With a shortage of skilled print professionals, attracting talent to jobs in the print industry is a challenge for employers today. This difficulty isn’t lessened when recruiting for marketing candidates within the print industry, either. While there might be plenty of marketing professionals to go round, the chances that they’ve worked in the print industry previously are slim. In addition, attitudes toward printing grow less favourable, as many tend to see the sector as too traditional and lacking growth. Despite the fact that printing is actually growing as an industry, attracting talented marketing candidates who think otherwise poses challenges. To help you recruit the top marketing candidates in the print industry, here are three top tips.
Establish an Ideal Candidate Profile
Before you begin the job search at all, you should develop an ideal candidate profile. Make a list of every quality you’d like the candidate to have, possibly drawing from the strengths of your current employees. Take the time as well to articulate clearly the tasks that will be required for this position. You shouldn’t rely on your own knowledge of the job, either. Ask your current team what they’d like to see in a new marketing manager and incorporate that into your candidate profile.
When building this profile, you should also identify your company values and mission. Job adverts that don’t include these points receive far less attention than those that do. Today’s marketing talent pool is looking for organisations that match their own values, which can offer them a friendly and constructive working environment. By leaving those features off of your job specification, you’re already putting yourself behind your competition.
Once you’ve developed a solid candidate profile and posted your job advert, remember not to be too stringent with your criteria. Yes, you have the “perfect” candidate in mind but the perfect candidate isn’t going to walk through your door. Be realistic when judging each application you receive, knowing that no one will check off every item on your list – especially if you wrote a thorough job specification. With that in mind, try to favour candidates with soft skills, as these are much harder to teach than using specific software or tools.
Conduct Professional Interviews
When you enter the interview stage, you should be as prepared as possible. That means taking a proactive approach to your applications. Don’t let a stack of CVs sit in your inbox for two weeks before you read them. If you prolong the hiring process too much, in-demand marketing professionals may have already received offers from other companies. Stay up-to-date as the process goes on and keep your prospective candidates updated as well. Nobody appreciates long wait times, especially if it’s to hear a “no.”
When preparing to conduct interviews, work with your team on devising a set of questions. Include typical things, like getting to know the person and their background in marketing, as well as their interest in your company. But try to dig a little deeper, too, by asking them more creative questions that test their problem-solving skills. Or give them an example situation of one of their expected tasks and ask how they’d handle it.
Typically, whoever is in charge of hiring conducts the interviews. But make an effort to include your team in the process, by having candidates take a tour of your office and meeting some of your staff. This makes the candidate feel less intimidated and could help ease the transition if they’re hired.
Represent your company well
If you want to find good marketing candidates, you need to be seen by these candidates. That means cultivating your online presence and taking responsibility for your branding. Is your company website updated and functional? Don’t have a company website? Time to get one! Are you active on LinkedIn or in forums related to the print industry? If not, you should be.
You can be certain candidates will research your organisation when they apply, so make your company easy to find. With a solid representation online, you’ll seem more authoritative in the print industry and more marketing professionals will be interested in working for you.
Final Thoughts on Attracting Marketing Candidates in the Print Industry
With these three tips, you’re on your way to recruiting top marketing talent for your print company. At Mixam, an international printing agency specialising in booklets and catalogues, we’re always looking to infuse best practices into our hiring process, whether for print or marketing professionals. We always follow these steps when recruiting and we’ve developed, in our humble opinion, one of the best teams in the print industry today!
Author Bio: Adam Smith lives a life of swashbuckling adventure at Mixam – a little print company with big ambitions! Adam writes for and about Mixam with the mission of helping designers and entrepreneurs make the right decisions when printing, and avoid costly mistakes.
