconomic positivity and investment, but actually the whole thing gets a lot easier when people are deciding to move jobs because candidate A accepts job at organization A and that creates a vacancy for candidate B. Um, I think what we're probably likely to see over the next six to 12 months, um, is there's going to be a little bit more movement, a little bit more volatility, and there's a bit of a rolling stone gathering moss effect to this. Um, all of a sudden you log on to LinkedIn, you start to see, oh, my mate, she's just moved roles and he's just moved over there as well. That's quite interesting. And all of a sudden I've got an email in my inbox from a headhunter that wants to talk to me about a CMO role. Why don't have a chat about them? All of these, um, fractional elements have quite a big impact when they start to come into play again. I don't want to give people false hope, but I would say I feel conservatively quite positive about where the market is likely to head in the next few months.

Speaker B: And I think the point that you made there around looking at what my peers are doing and whether they're moving is a really interesting one because I think there's a lot of people that maybe have been approached by roles that aren't um, feeling confident about moving. Almost like it's going to be the same challenges somewhere else. Um, you know, in fact I had someone ask me like Abby, I'm m thinking about changing roles, but are these challenges that I'm experiencing going to be the same somewhere else? And it's like likely, um, because the complexity of the role, complexity of marketing, you do more with less all the challenges everyone is experiencing. So it's really as we spoke about offline, you know, it's often a bigger deal for the person moving roles than it is for the person hiring.

Speaker C: Absolutely.

Speaker B: What would you say in reflection to that about what we can do to help address that balance? Particularly, you know, we know that the moss to the stones analogy that you just kind of gave there, it's moving, but obviously for people that are seeing potentially their peers moving, but maybe maybe see also seeing their peers being made redundant in less roles, seeing a job market where someone's out of role for a long time is also potentially impacting their confidence to move.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. I think we should share the good news stories a little bit more. Um, you know, I'm very mindful that lots of senior marketing leaders, ah, are in communities, they're in M WhatsApp groups and I'm in a few of those. And um, my experience is that the bad stories are told more than the good, quite understandably. Right. If you're out of work, you're looking for something, you're struggling, you've gone through a process, you've had a crap piece of feedback from a consultant or an organization directly and you're feeling deflated, go and have a run. Absolutely. Um, but also we're all Brits and we're self deprecating and it's very difficult for us to publicly say, oh, actually here's some really good news that I've heard. And so I would say the marketing ecosystem as a whole, uh, would benefit hugely from just sharing some of the wins. Right. Not to give people false confidence but, um, just to share some of the really positive stuff that's happening out there. Because there's some amazing stuff that's happening. There are some people that are securing fantastic new roles and are doing brilliant work. So, um, I would say don't be too afraid to share the positives. Um, I do a lot of work with clients on employee value proposition. Whenever I run a search and we run a discovery session with them to kick off the project, we typically talk about three key things. Um, one, what are we looking for? What are the essential and desirable criteria that we're hunting for in the candidate that we need to assess the market against? 2, where are we hunting industries, target organisations? Where will this person have spent time previously to be a relevant candidate to you? And then three, and I think this really gets overlooked is employee value proposition. What are we jointly, as in me the headhunter and you the business saying to the market, how are we selling this opportunity? That's my insight to share because I don't think businesses spend enough time thinking about that. Um, but I spend all day, every day speaking to marketers and I understand what's important to them and therefore what a client needs to do to really bring the qualities of an opportunity to life. And I think too many businesses think about who are we hiring, where are we hiring them from? And not enough think about what's in it for them.

Speaker B: It's little touches.

Speaker C: Right. Like an email from the hiring manager afterwards to say, really enjoyed that conversation. We got a couple more people to meet. Uh, we should have a verdict for you by Monday next week. If there's any delay to that is not at all based on our interest in your candidacy. We might just have had an interview delayed or something like that. It's like so easy. But providing those little touch points will allow you to attract better candidates because they're ultimately more engaging in the process. I mean, you know, the interview process is your shop window from an employer branding perspective. I have known some, some great businesses with lesser, uh, recognized consumer brands punch way above their weight and beat sexy businesses to signatures because they've shown people that they cared about them. Um, and so, yeah, I think the more that an organization can do to just recognize that there's a human being with wants and hopes and fears and questions on the other side of the process, the more success they're going to have in attracting somebody. Absolutely amazing.

Speaker B: I love that and the clarity around what the challenges are and the opportunities are in this role. Because I spend a lot of time helping individuals get really clear on what they're looking for in their ideal role. So I talk around, you know, what's your strengths, what are your zones of genius, what you're passionate about, your values, what drives you, what stage does this organization need to be at with its growth, but also, like, what's the things that you absolutely thrive in? You know, I love a white sheet of paper, or I love a business that needs a brand to be turned around, but for somebody else, that might be absolutely their idea of hell. So it's like it's going, what's the thing that you really enjoy doing? And, um, so you could almost marry that with the roles. Less about the role contents of the, the spec, and more about what's the opportunity and the challenge, because that's where motivation and energy and enthusiasm comes from.

Speaker C: Love that. And what I build on it as well is what's your superpower? So ultimately, interview processes are a value exchange, right? Um, and if you don't give enough to the opportunity, if you don't have enough to offer the organization, you're not going to get the role. But equally, if there isn't enough to entice you, you're not going to take the role. And so I think both parties, the candidate and the hiring manager, need to think, what can we give and what can we get? And so I think finding the question of, like, what am I better at than 99.9% of other marketers out there, I'm really zoning in on it. And I actually think being quite public about it, uh, I think the rules have changed around what is LinkedIn a valuable tool for. And I think demonstrating where your superpower lies, um, and posting content about it is an unbelievable leverage in this job market. But also what's going to make you happy. And I think if you have the clearest answer that you can get to both of those, you will materialize the opportunities that, A, you're likely to be successful in, and B, are, uh, going to really fulfill you.

Speaker B: Definitely. And, you know, fulfillment is absolutely key. Being clear on what it is, there's your superpower, but making sure that you're

Speaker C: known for that, yeah, absolutely. There's a lot of great people that I speak to and I'll ask them the question, well, how do you want me to think of you? Right. I have a Rolodex of thousands and thousands of marketing leaders. What should a client say to me where I think, right, Abby, need to call her. Really? Honestly, it's remarkable the amount of people who have a bad answer to that. I would say the stock answer is generally, well, I can do everything. I can do the performance, I can do the creative. I am strategic. But I'm happy to roll up my sleeves and get stuck in my tough love. Answer to that is what you're describing there. As a cmo, those are hygiene factors of what you should be offering. But what you really need to think about is what is that true? Like, I'm amazing at this. I've created great value in this space and it brings me massive fulfillment and joy delivering it for businesses. And that could be anything, right? It could be channel specificity, it could be brand transformation, it could be getting across a business and working with a revenue function, a product function, and just making stuff happen. But I think being really clear on your true USP and who the right customer is for it, uh, customer is in hiring manager, um, is just such an unbelievable weapon if you use it effectively. And so I would encourage every marketer to, uh, really spend some time thinking about that. And I know LinkedIn is uncomfortable, I know posting about yourself, I know publication is tricky, but actually if you can do it in an authentic way with humility and a bit of sense of humor, um, you will really stand out as being known as the person that does that thing. And that doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be discounted for other stuff as well. We ran two really big projects for Barclaycard earlier this year. They're not our icp. I mean, awesome business, delighted to do the work for them, but we specialize in startups and scale ups. But, um, they came to us and they're like, we know you don't do big banks, but we're looking to scale and transform and think with more agility and hire technology leaders. And so we want a little bit of what you've got. And so I think a lot of people are fearful that if they don't cast the net too wide, they're going to be discounted for opportunities. But my feedback would be if you had a product marketer in your team who went away and did some work and then presented it back to you and, um, the tagline is this product solves every problem for every single customer. You give them a little slap around the head and send them away and get them to do a part two. And I think too many, um, amazing marketers don't apply a marketing lens to their job search. I don't say this to um, dehumanize, but to really product you're offering in the market and being laser focused on that, the people that I know who've done that effectively, it has an incredible impact on their search.

Speaker B: I couldn't agree more. And also sharing that with your network.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker B: Because you know those people are going to have you in mind when someone, when they hear of a role, they know someone's moving on. Uh, or someone is saying what they're looking for and being able to say, you need to phone Abby when, yeah, Abby's a person. Because it's like, give them that line. Because like you, I often get asked, you know, as I'm sure you do, when you kind of go out and get other, other people's opinions on individuals and kind of what people have that have worked with them historically have thought like, it's like what's that thing that you want to be known for and what is it that your network will say about you is important as what goes on LinkedIn as well?

Speaker C: Yeah, but I totally agree. And the important thing there is activating your network. I had some amazing advice given to me by a lovely bloke called Gareth Hussey, who then told me actually he'd heard the advice from somewhere else, which is 100 coffees. The nucleus of your job search should be the people that you know. And I think too many people. The nucleus is LinkedIn. They scroll, they doom scroll. They hope that they material magically find a CMO opportunity on there and they just won't. I was in a room with 150 marketing leaders about six months ago and somebody in that room said by a show of hands, how many of you have ever found a job through direct application on LinkedIn? 12 people put their hands up. It's a broken system, it doesn't work. LinkedIn is an amazing tool but you need to use it in the right way. And the right way is digital Rolodex, um, and content promotion. I would encourage anyone at the start of their search to go onto LinkedIn, top left hand corner connections. Get yourself a massive mug of coffee and just spend a morning scrolling down all of your connections and write uh, the names down of the people that are a yes to this question. If they reached out to me and asked to grab a coffee with me, would it put a smile on my face and would I be delighted to make the time? And if the answer to that question is yes, it's probably reciprocal. Right. And so my encouragement is to drop all of those people a note and say, hi, Abby, long time to speak. Hope you're great. Listen, I'm at a bit of a career crossroads at the moment. I've been thinking about a few different things. Really loved working with you at X Business. Always valued your perspective and opinion. Any chance we could grab half an hour for coffee, either in person or virtually? I'd love to pick your brains through what I'm thinking and of course, it would be brilliant to catch up with you as well. Now, I think a lot of people shy away from doing that because no reply feels like a rejection. But I'd say a couple of things. Firstly, people have got busy lives. You don't know what's necessarily happening on the other side. So I wouldn't take it personally if they don't. Um, I'm very used to being rejected for coffees in my line of work. Um, but also, um, not only are people delighted to help as a general rule of thumb, but once somebody's helped you once that they're more likely to help you again multiple times. And so what you need to build is this is a concentric spider web of people who know the background, know the situation. And it shouldn't just be think of me for a job like that. It should be a genuine, hey, I'd love to hear what you're up to as well and what I can do to be helpful to you. And I think if you come at this from a positive, authentic place, I think the majority of these opportunities these days, they sit in these little hidden nooks and crannies that you don't even realize. I think the vast minority of senior marketing vacancies are, uh, Source Direct. I think also a minority of vacancies are sourced through headhunters, and then the majority comes through network reputation, referral recommendations, connections, all of that kind of stuff. So if you aren't activating that community, you are massively cutting your nose off to spite your face. But I would also say not only is it the most effective thing to do, but it's also just the most enjoyable. Right, who wants to be sat at a desk all day but, like, oh, still haven't found a gig, just going out and meeting a bunch of people? I mean, I'm surprised Surprise. The headhunter is an extrovert. Right. I go down to London every Thursday. I fill my diary with coffees, I meet interesting people, I have a great day, I get on the train home, collapse afterwards. But like, that really fills me with joy. And I think if you can put a day, fortnight, a day, a week into your diary of I go out and meet people and reconnect, good stuff invariably tends to happen from there.

Speaker B: I love that. Also offering what you can do to help them as well in exchange for their time. Love that. So, Rowan, that is all such great advice and it's been so insightful listening to you talk about businesses that you work with and what you're seeing in the market. But we've got to the point in the podcast where we ask the final question. I know, I know. What one piece of advice would you give to marketers of tomorrow?

Speaker C: We've touched on it. But I would say be really clear about your superpower and if it's the thing that you love doing, so much the better. Uh, but if you are clear on the problems that you solve and the businesses that you solve them for, and you are known for doing that thing through the right channels, through the right communities, the right ecosystems, really, really good stuff will happen from there. Um, so I would encourage anyone to play out that exercise. Um, of course, do it yourself. But also ask a bunch of people, what do you think my superpower is? Um, and I think if you can do that, I think that's the best advice that I could give to anyone.

Speaker B: Brilliant. Love that. And thank you so much for your time on today's podcast.

Speaker C: My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Speaker A: Thank you for tuning into the whole Marketer podcast. If you've enjoyed this episode, please do like, follow and share with others in our marketing community so that we can create a wave of whole marketers who are successful, fulfilled in their careers and lives as a whole. To further inspire you on latest thinking, marketing approaches and technical skills, we have plenty of free resources on our website, including a marketing competency review on the changes of the skills required within our profession. To download these, simply visit the resources page on the Whole Marketer website. Plus, you'll also find a full range of our services that outline how we partner with marketing leaders to build teams of successful and fulfilled marketers who are supported, empowered, to grow the brands and businesses of tomorrow, to lead the long term commercial agenda and deliver on the

Speaker B: true potential of marketing.