What to Look for When Hiring an Accounting Marketer

The title of this blog is a bit of a loaded question. What to look for when hiring an accounting marketer? The answer is – it depends…

Are you looking to hire your firm’s first marketer? Or are you looking to add to your existing team?

Whichever answer, there are fundamental truths to go by when making any kind of hire.

1. Evaluate your needs to determine the skillsets to look for
   1. If you’re hiring your first marketer and you are a member of an association or network, likely there is a Marketing Special Interest Group (SIG) you can tap to share job descriptions and roles within a marketing department.
   2. If you’re adding to your team, what are you looking to accomplish? Do you need a social media strategist? Do you need someone with video editing or graphic design capabilities? Do you need someone who can write and distill technical information enough to make sense to a casual reader? These are all questions to consider when drafting your job post.
   3. .. marketing and business development are two different functions which must work collaboratively to support each other’s efforts. Rarely is the business developer a marketer and vice versa, though we are starting to see the emergence of the hybrid Marketing/BD professional.

2. Think outside the box
   1. Don’t just look inside the accounting industry (but DO post your opening on the AAM Job Bank . Many of AAM’s most successful marketers have come from outside the industry. For example, the Practice Growth Specialist my firm hired last year came from the music publishing industry.
   2. There are also recruiters who specialize in placing creative candidates. Seek them out for guidance.

3. Know who’s competing for candidates
   1. Your competition for a marketer isn’t necessarily going to be other accounting firms. It will be creative agencies (PR and advertising), in-house marketing departments from industry and even digital/print publications.
   2. Take the time to educate yourself on titles and salaries, as they don’t always match apples to apples with accounting firms.

In all cases, you need to set expectations early to define what success looks like. Presetting expectations will help establish an effective search for the right team member to join your firm.

By: Jen Lemanski, Practice Growth Senior Manager, PKF Texas