What hiring managers think they want vs what they actually need
“We need someone with 10+ years’ experience.”
“They need to have worked for a big brand.”
“We want someone strategic, but they also need to be really hands-on.”
“They must have experience in our exact industry.”
If you work in recruitment, you’ve probably heard some version of these before.
And if you work in marketing, you’ve probably seen them written into a job description.
But one of the most interesting parts of marketing hiring is that what a business initially asks for isn’t always what it ultimately needs.
After years working in global marketing recruitment, I’ve seen briefs change significantly between the first conversation and the eventual hire.
Not because the business got it wrong.
But because hiring conversations often uncover what the real challenge is.
The job title isn’t always the problem you’re trying to solve
A business might come to market looking for a Marketing Manager.
But once you dig into the brief, the actual challenge could be very different.
Maybe they need someone to bring structure to a marketing function that’s grown quickly.
Maybe they need stronger commercial thinking.
Maybe the team has plenty of ideas but needs someone who can actually execute them.
Or maybe the business has invested heavily in marketing but doesn’t fully understand what’s driving results.
The title tells you what they want to hire.
The conversation tells you why they need to hire them.
And that distinction is incredibly important.
Experience doesn’t always equal capability
Years of experience are still one of the most common filters used in hiring.
But ten years in marketing doesn’t automatically make someone stronger than a candidate with six.
The same applies to company names.
Someone coming from a globally recognised brand may look brilliant on paper, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll thrive in a smaller business where there are fewer resources, less structure, and a much broader remit.
Equally, someone from a start-up might have had exposure to areas that would traditionally sit across several different roles in a larger organisation.
Context matters.
Rather than simply asking, “How many years have they done this?”, the more useful question is often:
“What have they actually achieved?”
The industry experience debate
This is another big one.
“We need someone from our industry.”
Sometimes, absolutely.
There are marketing roles where deep sector knowledge, regulation, audience understanding, or technical expertise genuinely matters.
But sometimes industry experience becomes a default requirement rather than a necessary one.
And that can significantly reduce the talent pool.
A great marketer from another sector may bring fresh thinking, different customer insights, or experience solving exactly the same commercial challenge in a completely different environment.
The question shouldn’t always be whether they’ve marketed the same product before.
Sometimes it’s whether they’ve solved the same problem before.
Strategic AND hands-on
This is probably one of the phrases I hear most often.
Businesses increasingly want marketers who can set the strategy but aren’t afraid to get into the detail and execute.
And those people absolutely exist.
But there’s a difference between being willing to stay close to execution and expecting one person to be the strategist, content creator, performance marketer, CRM specialist, analyst, and team leader all at once.
This is where prioritisation becomes important.
If you could only choose three things this person needs to be exceptional at, what would they be?
That question can completely change a brief.
Sometimes the best candidate isn’t the obvious candidate
This is one of my favourite parts of recruitment.
Occasionally, the person who ultimately gets hired isn’t the person who looked like the perfect match at the beginning.
- They might come from a different sector.
- Their job title might not match exactly.
- They might have fewer years of experience than originally requested.
- But when they meet the business, something becomes clear: they understand the challenge.
- They can demonstrate relevant outcomes.
- They ask the right questions.
- And they give the hiring manager confidence that they can deliver what the business actually needs.
That’s why hiring purely against a checklist can sometimes mean missing brilliant talent.
A great brief starts with the problem
Some of the strongest hiring conversations I’ve been part of don’t start with a list of requirements.
They start with questions.
- Why are you hiring this person?
- What needs to be different six or twelve months after they join?
- What are the biggest challenges they’ll inherit?
- Which skills are genuinely essential, and which could be learned?
- What would make you say, “This was a brilliant hire”?
Once those answers are clear, the candidate profile often becomes much easier to define.
Final thought
There will always be requirements attached to a role.
Experience matters. Skills matter. Industry knowledge can matter.
But the strongest hiring processes leave room to challenge the brief.
Because sometimes the candidate who ticks every box isn’t the person the business needs most.
And sometimes the person who doesn’t look “perfect” on paper is exactly the person who can solve the problem.
That’s the difference between recruiting against a job description and hiring for impact.
If you work in marketing or hiring, I’d love to know:
Have you ever hired or been hired for a role where the successful candidate looked completely different from the original brief? 👀
Reach out to me at [email protected] if you’d like to continue the conversation.
Next in Behind the Brief: The marketing roles and skills I’m seeing grow in demand.