How to Get Hired as an Inbound Marketer: 15 Qualities Managers Look For

Let's face it: Getting a job in marketing isn't easy these days. As more and more companies realize the importance of implementing a successful inbound marketing strategy, they're becoming even more selective about who they'll hire to take charge of their marketing efforts.

So how do you get a job in marketing? To help you get a head start in your job hunt or quest for a marketing promotion, we've compiled a list of 15 qualities that managers look for when hiring or promoting an inbound marketer.

We've broken these qualities into 3 categories: Core Behavioral Traits, Key Marketing Skills, and Specialized Skills. Use this list to evaluate in which areas you excel and which skills you need to focus on developing further to set yourself up for inbound marketing success.

Core Behavioral Traits

Inquisitive

The online world changes every day, so it’s important that you have a natural inclination to question ideas, processes, and tactics -- both old and new. An inquisitive marketer will be helpful in revealing weaknesses, flaws, or even identifying additional opportunities in their work by asking the right questions about your marketing strategy and methodologies.

Decisive

Surprises are normal for most marketers -- a campaign could unexpectedly underperform or sales leads could suddenly plateau. A good inbound marketer can pivot quickly and make decisions on how to prioritize their time and capitalize on these surprises.

Adaptable

As we’ve discussed, the challenges that a marketing team faces will inevitably change. For this reason, you must be comfortable adapting to these changes and “roll with the punches” when necessary.

Get Sh*t Done (GSD)

While this competency is ... direct, it is also quite simple: inbound marketing takes work. Sometimes generating results means working harder, faster, or stronger -- big campaign successes often require a major effort. Businesses want a candidate that can face that kind of challenge with confidence.

Key Marketing Skills

Writing

The ability to write is one of the most important skills in the inbound marketing world. Every day marketers write ebooks, social updates, emails, website pages, and so on, that attract customers to your business and represent your company.

Teaching Ability

What good is a deep understanding of your industry if you can’t share that knowledge with your market? The ability to teach is integral to inbound marketing, especially if a business wants to create content that can establish your company as a thought leader and attract new customers to your business.

Comprehension Skills or "Smarts"

Just as important as being able to teach is your ability to learn and understand new things. A marketer might need to create content, analyze metrics, and implement tactics that he or she may have to learn on the fly. A team can be more nimble when led by people who can learn and comprehend new strategies quickly.

Industry Understanding

You should have a firm understanding of your industry in order to teach its best practices and have context to draw from. The deeper the industry understanding you have, the more authority your content will hold, and the more valuable your manager will see you in ensuring others on your team are industry-aware.

Analytics

Inbound marketing is becoming increasingly data-driven. Marketers need an analytical brain to process all the information we see every day. Make sure you can review ROI, spot metric-driven trends, and understand important marketing metrics.

Product Knowledge

Even if you don’t work on the product marketing team at your company, your manager is looking for managers and senior operators who understand the business’s product or services in and out. Take time to truly understand the goals of your business as it pertains to the product or service it sells.

T-Shaped, Not Horizontal Line

If you wear multiple hats at a business, you may be known as a “horizontal line.” While having the ability to tackle various projects competently is valuable, it can only take you so far IF it’s not balanced with a specialized strength. Managers are looking for marketers who are T-shaped -- those who have knowledge on many topics and are collaborative (the horizontal part of the T) while still having deep expertise on one topic (the vertical part of the T).

Specialized Skills

Advanced Excel

Excel is a powerful tool that we sometimes take for granted. With the right training and experience, marketers with an advanced understanding of Excel can create powerful spreadsheets to break down important metrics, and allow a marketing team to better understand the numbers behind the strategies.

Public Speaking

Many marketers have the opportunity to give talks and present educational content to the public or for groups within their company. Whether that talk is a conference keynote or a presentation to a boss, public speaking is a valuable skill to add to your team dynamic.

Video Production

With video content on the rise, having a marketer with a background in video production can give a team a competitive advantage. Video is a terrific platform for creating and sharing lovable content. A skilled video producer on a team makes creating video content in-house on a regular basis possible.

Design

If a business prioritizes the design of ebooks, infographics, social images, or other visual content, a marketer who has experience with Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, or Illustrator can be a major asset to a marketing team and the company as a whole.

Don't forget: Even if you don't have every single skill on this list, it doesn't mean you can't be a great inbound marketer. But be sure to spend some time developing your weaker skills so you can put yourself in the best position possible to become an inbound marketing rockstar.

Grab this printable checklist of these 15 qualities to help you keep track of your progress as you go. Good luck!

Courtesy: Hubspot